Troja/Chapter 2

My excellent architects have proved to me, beyond any doubt, that the first settlers built on the hill of Hissarlik only one or two large edifices. The length of this first settlement does not exceed 46 mètres, and its breadth can hardly have been greater. Of the walls which we have brought to light, the northern (fe on Plan VII.) and the two southern ones (fa and fb) are particularly remarkable, because they are fortification walls (see Plan VII.). Of the two southern walls, the inner one (fb) belongs, no doubt, to an older epoch of the first settlement, the outer wall to a later extension of it. These fortification-walls are made of unwrought calcareous stones, and in such a way that their outside is somewhat slanting, and consists of larger stones. It is difficult to ascertain their thickness accurately, their upper part having fallen on the inner side, but it is approximately 2.50 m. The extension of the settlement on the south side was a little more than 8 m. Between these fortification-walls there are, at intervals of 2½, 4, 5, 5½, and 6 mètres, five thinner walls, nearly parallel, o 60 m. to o'90 m. thick; besides two smaller walls and two cross walls (see Plan VII.). We have only been able to excavate them for the breadth of my great northern trench (X–Z on Plan VII.), say for a distance of 15 mètres; unfortunately we could not extend this excavation of the first city without destroying the ruins of the following city, which, as we shall see in the following pages, are of capital interest to science. The masonry of the walls consists of small stones joined with earth; the clay coating has been ​preserved in several places. Neither baked nor unbaked bricks were found here. The settlement stood on the slope, which fell off from south to north, the ground being 2 m. higher on the south side than on the north. We found here many small shells, but not in such masses as in the following prehistoric cities; besides, they seem to have been contained in the clay of the house-walls or terraces, and consequently cannot be considered as kitchen refuse, like a large part of those of the later settlers.

As before mentioned, the ruins denote only one or two large edifices on Hissarlik: we may therefore presume, with the greatest probability, that this first settlement had a lower city, which extended on the plateau to the west, south, and south-east; and indeed the large masses of pottery I found there in the lowest stratum in my trenches and shafts, the form and fabric of which is perfectly identical with that of the first settlement on the Acropolis hill, can leave no doubt in this respect. This first settlement appears to have existed here for a great number of centuries, for the débris had time to accumulate and to form a stratum having an average depth of 2.50 m.

As even mere fragments of pottery from this first and most ancient settlement are remarkable, and welcome to every museum, I gathered all we found, and was able to fill with them no less than eight large boxes. I also carefully collected all the bones I could find, and sent a whole box-full of them to Professor Rudolf Virchow at Berlin for investigation. (See Appendix II.) Nearly all the pottery is lustrous black; but lustrous red, brown, or yellow terra-cottas are not rare. I collected separately all the more characteristic fragments, particularly all the vase-rims with long horizontal tubular holes, of which I gathered hundreds, and put carefully aside those with an incised ornamentation, which is always filled with chalk in order to strike the eye. This ornamentation is always more or less like that which we see on the fragments represented in Ilios, p. 216, Nos. ​28–35. But an ornamentation of wave-lines, like those at p. 225, Nos. 53, 54 in Ilios, also occurs now and then.

I represent here only the two most interesting vase-fragments.

No. 1 is a rim-fragment of a large bowl, on which are distinctly incised two lentiform eyes with brows, probably meant for human eyes; to the right and left are two parallel strokes; below, a zigzag line; just above the eyes the rim forms a semicircle.

No. 2 is a similar fragment of a bowl-rim, on which we see a very curious incised ornamentation resembling an owl's face in monogram; the eyes are particularly large; the ​stroke between them may be intended to indicate the beak; below the rim we see a line of curves; all these incisions are filled with chalk. To the right of the owl's-face are two or more incised signs. Professor Sayce thinks that the eyes may have been intended to ward off the effects of the evil eye, like the eyes painted on the boats of China, Malta, and Sicily. In Marocco small pieces are broken out of earthenware vessels for the same purpose.

