Page:Troja by Heinrich Schliemann.djvu/68

blocks belonging to them, as well as to other buildings, of which the foundations could no longer be traced. I also continued on the north side, at the place marked V—NO,^[1] at a depth of 12 mètres below the surface, the excavation commenced there in the summer of 1872. But finding that the soil consisted solely of prehistoric débris, which had been thrown down there to enlarge and level the hill, I soon gave it up again.

As I expected to find more metopes on the northern slope, at the place (see the upper V on Plan I. in Ilios) where in 1872 I had found the beautiful metope of Apollo and the quadriga of the sun, I stationed twenty-five labourers there, who worked for nearly two months, first in removing the enormous mass of débris which I had thrown out on the slope in 1872 and 1873, and afterwards digging away from the latter a slice 3 mètres deep from front to back. The layer of débris to be removed being on an average 6 mètres deep, 28 mètres high, and 20 mètres broad, the excavation had to be made in terraces, for in this way the work became much easier and the distance the débris had to be carried was reduced to a minimum. We worked here with pickaxes, shovels, and wheelbarrows, which are always more advantageous than carts, so long as the distance is less than 30 mètres. But no second metope was found there, nor any other sculpture of great interest, and only a marble female head of the Macedonian period, which I represent in the chapter on Ilium. I struck in this excavation a very remarkable wall-corner of the Macedonian time, which I describe in the following pages. I also explored the gigantic theatre, immediately to the east of the Acropolis,^[2] of which I give a detailed account in the chapter on Ilium. In this, as well as in the excavations on Hissarlik, we found a vast number of venomous