Ms.

Was Heinrich Schliemann a good archeologist?

In this essay my aim is to separate the truth from the predjudice and find out whether Heinrich Schliemann was a greedy charlottarian, a talented archeologist or just someone who stumbled upon a great discovery.

Heinrich Schliemann was born on January 6, 1822 in the small village of Neu Buckow, Germany. His interest in Homeric Troy started when his father, a protestant minister, gave him a book or Christmas in 1829 by Ludwig Jerrer entitled Illustrated History of the World .

Though he was realizing his dream of becoming rich, Schliemann remained a tortured spirit. He learned that Minna, his childhood sweetheart, had married someone else. This threw him into a state of depression, and he vowed that someday he would be rich enough to marry any woman he wanted. Wealth became the elusive idol he strove for he imagined it was a panacea that would cure all his personal shortcomings.

When his beloved cousin Sophie died, Schliemann nearly went mad with grief. Her death forced him to ask himself questions he had been avoiding - what was the meaning of life? What was he really living for? He turned to Homer's Odyssey and found comfort in the idea of the hero, Odysseus, returning home. He decided to follow Odysseus' example, and resolved to return to Ithaca, the island that Odysseus ruled.

Schliemann set out to find Troy. At that time, Bunarbashi was believed to be the site of Troy, but Schliemann thought that the nearby hill Hissarlik was a more likely area. Frank Calvert, an Englishman who owned the eastern half of the hill, agreed with Schliemann, and had discovered the ruins of a palace or temple made out of large blocks of hewn stone.

After marrying for the second time Schliemann returned to Hissarlik in 1870, convinced that the most important discoveries would be found on the western side of the hill, which was owned by two Turks. They agreed to let Schliemann continue digging on their property if Schliemann would let them have the stones of the building foundation he had uncovered for a bridge they were building. Schliemann reluctantly agreed, and his excavation progressed until April, when the Turks decided they had enough stone and ordered him to stop his excavation. From this date until October of 1871, Schliemann went through a frustrating series of negotiations with the Turkish government. Finally on October 11, he returned to Troy determined to uncover the palace.

On June 18, 1872, Schliemann uncovered a relief of the sun god Apollo riding the four horses of the sun. The work was most likely from much later than the supposed time of the Trojan War. Though Schliemann had promised to give the Turkish government half of the treasure he found, he and Calvert smuggled the relief out of the country, and it ended up in Schliemann's garden for many years.

Shortly after that find came one of the most interesting of Schliemann's discoveries. Schliemann himself found a golden treasure near the Scaean Gates, and hoping to keep his find secret, let the crew have the rest of the day off. He and Sophie quietly excavated the hoard themselves, certain that they had found the treasure of King Priam. Among their findings were a copper shield, a copper cauldron, a silver vase, a copper vase, a gold bottle, 2 gold cups, a small electrum cup, a silver goblet, 3 silver vases, 7 double-edged copper daggers, 6 silver knife blades, 13 copper lance-heads, 2 gold diadems, a fillet, 4 gold ear-drops, 56 gold earrings, and 8,750 gold rings and buttons.

Though he never wrote down the exact date of the discovery, it is known that he did smuggle it off the site