OF MAN’S PROGRESS
Seven towns of Troy were built upon this hill, one above the ruins
of the other, the earliest dating from 3000 B.C.; and the brilliant
excavations of Dr. Henry Schliemann, which have won him immortal
fame, have contributed more to our knowledge of the history of
mankind than any other excavations in our time, as on this site is
concentrated a continuous record of man’s progress from the late
Stone Age to the height of Greek civilisation.
]
The manner in which iron was found in the lake-dwellings, as mentioned
above, shows the gradual development of a period of transition between
a Bronze and an Iron Age. In spite of the difference in the material
which the lake-dwellers used for making their weapons and tools in the
periods of transition, they still imitate the old forms received from
their forefathers. Just as the first metal axes of copper are copies
of the stone axes, so also, when iron first became known, were weapons
made of this metal which corresponded in form to the bronze weapons
that had hitherto been used.
The Bronze Period was first proved to have been a complete form of
culture in the North of Europe--in North Germany and Scandinavia. We
have now succeeded in establishing the fact that it was a preliminary
stage of the Iron Age, in locally original development, in all ancient
centres of culture. It is very remarkable that the civilised states
of the New World also employed only copper and bronze as working
metals. Thus the Peruvians did not know iron any more than the other
American peoples until they came in contact with European influences.
Besides copper and bronze they had tin and lead, gold and silver. The
Peruvian bronzes contain silver to the extent of five to ten per cent.
There are axes or celts of bronze similar to the rudest of the first
European beginnings in metal corresponding in form to the simple stone
axe. Many of the other forms of weapons and implements familiar in the
Bronze Age of the Old World were also made of bronze or copper in
America; semi-lunar knives with a handle in the middle, lance-heads
and arrow-heads, swords, war-clubs like morning stars, etc. At the same
time weapons and implements of stone still remained in use.
In the Old World progress beyond bronze is everywhere due to iron.
[Illustration: EXCAVATIONS IN THE TEMPLE OF ATHENA AT TROY
Dr. Schliemann’s discoveries in the ruins of this temple and the
ruins of older buildings beneath it were among the richest in the
entire annals of archæological research.
]
One place has been found and most completely investigated after the
method of palæontological research, with all the help afforded by
archæological and historical science, where, in overlying geological
strata, the evidences have been found of a progressive development
of culture from the end of the Stone Age down to the brilliant days
of Græco-Roman history. There the chronological connection has been
obtained, not only for the metal periods, but also for the end of the
Neolithic Period. This most important place is Troy, the citadel-hill
of Hissarlik, by the excavation of which Henry Schliemann has won
immortal fame. Schliemann’s excavations, supplemented and completed
in decisive manner by Dörpfeld, have brought about the most important
advancement of the history of mankind that our age can show.
[Illustration: A WINE MERCHANT’S CELLAR IN ANCIENT TROY
Nine colossal earthen jars were discovered by Dr. Schliemann in the
depths of the Temple of Athena. They had evidently belonged to some
wine merchant’s cellar in the pre-Hellenic period.
]
Virchow’s name is inseparably associated with Schliemann’s.
Furtwängler, in his account, based on personal observation, of the
results of the excavations at Troy, has accomplished the great service
of exactly determining the chronological connections of the prehistoric
with the historic eras, and thereby linking the former to history.
On the spot on which tradition placed Homeric Troy (says Furtwängler)
there really has stood a stately citadel, which was contemporaneous
with the golden age of Mycenæ, the epoch of the Agamemnon of legend,
was intimately related to Mycenæan culture, and at the same time
corresponds most exactly to the idea of Troy underlying the old epic.
[Sidenote: Seven Towns on One Hill]
The citadel-hill of Troy terminates a ridge of heights stretching
westward from Mount Ida, almost parallel to the Hellespont, and
slopes steeply into the Trojan plain or the valley of the Scamander.
The natural hill itself is not very high, but it was overlaid by
enormous layers of ruins of buildings and walls, whereby it has been
considerably increased not only in height, but also in breadth. Stratum
after stratum lies one upon the other like the leaves of a bud, so that
the history of the habitation of this venerable place from the most
ancient times can be read from these strata which have been opened up
by Schliemann and Dörpfeld, as from the leaves of a book. The original
ground of the hill-plateau now lies some sixty feet above the plain,
but the latter may have been raised something like sixteen to twenty
feet by alluvial deposits since the Trojan War. The whole stratum
of ruins lying on the original ground of the hill, which Schliemann
opened up, amounts to about fifty-two and a half feet. Schliemann
distinguished seven or eight different layers or strata, corresponding
to as many towns which were successively built on this hill, one on the
ruins of the other.