It deserves particular attention that these incised ornamentations, Nos. 1 and 2, are on the inner side of the bowl rims, and that there is no ornamentation at all on the outside. The bowls to which Nos. 1 and 2 belong had on the outside two excrescences, each with two vertical tubular holes for suspension: one of these excrescences (belonging

to No. 2) is represented by the engraving No. 3; in order to photograph it, the reverse side of the fragment had to be put almost horizontally. We have illustrated this system of vases and bowls with two vertical tubular holes for suspension on each side by the engravings, pp. 214, 215, Nos. 23, 24, and 25 in Ilios. To the few places enumerated on p. 215 in Ilios, in which vases with a like contrivance may be found, I have to add the Museum of Parma, of which Mr. Giovanni Mariotti is the learned keeper. This museum contains a vase found in the terramare of the Emilia, which has on each side two vertical tubular holes for suspension.

The pottery of the first city in general, particularly these ​large bowls, is but very slightly baked; the clay contains a great many small coarse pieces of granite, the mica of which shows its presence by numerous small flakes, glittering like gold and silver; but it must be observed that this granite was contained in the clay, and that, consequently, there was no need for the potter to add it.

The celebrated manufacturer of earthenware, Mr. Henry Doulton, of Lambeth, who, at my request, has made experiments with some of these lustrous black bowl-fragments of the first city, has obtained the following results. The fragments which he submitted merely to a red heat turned a light yellow, whilst those which he subjected to a high degree of heat, in fact to quite a white heat, such as vitreous stoneware is submitted to, got a red brick colour. The material of the pottery has proved to be very refractory, standing a high degree of heat. Mr. Doulton's experiments perfectly confirm, therefore, the theory of Dr. Lisch,^[1] as to the manufacture of the clay vessels in prehistoric times.

Though I thought that in Ilios (pp. 218–220) I had exhausted the discussion of the manufacture of the Trojan pottery in general, and of that of the first city in particular, yet I cannot refrain from giving here an extract of a letter on the same subject from Dr. Chr. Hostmann, of Celle, because his theory differs from those I have advanced. "I have found in my excavations in the ancient necropolis of Darzau, vases with the same lustrous black colour which is conspicuous on those of the first settlement at Troy. Now, in the most varied experiments I have made, and for which my manufacture of printing-ink gave me an excellent opportunity, I have found that that colour can never have been produced in a slow fire with much smoke, but that it has been obtained merely by dipping the vases in oil, covering them with a thin layer of ​melted pine-resin, to which may have been added a little oil, and, when this had become cold, exposing them to the action of the fire, so that the layer of resin became carbonized."

No. 4 is a very small lustrous black cup, with a handle and a convex foot. No. 5 is a lustrous black jug: the body is globular, the foot flat, the neck straight and cylindrical; the handle long and slender. The clay of this jug is only three millimètres thick, of which hardly one millimètre is baked; it is one of the lightest vases I ever found in any of the prehistoric settlements at Hissarlik,

and is of capital interest to science, because it is wheel-made and, except the vase, p. 214, No. 23 in Ilios, which is manufactured in like manner, it is the only entire wheel-made vase of the first city that I can boast of: fragments of wheel-made pottery sometimes occur in the first city, but they are rare.

Although the ruins of this first and most ancient Trojan settlement may be more than a thousand years older than Homer, I cannot refrain from mentioning in this place, that the art of making pottery by means of the wheel existed already as a handicraft and a profession at the time of the poet; as we see it in the admirable simile, in which, ​in order to depict the light and rapid movements of the dancing youths and virgins represented by Hephaestus on the shield of Achilles, he compares these movements to the rapid rotation of the wheel, which the potter, in commencing his work, sets turning rapidly round its axis, in order to try whether it can aid the skill of his hands.^[2] I may add that as early as the time of the first dynasties of the old Egyptian empire the potter's wheel was in general use, and all pottery was thoroughly baked in ovens.^[3]

Nos. 6 and 7 are two lustrous black cups with a high hollow foot and a large handle, standing upright on the rim; the clay is thick, but slightly baked, and heavy. These are the first entire cups of this shape I ever found,

but, as similar handles and hollow feet are of frequent occurrence in the débris of the first settlement, there can be no doubt that this form of cup was in general use here. A very singular vessel is No. 8, which is also of a lustrous black colour, and of thick clay only slightly baked. The body, which resembles that of our present drinking-glasses, ​is encircled by five concave furrows deeply impressed; the rim is slightly bent over; the long handle, but slightly curved, is very curious; the large perforation we see in it probably indicates the use of the vessel, for it seems to have been let down with a string into the well to draw up water; the hole must also have served to suspend it on a nail. I never found here a similar vessel, nor am I aware that this form has ever occurred elsewhere.

