Page:Troja by Heinrich Schliemann.djvu/323

The panorama the traveller enjoys from the summit of Kurshunlu Tepeh is beautiful beyond description. He sees at his feet the large valley of Beiramich, through which the Scamander meanders in innumerable curves; the valley being enclosed on all sides by the ridges of Ida, whose highest peaks, Garguissa (Gargarus) and Sarikis, tower majestically above it.

I also sank a shaft 2 mètres square into the artificial conical hill called Kutchek Tepeh (small hill) situated on the bank of the Scamander, about a mile to the south of Kurshunlu Tepeh; but I could not make much progress there on account of the enormous stones I encountered, for moving which I had no crowbars with me. Probably, like the tower in Ujek Tepeh, these blocks were intended to consolidate the mound. I found there nothing else but bones of animals, and very uninteresting fragments of tiles and of large jars.

§ V. Kurshunlu Tepch was the ancient Dardanié and Palaescepsis.—I had always thought that the Homeric Dardanié, as well as the ancient Scepsis (Palaescepsis), had both been on high plateaux near the summit of Mount Ida. But for weighty reasons, to be explained in my "Journey in the Troad," (Appendix I. to this work) it is certain that no human settlement is, or ever was, possible there. In fact Homer nowhere tells us that Dardanié was situated high up in the mountains; he tells us that it was situated on the ὑπορείαι Ιδης, that is to say, at the foot of Mount Ida;^[1] and I am perfectly convinced that no place could have been meant here higher up than Kurshunlu Tepeh, for the city could only have been built on a spot whose environs were fertile enough to feed its inhabitants;