The lowest stratum, lying immediately on the original ground, belongs
accordingly to the oldest, or first town, on the citadel-hill of Troy.
Furtwängler says:
[Sidenote: The First Town of Troy]
By moderate computation this settlement must belong to the first
half of the third millennium before Christ, but it may very well
date back even to the fourth millennium. The inhabitants already
used copper implements in addition to stone ones. Their whole
culture is most closely connected with that which prevailed in
Central Europe during the Copper Period. Clay vessels of the Copper
Period from Lake Mond, in Austria, agree completely with those of
the first Trojan town. Troy represents only an offshoot of Central
European culture, and its inhabitants were in all probability of
European origin.
We have already learned that the Copper Period is the end of the
Neolithic Period and the beginning of the Metal Age. In the first
Trojan town there is still extraordinarily little metal used, the
axes, hatchets, knives, and saws still being of stone, of the familiar
Central European types, and of the same materials, among which nephrite
is particularly frequent. Other materials are serpentine, diorite,
porphyry, hematite, flint, etc.
[Sidenote: The First Period of Troy’s Glory]
The forms of these implements correspond entirely to those of the later
Stone Age of Europe. The character of the ceramics also conforms in
many respects, according to Virchow, to that of the European Stone
Age; and the Stone Age finds at Butmir, in Bosnia, and similar ones
in Transylvania seem especially to offer close analogies. It would be
a highly important step toward connecting history with the Neolithic
Period if the first town could be even more closely investigated,
and perhaps more sharply divided from that second stratum which lies
between it and the stratum described by Schliemann as the second or
burnt city, and which Schliemann afterward separated into two strata,
corresponding to two towns. Perhaps the metal comes only from the
second or higher stratum under the burnt city. In that case the oldest
would belong purely to the Stone Age. The ceramics would seem to
contradict this. Furtwängler continues:
High above the first town, a deep layer of débris, is the level
surface of the second town, which must at least be dated back to
the second half of the third millennium before Christ. It was the
first period of Troy’s glory. Mighty walls protected the citadel.
Three different building periods may be distinguished. The walls
were brought out a long way and strengthened, and magnificent new
gates were built. During the third period of this second city a
prince, fond of splendour, had the old narrow gateway replaced by
magnificent propylæa and a large hall-erection with a vestibule.
A great conflagration destroyed his citadel. A treasure was found
by Schliemann--he called it Priam’s treasure--in the upper part of
the citadel wall, which was made of straw bricks. The tools of the
second city are still partly of stone, but also partly of bronze,
so that they already belong to the Bronze Age.
[Illustration: THE EXCAVATIONS AT TROY: REVEALING THE WALL OF THE
ACROPOLIS
A view of the great substruction wall of the acropolis of the
second city of Troy, on the west side, close to the south-west
gate: (a) is the paved road, which leads from the S.W. gate down
to the plain; (b) is the continuation of the great acropolis-wall
of the second city on the west side of the S.W. gate; (c) is
the foundation of the paved road and the quadrangular pier to
strengthen it; (d) marks the masonry added by the third settlers.
]
[Sidenote: The Early Culture of Troy]
The general character of culture is, according to Furtwängler, still
essentially Central European. And yet many an individuality has
developed, and the influence of Babylonian culture is everywhere
apparent, although it does not go very deep. To this influence our
authority chiefly attributes the occurrence of a few pots turned on the
wheel, especially flat dishes; for the potter’s wheel was still quite
unknown at that time in Europe, and even at a post so far advanced
toward the East as Cyprus, while in Egypt and Babylonia it had been in
use from the earliest times. In this period also Troy inclines more to
Central Europe as its centre of gravity, but remains far behind the
peculiar development that bronze work attained there; in the metal
tools no advance is made on the forms of the Copper Period. Into any
close relation with Cyprus it does not come; only the basis of their
culture is common to both. But this basis had a wide range, relics from
German districts being often more closely related to the Trojan ones
than are those from Cyprus.