No. 9 is a very pretty lustrous black vase, with a convex foot and an excrescence on either side perpendicularly perforated for suspension. To the list of the few places given on pp. 222, 223 in Ilios, where vases with a similar contrivance

may be seen, I must add the Prehistoric Museum of Madrid, which contains five fragments of hand-made vases found in caverns of the stone age in Andalusia, having on each side a tubular hole for suspension. Another vase-fragment with vertical perforations for suspension, likewise found in a cavern in Andalusia, is in the Museum at Cassel. The same system may be seen on several fragments of hand-made vases found by me in my excavations at ​Orchomenos in Boeotia;^[4] also on three hand-made vases found in the terramare of the Emilia, one of which is preserved in the Museum of Parma, the other two in the Museum of Reggio, of which Professor Gaetano Chierici is the learned keeper. Two more hand-made vases, with vertical tubular holes for suspension, may be seen in the prehistoric collection of the Museo Nazionale in the Collegio Romano at Rome; one of them was found in the terramare of Castello, near Bovolone (province of Verona), the other in the lake-dwellings of the Lago di Garda: another, which was found in an ancient tomb near Corneto (Tarquinii), is preserved in the museum of this latter city. A hand-made vase with a vertical hole for suspension on four sides was found in a terramare of the Stone age near Campeggine, in the province of Reggio in the Emilia.^[5] I may also mention some hand-made funereal urns, having the very same contrivance, which were found in ancient tombs near Bovolone (province of Verona), held to be of the same age as the terramare of the Emilia.^[6] A vase with a similar system for suspension, found in Umbria, is in the prehistoric collection of the Museum of Bologna; another, found in the cavern of Trou du Frontal-Furfooz, in Belgium, is in the Museum of Brussels. A box of terra-cotta, with a vertical hole for suspension in the cover and in the rim, was found in the district of Guben in Prussia.^[7] The prehistoric collection of the Museum of Geneva contains some fragments of vases found in France,^[8] which have the same kind of vertical holes for suspension. Finally, I may mention a vase with four excrescences, ​each of which has two vertical perforations; it was found, last year, in a tomb of the stone age near Tangermünde in the Altmark, and is preserved in the Nordische Abtheilung of the Royal Museum at Berlin; my attention was called to it by Mr. Ed. Krause of the Royal Ethnological Museum.

I call the reader's particular attention to the great resemblance of these Trojan vases to the kipes (Latin, cupa; French, hotte) which workmen use in the fields, and which have the very same kind of vertical tubular holes for suspension as the vases. But I must also mention the discovery, lately made by Dr. Philios on account of the Hellenic Archæological Society, of a certain number of most ancient terra-cotta vases and idols, at the base of the temple of Demeter at Eleusis, among which is a small vessel having on each side an excrescence perpendicularly perforated for suspension; whereas nearly all the other vases have on each side merely a hole for suspension in the foot and rim. All these vases have a painting of circular red bands, and they are so primitive that I do not hesitate to claim for them an age antecedent even to that of the royal tombs of Mycenae. The idols found with them are even still more primitive than the rudest ever found at Troy.

Fragments of hand-made bowls of terra-cotta, with two long horizontal tubular holes for suspension, such as are represented by Nos. 37–42, pp. 217, 218 in Ilios, were again found in large masses in the ruins of the first settlement; so that I have been able to recompose twenty-five of them. The Museum of Bologna contains fragments of bowls with a similar contrivance, found in the Grotta del Diavolo,^[9] near Bologna, the antiquities of which are considered to belong to the first epoch of the reindeer.^[10] The same museum contains also a large number of fragments ​of bowls with the same system of horizontal tubular holes, from 0.03 m. to 0.07 m. long in the brim, found in the grottoes of Farneto, Pragatto, and Rastellino, in the province of Bologna, all of which are of the Stone Age. Fragments of bowls, with precisely the same system, found in the terramare of the Emilia, may also be seen in the Museum of Bologna, as well as in the Museo Nazionale in the Collegio Romano at Rome. I also found similar bowl fragments in my excavations at Orchomenos,^[11] as well as in those I made with Mr. Frank Calvert at Hanaï Tepeh.^[12]

