Splendid vases found on the Tower--Other articles--Human skull,
bones, and ashes, found in an urn--New types of whorls--Greek
votive discs of diorite--Moulds of mica-schist--The smaller
quantity of copper than of stone implements explained--Discussion
of the objection, that stone implements are not mentioned by
Homer--Reply to Mr. Calvert’s article--Flint knives found in the
Acropolis of Athens--A narrow escape from fire.
Pergamus of Troy, March 29th, 1873.
Since my report of the 22nd of this month I have unfortunately made
little or no progress, for most of the villagers are trimming their
vineyards during this week; and besides this, we have been tormented by
a horrible icy-cold high north wind, which yesterday and to-day rendered
it impossible to carry on the works.
[Illustration: No. 183. A brilliant Black Vase, with the Symbols of the
Ilian Athena, from the Tower (8 M.).]
[Illustration: No. 184. Vase-cover with Handle in shape of a Coronet (8
M.).]
[Illustration: No. 185. Vase-cover with a Human Face: found on the Tower
(8 M.).]
[Illustration: No. 186. Flat piece of Gold, in the Form of an
Arrow-head: from the Tower (8 M.).]
[Illustration: No. 187. Prettily decorated Tube of Ivory. From the Tower
(8 M.).]
But in spite of this, during the week we have found at a depth of 8
meters (26 feet), and upon the Tower, a great number of splendid vases
of the most remarkable form; they are indeed all in a more or less
broken condition, but they can easily be mended, as I have all the
pieces. Those especially deserving of being mentioned are a brilliant
black vase with two large female breasts, a large navel, and with two
mighty upraised arms (No. 183); further, a vase 33¾ inches high, in a
good state of preservation; a large mixing bowl (κρατήρ) with two
handles, and a smaller vase, round below, with four handles of two
different forms. Among the smaller vessels there are, especially
deserving of attention, a brilliant black cup cover, with a handle in
the form of a coronet, and a brilliant red cover, with a very curious
human face, in which the features of the owl cannot be mistaken. (Nos.
184, 185, p. 268.) Of the other articles, I can only mention a little
plate of gold in the form of an arrow-head, with a small hole at the
lower end (No. 186); an ivory tube with very curious decorations (No.
187); and a well-preserved skull with neat little teeth, which I
discovered, together with a few bones and a quantity of human ashes, in
a vase (unfortunately broken) 27½ inches high and broad, at a depth
of 26 feet, upon the Tower. This is the first time that I have found
such well-preserved human bones and even a skull in an urn. Funereal
urns, indeed, we dig out daily, but the bodies are always completely
burnt to ashes; and, with the exception of the skeleton (already
described) of an embryo found in a vase at a depth of 51 feet upon the
primary rock, I have hitherto never found an entire bone in a funereal
urn. The vase in which I found the skull is made of that excellent
Trojan terra-cotta which I find only at a depth of from 36 to 46 and
52½ feet, except upon the Tower; the skull must have belonged to a
Trojan woman, for it is too delicate to have been the skull of a man. In
the same urn I also found a copper hair or dress pin. Upon the Tower we
also met with two marble idols without owls’ faces, one of which is 6
inches long, the other 6-1/3 inches. We likewise discovered quantities
of terra-cotta whorls with symbolical decorations, twelve of which are
of types not previously found. One is the form of a shirt stud,[237]
1-1/3 inch high and 1-1/5 inch broad, with the never-failing perforated
hole and an engraved flower, the four petals of which form a cross round
the central point; in three of the petals there are very large dots,
which may denote suns or moons; upon another, in the form of a top,
there are six trees in the circle, the top and the foot of which are
alternately directed to the central sun.[238]
I have already repeatedly mentioned the terra-cotta discs, between 1 and
2 inches in diameter, thick in the middle and cut smooth on one side, in
the shape of a Greek lamp; they always have at one side two very small
perforated holes, and frequently a round or oval potter’s stamp, in
which one can recognise either an altar and a bee with outspread wings,
or a swan, an ox, a horse, a man, or something of the kind. I have also
said that these discs must have belonged to the Greek colony, for I
generally find them quite close to the surface as far down as 3¼ feet
and rarely below 6½ feet, and besides this the fine and almost
microscopical figures in the stamp show a Greek style of art.[239] The
small holes at the sides leave no doubt that the articles have been used
as votive offerings to be hung up in the temples or beside the idols.
These discs, which have hitherto only occurred in terra-cotta, I have
this week found at a depth of 1 meter (3¼ feet), made of diorite with
two holes on one side, which, however, are not perforated; owing to the
hardness of the substance it was no doubt found difficult to make the
two perforations.
During the last few days we have again found upon the Tower, at a depth
of 8 meters (26 feet), a mould of mica-schist, 11 inches long, upon five
sides of which there are forms for casting twelve, lances, knives, and
extremely curious implements, the use of which is a puzzle to me.