[Illustration: TROY: THE GREAT TOWER OF ILIUM
The top of the tower is 26 ft. below the surface of the hill. The
foundation is on the rock 46 ft. deep; the height of the tower is
20 ft.
]
The brilliant period of the second city is followed by a long
period of decline for Troy. Ruins are piled upon ruins, walls
rise upon walls, but each poorer than the others; no new citadel
walls, no gates, no palaces belong to this period, in which three
strata--the third, fourth, and fifth towns--are distinguished. The
first half of the second millennium before Christ must at least be
regarded as the time of this deposit. The inhabitants evidently
remained the same, and their culture is that of the second city.
But no progress was made; nothing but stagnation; the same forms of
vessels continue to be made, the same decorated whorls. Naturally,
no active intercourse with abroad could develop in this period.
And yet this was the time when an active civilised life began to
develop on the islands of the Ægean Sea and on the east coast of
Greece, which was to bloom in all its splendour in the following
period. To this time the finds at Thera belong, where the pottery,
all turned on the wheel, is already painted with a so-called
varnish colour which shines like metal, and in which plants,
flowers, and animals are treated in quite a new and promising
naturalistic style hitherto unheard of in Europe. In Cyprus, too,
the decoration of pottery developed exceedingly in wealth and
variety in this period of the Bronze Age. Troy, on the other hand,
is poor and degenerate.
But a new period of prosperity arrived for Troy, too; this is the
sixth town. Rich and powerful princes again ruled in this citadel.
They enlarged it far beyond its former compass. They built strong
new walls--the old ones had long since sunk in ruins--not of small
stones and straw bricks as before, but of large, smooth blocks, and
gates and turrets. They did not have the sloping mound of ruins
levelled, as the lords of the second city had done; they let the
new buildings rise in terraces, on the ruins of the old; stately
mansions with wide, deep halls, covered the acropolis. Constant
intercourse existed with the princes of Greece, who at that
time--the second half of the second millennium before Christ--built
their citadels with cyclopean walls. The Trojans employed the same
peculiar, constantly-recurring small projections in their walls
that we find in a Mycenæan town on Lake Copaïs in Bœotia.
And, above all, the Trojans now provided themselves with those
beautiful vessels painted with shining colour that characterise
Mycenæan culture in Greece, and whose natural style had so
wonderfully developed there on the basis of the attempts that
we found at Thera. In Troy these things caused some imitation,
but the results remained far behind the originals. The living,
imaginative conception of the natural was closed to the Trojan; the
home-made pottery kept, on the whole, to its unpainted vessels,
although these were now almost entirely made on the wheel.
[Illustration: THE TREASURE OF PRIAM, KING OF TROY: A COLLECTION
REVEALED BY THE EXCAVATIONS
This remarkable collection of regal treasure comprises the key of
the treasure-house (at top of picture in centre); and, under and
about the key, a number of golden diadems, fillets, earrings, and
smaller jewels. On the shelf below there are a number of silver
talents and vessels of silver and gold; while below them is a
series of silver vases and a curious plate of copper. A variety
of weapons and helmet crests of copper and bronze are displayed
beneath, and on the floor are a vessel, a cauldron and a shield,
all made of copper.
]
Yet what chiefly interests us is the historical. The sixth town,
too, was suddenly given up, destroyed, and burnt. What follows it
are again only poor settlements. Its destruction must have taken
place about the end of the Mycenæan epoch of culture. The seventh
town, which is built immediately on the ruins of the sixth, shows,
already, other and later culture. It had long been suspected that
a historical kernel was concealed in the legend of Troy--now we
have the monumental confirmation. There really was a Troy, which
was strong and great at the same time as the rulers of Mycenæ,
rich in gold and treasure, held way in Greece. And that Troy was
destroyed--we may now safely affirm, from this agreement between
relics and legend--by Greek princes of the Mycenæan epoch, whom the
legend calls Agamemnon and his men.
The seventh and eighth towns, built soon after the destruction of the
sixth, show an interruption in the intercourse with Greece. There the
Mycenæan period was broken by the displacement of peoples known as
the Doric migration, and that rich civilised life was replaced by a
relapse into the semi-barbaric conditions of the North. In Troy, too,
we perceive a period of decline, “a relapse into a stage long since
past; black hand-made vessels, which in their form and decoration are
strikingly like the home-made pots usual in Italy, especially Etruria
and Latium, in the first part of the first millennium before Christ.”
