TROY AND THE TROJAN WAR: OUTLINE 3

I.  THE AEGEAN WORLD IN THE BRONZE AGE

    A.  Click on the hyperlink for an excellent presentation of the archaeology of the Aegean World during the Bronze Age.

        1.  This site is especially good for the archaeology of Crete and Troy.

II. MINOAN CIVILIZATION

    A.  THE CYCLADES

        1. ISLANDS IN THE AEGEAN

            a. Fiddle idols are characteristic of this culture.  The Metropolitan Museum of Art has several examples.

    B. KNOSSOS ON CRETE

        1. Sir Arthur Evans and the palace of Minos      

            a.   Evans a wealthy English man who purchased the property on which the site is located.

            b.   Evans' reconstruction of the palace: modern archaeologists would not do what he did; finding of the "throne room"

        2. Greek Mythology

            a. Theseus and the Minotaur in the Labyrinth: Minos, Pasiphae, and Ariadne; return to Athens; Aegeus and the sails.

            b.   Was labyrinth simply the Minoan word for palace and Minos the word for king?

        3. Writing

            a. Evans found clay tablets with writing; two different scripts; called Linear A and B; also found at Pylos on the mainland during Blegen's excavations of that site in the western Peloponnesus

            b.   deciphered in early fifties by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick; it was an early form of Greek written in a syllabic script.  For an excellent web site, click here.

            c.   nature of the texts: record keeping: business, military, palace maintenance; no poetry, alas

            d.   Homeric names found in the texts: a-ki-re-u (Achilles); a-i-wa (Aias=Ajax); e-ko-to (Hector); te-se-u (Theseus); o-re-ta (Orestes); a-ta-no (Antenor); pa-da-ro (Pandaraos).

III. TROY AND THE TROJAN WAR

    A.  WAS THE WAR HISTORICAL?

        1.  Traditional date: 1184 BC (Erastothenes) or 1250 BC (Herodotus)

            a.   Homer's Iliad and Odyssey our primary literary sources, but they are hundreds of year later than the traditional dating.  For an excellent web site dedicated to Aegean bronze age history, click here.

            b.   Homer is studied in the section on Archaic Greece

            c.   Required Reading: Kurt A. Raaflaub, "Homer, The Trojan War, and History," CW 91.387-403

            d.   Required Reading:  Charles B. Rose, "Troy and the Historical Imagination," CW 91.305-413.

        2.  Ancient pilgrims to the site near the Hellespont.

            a.   Xerxes, the Persian king, in 480 BC visited the site on the way to conquer Greece; sacrificed 1000 oxen according to Herodotus 7.43.

            b.   Alexander in 330 BC on way to conquer the Persian Empire; the site became important during the Hellenistic Age; new temple to Athena and a theater holding 8000 spectators;

            c.   Julius Caesar in 48 BC.  Julius Caesar and his grandnephew Octavian (Augustus) traced their ancestry back to Iulus, the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas.  Augustus took an interest in the prosperity of the city.  Remember too that the emperor supported Vergil in writing the Aeneid.  Constantine considered making this the new capital of the empire but chose Byzantium (Constantinople, Istanbul) instead.  

        3.  Mehmet II visited the site ten years after conquering Constantinople; boasted that he had avenged Troy by conquering Greece.

        4.  Lord Byron, champion of Greek independence, visited the site  in the early 19th century.

IV.  CAREER OF  HENRY SCHLIEMANN

    A.  EARLY CAREER

        1.  Father: disgrace; the gift of the book, Jerrer's Universal History (his letter)

        2.  Leaves for Venezuela: shipwreck; Holland and a job as a clerk in an importing company.

        3.  Moves to Russia: success as importer; marriage.

        4.  California during the gold rush.

        5.  Back to Russia and more wealth.

            a.   At his death his fortune amounted to about 72 million dollars in modern terms.

        6.  Retirement and a new career as an archaeologist.

        7.  His ethics: abandoned his Russian family; his banking activities in California were shady; committed perjury to secure American citizenship and a divorce from his Russian wife, etc.

            a.   Required Reading: Donald F. Easton, "Heinrich Schliemann: Hero or Fraud?" CW 91.335-343.

    B,  FIRST EXCAVATIONS AT TROY (1870)

        1.  The Turkish firman: pay all expenses; destroy no structures; split all profits.

        2.  Frank Calvert, the American consul, advises him to dig at Hissarlik not Bunarbashi.

            a.   He had done preliminary digging at the site part of which he owned.  Others had also believed that Hissarlik was the site of Troy

            b.   Calvert asked British Museum for financial aid.  They refused.

            c.   Schliemann's ingratitude: the Helios metope (125, 49, 4000)found on Calvert's property; no credit given to Calvert in Schliemann's autobiography

            d.   Required Reading: Susan H. Allen, "A Personal Sacrifice in the Interest of Science: Calvert, Schliemann, and the Troy Treasures," CW 91.345-354.

        3.  Schliemann's methods.

            a.   stratigraphy;  dug deep into the hill thinking that Homer's Troy had to be the furtherst down ; destroyed walls which were most likely from Homer's Troy

    C. "Priam's Treasure"

        1.  May 31, 1873;

            a.   He found 137 gold, silver, and bronze objects plus 8750 gold beads outside the citadel wall of Troy II.

            b.  Was Sophie present as he says in his autobiography?  No; he lied to enhance her reputation as an archaeologist.

        2.  Treasures smuggled out of the Ottoman Empire to Athens and eventually moved it to Berlin.

            a.   lawsuit; settled out of court; permitted to return to Troy for further excavations.

        3.  Fate of the treasures.

            a.   Berlin museum until the second world war; in flak tower at end of the war; lost for fifty years; resurfaced in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow

           b.  PRIAM'S TREASURE  This site has a picture of Sophie wearing the necklace Schliemann had made from the many beads found in the horde.

            c.   Required Reading: Deborah Boedeker, "Introduction," CW 91.331-333.

    D.  EXCAVATIONS IN GREECE

        1.  Mycenae, Agamemnon's city.

            a.   Followed Pausanias' guide book

            b.    Excavate beyond the the Lion Gate entrance; found an ancient cemetery, the so-called circle grave; rich treasures including gold death masks (Agamemnon? No!)

            c.   Not from time of Trojan War but around 300 years earlier

        2.  Orchomenos

            a.   Gray minyan ware subsequently found in Troy

        3.  Tiryns

            a.   Associated with Heracles; Mycenaean palace

    E.  BACK TO TROY

        1.  Joined by Wilhelm Dorpfeld, an archaeologist and architect (1881)

            a.   His greatest discovery.  Schliemann's archaeology improved under his tutelage.

            a.   Troy VI declared to be the Troy of Homer

    F.  DEATH AND BURIAL

        1.  Dies in Naples in 1891; buried in Athens.

V.  FURTHER EXCAVATIONS

    A.  DORPFELD IN 1893-4

    B.  CARL BLEGEN FROM 1932-38

        1.  Believed Troy VIIa to be the Troy of Homer.

    C.  MANFRED KORFMANN TODAY (from 1988)

            1.   Digging outside the hill of Hissarlik in the "lower city."

                a.   a defensive ditch and palisade

                b.   orientation toward Asia: the gate stele and the cult of Apollo; seal in hieroglyphic Luwian

                c.   Required Reading: Manfred Korfmann, "Troia, an Ancient Anatolian Palatial and Trading Center: Archaeological Evidence for the Period of Troia VI/VII," CW 91.369-385.