The many stone moulds for casting weapons, knives, and implements, which
are met with here, sufficiently prove that Troy possessed a number of
copper weapons, knives, and instruments. It is, however, quite natural
that I should find comparatively few of them, for the copper implements
could of course easily be melted down and re-cast, and it must not even
be supposed that I shall find any except those which were lost in the
tumult of battle, or were preserved amidst the destruction of the city.
Therefore the fact that I find immensely larger numbers of silex knives
than of copper knives, and by far more axes and hammers of stone than of
copper, by no means proves that at the time of the Trojan war there were
more stone than copper instruments. Stone lances are, moreover, very
rarely met with; this year I found only two of which I know positively
that they are lances; the one was discovered at a depth of 11½ feet,
the other at 20 feet deep.
Mr. Frank Calvert of the Dardanelles, who wishes to convince me by the
hippopotamus which I found at a depth of 23 feet, that the _débris_ at
this depth belongs to a period when hippopotami inhabited the rivers of
the Troad, has expressed the opinion, in his article in the _Levant
Herald_ of the 25th of January, 1873, that Homer would necessarily have
mentioned stone knives and instruments if they had existed in Troy, and
that, as he speaks of none, there could have been none; consequently,
that none of the ruined strata which I have cut through, containing
stone implements, can belong to the Homeric Troy, and that the stratum
directly following the Greek ruins, which extend as far down as 6½
feet, must be more than 1000 years older than the Trojan war.
If Mr. Calvert had taken the trouble to look into Homer, he would have
found that the word ‘hammer’ (ῥαιστήρ) occurs only once (_Iliad_, XVIII.
477), and that is in the hand of Hephæstus. It is, indeed, not said of
what material the hammer was made; the fire-god, however, would probably
have had none other than a copper hammer. Mr. Calvert also does not
appear to have ever seen a silex knife, for otherwise he would know that
they are almost always only from 1½ to 2½, and rarely 3, inches
long; and moreover, with but few exceptions, they are made in the form
of saws. I have here only once met with a saw of this kind 5 inches in
length.
In Homer there is _not one_ opportunity where such small saw-knives
could have been mentioned, nor is it as yet altogether clear to me what
they can have been used for.[240] Homer’s heroes carry their copper
knives beside their swords, and generally use them for killing the
sacrificial animal, for which purpose, of course, flint knives from
1½ to 3 inches long would not have been appropriate; but those long
copper knives, the size of which is accurately indicated by the stone
moulds in which they were cast, would have been very suitable. In the
Iliad (XVIII. 597), we see Hephæstus making youths with golden cutlasses
upon the shield of Achilles.
Mr. Calvert believes that the fact of Homer’s not mentioning either the
small flint saws or stone knives is a proof against the identity of
Hissarlik with the site of Troy. I, however, should find it surprising,
and so assuredly would all scholars and admirers of Homer, if the
Homeric heroes had appeared armed with silex saws from 1½ to 3 inches
in length; for a hero, especially in an epic poem, can only carry and
achieve something heroic. If the Homeric hero requires a stone weapon,
he does not feel in his pocket for a silex saw from 1½ to 3 inches
long, but he takes the first huge stone he meets with, such as two of
the strongest men from among the people could not have raised from the
earth on to a cart by means of levers; but the hero carries it in his
hand with the same ease with which a shepherd would carry the fleece of
a ram, and flings the rock with infinite force against the gate of the
enemy, splinters the panels to shivers, and shatters the double hinges
and the bars; the gate flies open, and the stone-falls with a mighty
crash into the hostile camp.[241] Upon another occasion, another hero
uses a stone weapon. He, too, does not look for a small silex saw, but
takes an immense block of stone, which two men from among the people
would have been unable to lift, and hurls it against his opponent.[242]
Mr. Calvert’s excavations in the Pergamus were confined to two small
cuttings which still exist, and he is wrong in saying that I have
continued his excavations. As my plans of the Pergamus prove, my
excavations of 1870, 1871, and up to the middle of June, 1872, were made
exclusively on the Turkish portion of the Pergamus; and it was only in
June that I began to excavate the site of the temple of Apollo upon Mr.
Calvert’s land, because a depression in the ground, 111½ feet long
and 75½ feet broad, had betrayed the site to me. My friend’s two
small cuttings by no means gave any idea of the existence of such a
temple.
I have never, as Mr. Calvert says, found the native rock at a depth of
67 feet. I found it at a depth of 16 meters (or 52¾ feet) upon my
large platform, and at a depth of 14 meters (or 46-1/5 feet) in my great
cutting, in the Roman well, and upon the south side of the Tower. In Mr.
Calvert’s field, however, I found the primary soil only in the hill
covered by the very ancient buttress, which has been repeatedly
described.
Examining Mr. Calvert’s article further, I assure my readers that, with
the exception of the wall which I have already described as consisting
of Corinthian pillars taken from the temple of Athena, I have never come
upon any Byzantine ruins here;[243] that all the Byzantine coins I found
were but a few inches below the surface; and that the ruins and the
_débris_ of the Greek colony, as anyone may convince himself from the
earthen walls of my excavations, rarely extend below 2 meters (6½
feet). Mr. Calvert’s statement, that I also find stone implements,
perforated cylinders, grinding-mills, and masses of shells, immediately
below these ruins, is incorrect; for in not one of my excavations have I
hitherto found these things at less than 4 meters (13 feet) deep, and if
I now find them immediately below the foundations of the Temple of
Athena, I explain this by assuming that the _débris_ which was dug out
of the great excavation for the reservoir of the temple was used for
increasing the elevation of the site of the sanctuary. Mr. Calvert is
also wrong in his statement that the larger bones were all broken to get
at the marrow; on the contrary, we very rarely meet with broken bones.