Finally, the seventh town also furnishes inferior imported Greek vases
with painting, though coming not from Greece itself, but from the coast
of Asia Minor, where Greeks had settled in connection with the Doric
migration. “The Æolic colonisation of Troas brought Ilium no fresh
prosperity. Other places rose, Troy remained a miserable village.
In the Hellenistic period the sky clears over Troy. What Alexander
intended, Lysimachus carried out; he restores Ilium to the place of a
real city with new walls, and erects a magnificent temple to Athene
on the top of the acropolis.... Yet artistic creation came to no real
perfection. It was only when the great men of Rome, mindful of their
Trojan ancestors, began to interest themselves in the place, that new
life bloomed on Troy’s ruins.”
* * * * *
Thus the geological-archæological method relates history, merely
relying upon the monuments of the soil, without requiring written
evidences. Pre-history has here attained its end; it has become history.
JOHANNES RANKE
[Illustration: A VIEW SHOWING THE REMARKABLE CHARACTER OF THE
EXCAVATIONS AT TROY
Some idea of the enormous work involved in unearthing ancient Troy
will be gathered from the fact, made clear in this view, that
the ground-level before excavating was above the height of these
buildings. A deep trench was cut, as shown in the illustration,
through the whole hill of Hissarlik, the citadel town.
]
THE GREAT STEPS IN MAN’S DEVELOPMENT
BY PROFESSOR JOSEPH KOHLER
THE MATERIAL PROGRESS OF MANKIND
The opinion that our own circumstances and affairs are the only
standard for judging universal history has long been obsolete. Our day,
with its conceptions, beliefs, hopes, and endeavours, is but a tiny
portion of the past; for thousands of years peoples have existed who
have lived in other intellectual spheres than ours, who have pursued
other ideals.
The study of history does not consist in an examination of the past
projected, as it were, into the present; it is the study of the past
considered as a part of the constant coming and going of men. And in
order to become qualified as historians we must first of all attain
a point of view from which we may, independently of time, behold
history with all its great events file by; as though we were men who
had ascended to some elevation in the universe from which they could
look down upon the whole earth lying as a unity before them. This
is rendered possible through the power of abstraction gained from a
study of history; it enables us, on the one hand, to adapt ourselves
to strange times and beliefs, and, on the other, to look upon our own
day--all time to its contemporary men--objectively, as a mere hour
of the ages of human development. We must learn to escape from the
present, to withdraw ourselves from that which we may call the tyranny
of our own time.
[Illustration: THE PRIMITIVE ART OF WEAVING
The art of weaving arose from plaiting, and soon developed to
perfection, the American Indians and most primitive peoples of our
own day being skilled weavers.
]
From universal history we obtain a picture of the development of
humanity--that is, the development of the various active germs or
principles inherent in man. By these are meant the active principles
innate in mankind in the aggregate, in contradistinction to those which
may exist in single individuals or in single races.
The result of development is called “civilisation”--the state of
intellectual being, and of outward, material life, attained by a
people through evolution. Although spiritual and material culture flow
into each other, they may be separated to this extent: as a physical
being endowed with senses, man endeavours to obtain satisfaction of
his needs, and strives for a position in relation to his environment
corresponding with the efforts he has made to obtain welfare; as
a feeling, inquiring, spiritual being he contains within him an
ever-present desire to fuse the multitude of separate impressions he
receives into unity, and to struggle forward until he arrives at a
conception of the world and of life.
[Illustration:
B.C. 5000 -| EGYPTO-BABYLONIAN |-
-| OR |-
-| ANCIENT ERA |-
-| |- Building of the Pyramids.
-| |- Earliest monuments to kings
B.C. 4500 -| |- in Babylonia.
-| |-
-| |-
-| |-
-| |-
B.C. 4000 -| |- Rise of Semitic Babylonian
-| |- kingdoms.
-| |-
-| |-
-| |-
B.C. 3500 -| |- Chaldæan Astronomy.
