Page:Troy-and-its-remains by Heinrich Schliemann.djvu/74

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TROY AND ITS REMAINS.
  • The three so-called tombs of heroes also Greek
  • Proposed sites at Chiplak and Akshi-Koi refuted by the absence of remains
  • Modern authorities in favour of Hissarlik
  • Ancient types of pottery still made in the Troad
  • Covers with owl-faces, and vases with uplifted wings
  • Colouring materials of the pottery
  • The inscriptions
  • The author's relations with the Turkish Government
  • Professor Max Müller on the owl-headed goddess
  • Some probable traces of another settlement between the fourth pre-Hellenic people and the Greek colonists.

The present book is a sort of Diary of my excavations at Troy, for all the memoirs of which it consists were, as the vividness of the descriptions will prove, written down by me on the spot while proceeding with my works.[1]

If my memoirs now and then contain contradictions, I hope that these may be pardoned when it is considered that I have here revealed a new world for archæology, that the objects which I have brought to light by thousands are of a kind hitherto never or but very rarely found, and that consequently everything appeared strange and mysterious to me. Hence I frequently ventured upon conjectures which I was obliged to give up on mature consideration, till I at last acquired a thorough insight, and could draw well-founded conclusions from many actual proofs.

One of my greatest difficulties has been to make the enormous accumulation of débris at Troy agree with chronology; and in this—in spite of long-searching and pondering—I have only partially succeeded. According to Herodotus (VII. 43): "Xerxes in his march through the Troad, before invading Greece (B.C. 480) arrived at the Scamander and went up to Priam's Pergamus, as he wished to see that citadel; and, after having seen it, and inquired into its past fortunes, he sacrificed 1000 oxen to the Ilian Athena, and the Magi poured libations to the manes of the heroes."

This passage tacitly implies that at that time a Greek colony had long since held possession of the town, and, according to Strabo's testimony (XIII. i. 42), such a colony

  1. ↑ Each of these Memoirs forms a chapter of the Translation.
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