On this occasion I may mention, concerning the curious goblet of the first city represented in Ilios, p. 224, No. 51, that the Prehistoric Museum at Madrid contains four cups of the same form, but without handles, which were found in caverns in Andalusia, inhabited in the Stone Period; further, that three goblets of the same form, one with one handle, the others with two, found in Rhodes, are in the Museum of the Louvre. A goblet of a similar form, recently found in the lowest layers of débris in the Acropolis of Athens, is in the Acropolis Museum.

Of terra-cotta whorls, both plain and with an incised ornamentation, a very large number, not less than 4000, were again found in the five prehistoric settlements in this year's excavations. My opinion, that all the many thousands of whorls which I gathered here in the course of years, have served as votive offerings, is strenuously supported by Mr. H. Rivett-Carnac,^[13] who found a great many similar ones at Sankisa, in Behar, and other Buddhist ruins in the North-west Provinces of India. On many of these Indian whorls the incised ornamentation, in which he ​recognises religious symbols, and generally a representation of the sun, is perfectly identical with that of the Trojan whorls.

Dr. W. Dörpfeld calls my attention to Richard Andree's Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche,^[14] pp. 230232, fig. 8A and 8c; where it is stated that perforated whorls of terra-cotta or glass, which according to the engravings are of a form identical with that of the Trojan whorls, and with a similar ornamentation, are used as money on the Palau or Pelew Islands in the Pacific Ocean: "They are called there Audou, are regarded as a gift of the spirits, and are held to have been imported, no native being able to make them for want of the material. The quantity of them in circulation is never augmented. Some of those whorls are estimated at £750 sterling each."

The most ancient terra-cotta whorls found in Italy appear to be those of the Grotta del Diavolo, the antiquities of which, as I have stated above, are attributed to the first epoch of the reindeer:^[15] they are unornamented, and are preserved in the Museum of Bologna. But they are of no rare occurrence in the Italian terramare, particularly in those of the Emilia, and, besides the places enumerated at pp. 229-231 of Ilios, I may mention the museums of Reggio and Corneto as containing a few ornamented with incisions: the museum of Parma also contains six ornamented ones, instead of only two, as stated in Ilios (p. 230).

Many terra-cotta whorls with an ornamentation similar to that of the Trojan whorls were gathered by the indefatigable Dr. Victor Gross in his excavations in the Swiss Lake habitations.^[16]

Unornamented terra-cotta whorls occur also on the Esquiline at Rome, and in the Necropolis of Albano. Pro​fessor W. Helbig^[17] holds them to have been used partly as spindle-whorls and partly as beads for necklaces; but this latter use is out of the question for the large whorls. Dr. Victor Gross is of opinion that the terra-cotta whorls must have been used partly as buttons of garments, partly as pearls of necklaces, and last, not least, as whorls for the spindle. He says this latter hypothesis is corroborated by the Image missingNo. 10—Axe of Green Jade. (Actual size Depth, 14 m.) discovery of several of these whorls in which the spindle-stick still remains fixed, and by the striking resemblance of the terra-cotta whorls to those which are still used by spinsters in some countries.^[18]

Of stone axes, like those represented at p. 445, Nos. 668–670 in Ilios, eight were found this year in the ruins of the first settlement at Troy; five of them being of diorite, and three of jade.^[19] Of these latter I represent one, No. 10, in the actual size. It is of transparent green jade.^[20] Professor H. Bücking has had the kindness ​to send me the following interesting note on Jade: "Jade and Jadeite, the appearance of which is perfectly similar, may, according to the latest investigations by A. Arzruni^[21] and by Berwerth,^[22] be easily distinguished, because Jade belongs to the group of the Amphibols, Jadeite to the group of Pyroxen-minerals, and consequently they differ considerably in the size of the angles of cleavage in which the finer fibres may be recognised."