-| |-
-| |-
-| |-
-| |-
B.C. 3000 -| |-
-| |-
-| |-
-| |-
-| |-
B.C. 2500 -| |-
-| |-
-| |-
-| |- Khammurabai.
-| |- Assyrian records.
B.C. 2000 -| |-
-| |-
-| |-
-| |-
-| |-
B.C. 1500 -| |- Hebraic Monotheism.
-| |-
-| |- Zoroaster.
-| |- Ægean Culture.
-| GRECO-ROMAN OR |-
B.C. 1000 -| CLASSICAL ERA |- Hellenic Culture.
-| |-
-| |-
-| |-
-| |- Thales.
B.C. 500 -| |- Buddha. Confucius.
-| |- Socrates.
-| |- Plato. Aristotle.
-| |- Stoics and Epicureans.
-| |-
A.D. 1 -| |-
-| |- Christianity.
-| |-
-| |- Neo-platonists.
-| |-
A.D. 500 -| |- St. Augustine.
-| DARK |-
-| AGES |- Mohammed.
-| |-
-| |- Johannes Scotus.
A.D. 1000 -| |- Avicenna.
-| |- Scholasticism.
-| MEDIÆVAL OR |- Anselm. Abelard.
-| SCHOLASTIC ERA |- Aquinas. R. Bacon.
-| |- Wiclif.
A.D. 1500 -| MODERN |- Copernicus. Luther.
-| SCIENTIFIC |- Francis Bacon. Newton.
-| ERA |-
-| |- Kant. Steam.
A.D. 1900 -| |- Darwin. Electricity.
OUR OWN DAY COMPARED WITH THE HISTORIC PAST
Our day, with its conceptions, beliefs, hopes, and endeavours, is
but a tiny portion of the past; for thousands of years peoples have
existed who have lived in other intellectual spheres than ours, who
have pursued other ideals.
]
“Material civilisation” is the mode of life through which the obstacles
opposed to humanity may be overcome. By the surmounting of obstacles is
meant the conquering of enemies, particularly of hostile animals, the
obtaining of means for the preservation of existence, and the employing
of these means for the increase of bodily welfare. In respect of
material civilisation man passes through stages that differ widely from
one another, that vary according to the manner in which the necessities
for existence are obtained, and according to the way in which enemies
are withstood for the safeguarding of life, welfare, and acquisitions
already gained. Races are spoken of as supporting themselves by the
chase and fishing, or by cattle-breeding and farming, according to
whether they are accustomed to derive subsistence directly from “nature
unadorned,” or by means of the cultivation and utilisation of natural
products.
No sharp line of distinction, however, may be drawn. It is inadmissible
to speak of races as supporting themselves solely by hunting and
fishing, for the very same peoples feed on products of the soil
wherever they are found and recognised as means of subsistence. They
live, it is true, upon flesh and fish, but also upon roots and the
fruit of wild trees. While in this state of civilisation, man avails
himself only of that which Nature places before him; he neither adapts
Nature to his desire, to his needs, or to his manner of living, nor
understands how to do it. He can make no further use of Nature than
to acquire a knowledge of the sources of supply, of how to seize time
and opportunity, and to overcome the obstacles of life in his own
territory. He ascertains the haunts of game, discovers how to obtain
fish, explores for wild honey or edible roots, learns to climb the
tallest trees and to let himself down into the deepest caves; but
he lacks the ability to cultivate Nature, to cause her to produce
according to his will.
Gradually the one phase amalgamates with the other. It is not seldom
that hunting tribes have small tracts of land on which they raise a few
edible plants. Observation of Nature teaches them that germs develop
from fallen seeds, and leads of itself to the idea that it is not best
to allow plants to grow up wild, and that it would be expedient to
clear the surrounding ground for their better growth. And when this
stage is reached, the next step--not to allow seeds to spring up by
chance, but to place them in the soil one’s self--is not very far off;
and thus the mere acquisition of Nature’s raw vegetable products gives
place to agriculture. Often enough we observe instances of the men of
a group carrying on hunting operations, while the women are not only
occupied with their domestic employments, but also till the soil; thus
the men are hunters and fishers, and the women are agriculturists.
Domestic work led the latter to take up the cultivation of plants,
even as it led them to the other light feminine handicrafts; while
the repairing of weapons and of contrivances used for the capture of
animals lay within the province of the men.
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