He is again incorrect in stating that I find small articles of bronze,
as well as ornaments in gold and silver filigree work. I have never as
yet found bronze here, but in all cases copper; and never have I found
ornaments of gold or silver filigree work. The ornaments represented in
the drawings are of pure gold, or electrum, or silver, or copper. His
statement is also erroneous, that I occasionally find engraved
representations of fish-bones upon vessels. It is true that I often find
vessels round which rows of cuneiform decorations are engraved; but
these are never connected with one another, and therefore have no
resemblance at all to fish-bones. Further, Mr. Calvert is mistaken in
his assertion that in the depths of this hill there are house-walls
composed of unhewn stones laid roughly one on the top of the other. The
architect is not yet born, who could construct house-walls of such
stones without some kind of cement. The walls of clay do not, as Mr.
Calvert’s statement would lead one to believe, consist of _one_ mass of
clay, but of sun-dried bricks; and I assure my readers that I have never
yet, as Mr. Calvert erroneously maintains, found the impressions of long
rushes, which indicate the use of thatch-work. My learned friend is also
completely wrong in his statement that the floors of some of the houses
have been glazed, and that the regularity of the levellings and the
flatness of these floors prove that the glaze is not the result of
accident; further, that one of these glazed floors has a length of 20
feet. I would give a great deal if this were true, for such a Trojan
marvel would attract thousands desirous of information. Unfortunately,
however, such glazed floors exist only in Mr. Calvert’s own imagination.
My friend is as completely mistaken in his reports about the Great
Tower, which he describes as consisting of two walls, which meet at a
sharp angle and diverge to a distance of 40 feet, the space between them
being as yet unexplored. It is only the southern wall of this building
that rises at an angle of 75 degrees: on the north side, as it was
sufficiently supported by the mound 65½ feet broad which rested
against it, it had above it only a small perpendicular wall, 3¼ feet
high and broad; whereas the southern wall, which inclines at an angle of
15 degrees, is 6½ feet thick. The whole of the inner space between
the two walls consists of stones laid loosely upon one another. The
perpendicular height of the Tower above the primary rock is not 15 feet,
as Mr. Calvert says, but exactly 20 feet. The terra-cotta discs with two
small holes, which, according to Mr. Calvert, I find here at all depths,
I have in reality always found only close to the surface, as far down as
3¼ feet, and rarely as far down as 6½ feet. I further assure my
readers that I know nothing about the large perforated cylinders, which
Mr. Calvert says I find in great quantities, and frequently with half
their diameter entirely in the clay of the walls. The largest of the
terra-cotta cylinders which I have discovered here are only 4 inches
long, and never have I seen one of these cylinders in a house-wall.
In conclusion, I must positively deny Mr. Calvert’s assertion that stone
implements, although met with in the same stratum with articles made of
different metals and with splendid earthenware, argue a primeval and
pre-historic age. Small knives and saws of silex are, for instance,
found in numbers in the Acropolis of Athens, and they appear to have
been used up to a very late period. A rude pre-historic people could by
no means have made the beautiful terra-cottas which are found here
immediately below the ruins of the Greek colony, and still less could
they have manufactured the splendid pottery which shows such a high
degree of artistic taste, and which I meet with here at a great depth.
The life in this wilderness is not without danger, and last night, for
instance, my wife and I and the foreman Photidas had the narrowest
escape of being burnt alive. In the bedroom on the north side of the
wooden house which we are inhabiting, we had had a small fireplace made,
and, owing to the terrible cold which has again set in during the last
six days, we have lighted a fire in it daily. But the stones of the
fireplace rest merely upon the boards of the floor, and, whether it was
owing to a crevice in the cement joining the stones, or by some other
means, the floor took fire, and when I accidentally awoke this morning
at 3 o’clock, it was burning over a space of two yards long by a yard
broad. The room was filled with dense smoke, and the north wall was just
beginning to catch fire; a few seconds would have sufficed to burn a
hole into it, and the whole house would then have been in flames in less
than a minute, for a fearful north wind was blowing from that side. In
my fright I did not lose my presence of mind. I poured the contents of a
bath upon the burning north wall, and thus in a moment stopped the fire
in that direction. Our cries awoke Photidas, who was asleep in the
adjoining room, and he called the other foremen from the stone house to
our assistance. In the greatest haste they fetched hammers, iron levers
and pickaxes; the floor was broken up, torn to pieces, and quantities of
damp earth thrown upon it, for we had no water. But, as the lower beams
were burning in many places, a quarter of an hour elapsed before we got
the fire under and all danger was at an end.