There were also found two of those curious instruments of diorite (like that represented in Ilios, p. 243, No. 90), which have the same shape as the axes, with the sole difference that at the lower end, where the edge ought to be, they are blunt, perfectly smooth, and from a quarter to half an inch thick. Two precisely similar implements, found in caverns of the stone period in Andalusia, are in the Prehistoric Museum at Madrid; another, discovered in the cavern called "Caverna delle Arene," near Genoa, is in the Prehistoric collection of the Museo Nazionale in the Collegio Romano at Rome.

There were also found four whetstones of indurated slate, with a perforation at the smaller end, like that represented in Ilios, p. 248, No. 101. Besides the places enumerated in Ilios (p. 248), at which similar whetstones were found, I may mention that one, discovered in a tomb at Camirus in the island of Rhodes, is in the Louvre, and three, found in Swiss lake dwellings, are in the Museum of Geneva; another whetstone, of an identical form, was found in the prehistoric cemetery of Koban in the Caucasus.^[23]

No. 11 represents a battle-axe of grey diorite; it is of rude manufacture, and but little polished. It has only one ​sharp edge; the opposite end is blunt, and must have been used as a hammer; in the middle of each side may be Image missingNo 11.—Battle-axe of Grey Diorite. (Size 1:4 Depth, about 14 m.) seen a shallow groove, which proves that the operation of drilling a hole through it had been commenced, but was abandoned. A very similar stone battle-axe, in which the boring was commenced but abandoned, was found in the terramare of the Stone age near Mantua, and is preserved in the Museo Nazionale in the Collegio Romano at Rome. Another stone battle-axe of a similar shape, but in which the perforation is completed, was found in Denmark.^[24]

As stone hammers and axes, in which the operation of drilling a hole on each side has been begun, are of very frequent occurrence, Dr. Dörpfeld suggests to me that it may not have been intended to perforate the instruments, as a wooden handle may easily have been fastened to them by some sort of crotchet.

There were also found in the débris of the first settlement numerous very rude stone-hammers, like that represented in Ilios, p. 237, No. 83. Some similar rude stone hammers, found in Chaldæa, are preserved in the museum of the Louvre; others, found in the terramare of the Emilia, are in the Museums of Reggio and Parma. I may also mention the rudely-cut, nearly globular, stone instruments, like Nos. So and 81, p. 236, in Ilios, which occur by hundreds in all the four lower prehistoric cities of Troy. Besides the localities mentioned on pp. 236, 237, 442, in Ilios, these rude implements, which are usually called corn-bruisers, are also very frequent in the Italian terramare, and many of them may be seen in the Museums ​of Reggio and Parma; others, found among the ancient ruins in Chaldæa, are in the small Chaldæan Collection in the Louvre.

I also collected a large number of saddle-querns of trachyte, like those represented in Ilios, p. 234, Nos. 74, 75, and p. 447, No. 678, which abound in all the four lower prehistoric cities of Troy. Besides the places mentioned at p. 234 in Ilios, they are also frequent in the terramare of the Emilia, and a large number of them may be seen in the Museums of Reggio and Parma; others, found in the "Caverna delle Arene Candide," near Genoa, are in the Museo Nazionale in the Collegio Romano at Rome. Six similar saddle-querns of ferruginous sandstone are in the Museum of Saint Germain-en-Laye; the Prehistoric Museum of Geneva contains four, which were found in the Swiss lake dwellings. Many similar saddle-querns of trachyte have recently been found in the lowest layers of débris in the Acropolis of Athens.

