Page:Troja by Heinrich Schliemann.djvu/40

Spata and Menidi, of Rhodes and Cyprus. On the other hand, the distinctive features of Greek daily life are equally absent; there are neither coins nor lamps, nor alphabetic inscriptions, nor patterns of the classical epoch; there is no Hellenic pottery, whether archaic or recent. We now know pretty exactly what were the objects left behind them by the Greeks and their neighbours in the Levant during the six centuries that preceded the Christian era; and, thanks more especially to Dr. Schliemann's labours, we can even trace the art and culture of that period back to the art and culture of the still older period, which was first revealed to us by his exploration of Mykênae. It is too late now, when archaeology has become a science and its fundamental facts have been firmly established, to revert to the dilettante antiquarianism of fifty years ago. Then, indeed, it was possible to put forward theories that were the product of the literary, and not of the scientific, imagination, and to build houses of straw upon a foundation of shifting sand. But the time for such pleasant recreation is now gone; the study of the far distant past has been transferred from the domain of literature to that of science, and he who would pursue it must imbue himself with the scientific method and spirit, must submit to the hard drudgery of preliminary training, and must know how to combine the labours of men like Evans and Lubbock, or Virchow and Rolleston, with the results that are being poured in upon us year by year from the Oriental world. To look for a Macedonian city in the fifth prehistoric village of Hissarlik is like looking for an Elizabethan cemetery in the tumuli of Salisbury plain: the archaeologist can only pass by the paradox with a smile.