In Ilios (pp. 234, 235) I have already explained the fact that the grain was bruised between the flat sides of two of these querns, but that only a kind of groats, not flour, could have been produced in this way, and that the bruised grain could not have been used for making regular bread. I have further pointed out that in Homer we find it used as porridge,^[25] and also for sprinkling on roasted meat.^[26] I may add that, according to another passage in Homer, it was used as an ingredient of a peculiar mixed beverage, which Hecamedé prepares in the tent of Nestor, of Pramnian wine, rasped goat's-cheese, and barley-meal (ἄλφιτα).^[27] Although no regular bread, such as we have, can be made of bruised grain, yet something must have been prepared ​from it which passed by the name of bread (σίτος), and which in the Homeric poems we always find on the table as an indispensable accessory of all meals. The poet nowhere tells us how it was made or what was its form, nor does he ever mention ovens, which are certainly not found also in the ruins of Troy. I would suggest that the Homeric bread was probably made in the same way as we see the Bedouins of the desert make theirs, who, after having kneaded the dough, turn it into the form of pancakes, which they throw on the embers of a fire kindled in the open air, where it gets baked in a few moments. A similar mode of baking bread seems also implied by the fact that leathern bags filled with such meal (άλφιτα) were taken for use on the road in a journey; thus, for example, we see that, when Telemachus prepares for his journey to Pylos, he orders Euryclea to put him up twenty measures of this meal in leathern bags.^[28] Professor W. Helbig^[29] calls attention to the fact that, as I have stated with regard to the Trojans, there is among the inhabitants of the terramare villages no trace of any arrangement for baking bread, and he holds that we must conclude from this that, like the Germans, they prepared a sort of porridge from pounded grains. Helbig adds: "In the public Roman rite, which here, as nearly everywhere else, kept up the ancient custom, not bread was offered, but always parched spelt-grains, the far tostum, flour spiced with salt, the mola salsa, or porridge, puls. Varro^[30] and Pliny^[31] are therefore perfectly right in stating that for a long time the Romans ​knew no other form of food from grain than puls. It was only at a time comparatively late that leaven, the addition of which is so essential to make flour into wholesome savoury bread, came into general use. It was still considered as an unusal innovation at the time when the Romans regulated the discipline of the Flamen Dialis; for the priest was forbidden to touch farinam fermento imbutam.^[32] Tradition has even preserved a trace of the fact that there existed no proper apparatus for grinding at the time of the oldest Italic development; because the mola versatilis, the more perfected apparatus, whose upper part was turned by a handle above the lower one, was, according to Varro,^[33] an invention of the Volsinians. This tradition, therefore, presupposed an older epoch, during which people put up with other more imperfect means, possibly with two stones such as were used by the ancient inhabitants of the terramare villages for pounding the grains. I may here remind the reader that the identical Greek and Latin words, μύλη = mola, πτίσσω = pinso, πόλτος = puls, prove that the Graeco-Italians used the cereals in the same manner as the inhabitants of the terramare villages—a fact which is not without significance for our investigation, as among all Italic settlements these villages stand in time and space nearest to the Graeco-Italic stage of civilization (stadium)."

Of well-polished perforated axes like No. 91, p. 244 in Ilios, only two halves were found in the first city; of single and double-edged saws of white or brown flint or chalcedony, like Nos. 93–98, p. 246 in Ilios, a very large number were again gathered in all the four lower prehistoric settlements of Troy. Besides the localities enumerated on pp. 245 and 246 of Ilios, I must mention seventeen similar saws, which were found in the recess of a rock at ​Beït-Sahour, near Bethlehem in Palestine, and which are preserved in the Museum of Saint Germain-en-Laye. Some similar flint saws were also found in the very ancient grotto already mentioned, called "Grotta del Diavolo," near Bologna.^[34] Several saws of silex, as well as knives of silex and obsidian, found at Warka and Mugheir in Assyria, are in the British Museum.

Of polishers of serpentine, jasper, diorite, or porphyry, a large number were again found in all the four lower prehistoric settlements of Troy.

Of bronze or copper, there were found in the débris of the first settlement only a knife, like that represented under No. 118, p. 250 in Ilios, some punches similar to those under Nos. 109 and 110, p. 249 in Ilios, and from twelve to fifteen brooches, some of which have a globular

head, others a head in the form of a spiral. I here give one of the former under No. 12, of the latter one under No. 13: both of them are bent at right angles. Both these forms of brooch served the ancient Trojan settlers instead of the fibula, which never occurs here in any one of the five prehistoric cities, nor in the Lydian city of Hissarlik, and which must have been invented at a much later period.^[35] It deserves very particular attention, that ​brooches of bronze or copper with globular heads are also very frequent in the terramare of the Emilia, in which the fibula has never yet been found.^[36] On the other hand, these brooches are never found in the funeral hut-urns discovered at Marino near Albano and in the environs of Corneto, in which the fibulae are very abundant. It appears, therefore, certain that these hut-urns, for which a very high antiquity is generally claimed, belong to a later time than the latest prehistoric city, and even to a later time than the Lydian settlement of Troy. In most of the Swiss lake dwellings both the brooches with globular heads and those with spiral heads are found together with fibulae, from which we must naturally conclude that these lake dwellings belong to a comparatively late time; for, as Professor Rudolf Virchow^[37] justly remarks, the fibula has been "engendered" by the straight brooch. This scholar also found fibulae, together with brooches with spiral or globular heads, in his excavations in the prehistoric Necropolis of Upper Koban in the Caucasus,^[38] which belongs to the 9th or 10th century, B.C.^[39] I must say the same of the ancient necropolis of Samthawro near Mtskheth, the ancient capital of Georgia, which has been excavated by the "Société des Amateurs d'Archéologie du Caucase,"^[40] where fibulae also occur together with globular-headed or spiral-headed ​brooches. I may still further mention that a bronze brooch with a spiral head was found in the ancient cemetery on the Kattenborn road in the district of Guben.^[41]

I think it not out of place to observe here that we do not find in Homer any special word to designate metals; but we find in the poems the verb μεταλλάω,^[42] with which is connected the later substantive μέταλλον, which the ancients acknowledged to be derived from μετ᾿ ἄλλα. Consequently μεταλλᾶν signified "to search for other things," and μέταλλον the research, the spot where researches were made, and the object of research itself.^[43] From this was developed the more special signification of mines, shafts in which metals, minerals, &c., were searched for; and thence the expression μέταλλα was transferred to the minerals, and especially metals, obtained from the mines.^[44]

Having discussed at great length in Ilios (pp. 253–260) the interesting question, whence the Trojans obtained their gold, I may here add that Mr. Calvert has called my attention to a passage in Strabo not noticed by me, according 'to which Demetrius of Scepsis received from Callisthenes and some other authors the legend, "that the wealth of Tantalus and the Pelopids was derived from the mines in Phrygia and the Sipylus; that of Cadmus, from those in Thrace and the mountain of Pangaeus; that of Priam, from the gold-mines of Astyra near Abydos, of which a little has remained until now, and of which the numerous heaps of earth thrown out, as well as the underground ​passages, prove the ancient mining industry: that the riches of Midas were derived from the mines of the mountain of Bermion; the wealth of Gyges, Alyattes, and Croesus, from those of Lydia and one near a small desert town between Atarneus and Pergamum, which has exhausted mines."^[45] Mr. Calvert further calls my attention to the passage in Pliny:^[46] "Gemmae nascuntur et repente novae, ac sine nominibus: sicut olim Lampsaci in metallis aurariis una inventa, quae propter pulchritudinem Alexandro regi missa fuit, ut auctor est Theophrastus."^[47] Lampsacus is not more than 30 kilomètres to the north of Abydos, and 55 from Ilium. Mr. Calvert also cites to me the passage of the famous Dr. Chandler: "The principal countries whence the Greeks procured their gold were India, Arabia, Armenia, Colchis, and the Troade." It affords me pleasure to add that Mr. Calvert is now exploring the mines of Astyra, of which he has obtained from the Sublime Porte the concession for ninety-nine years.

There was found a large number of awls and needles of bone; also some small objects of ivory, like those represented in Ilios, p. 261, Nos. 123–140.

Besides the places enumerated on p. 262 in Ilios, bone-needles of a similar form were found in the Grotta del Diavolo, near Bologna,^[48] the antiquities of which, as mentioned above, are attributed to the first epoch of the reindeer. They also occur in the terramare of the Emilia.

Huckle-bones (astragali) occur in all the prehistoric ​cities of Troy, and Professor R. Virchow found a number of them, but all perforated, in his excavations in the Image missingNo. 14.—Huckle-bone (Astragalus). Half-size. Depth about 14 m. prehistoric necropolis of Upper Koban in the Caucasus.^[49]

The huckle-bone given in Ilios, p. 262, No. 143, having been badly photographed, I represent here, under No. 14, another which was found in the débris of the first city.

It is impossible to ascertain from the ruins of this first settlement, whether it was peacefully abandoned by its inhabitants, or whether it was destroyed by the hand of an enemy, for there are no signs of either a partial or a general catastrophe.