Ancient Troy Bayard Taylor. 



Indies lonsr, with a small silver vase, wcldort to it by the 

 action of lire ; a coition flagon, weighing nearly a 

 pound; two golden uolilots, ouu of which weighed nearly 

 a pouud and a quarter (600 uram rues), and had i\vo months 

 for drinking a small one for tho host and a larvo one 

 for the guesr. The, latter had been cast, bat tins former, 

 as well as the flagon, were of bdonuered work. There 

 were, furthor, pieces of silver which were probably 

 "talents" the tulttnta of Homer throe silver vases, 

 with two smaller ones; a silver bowl, 14 copper huice- 

 heaiis. tnc same number of cupper nutile-axes, two large 

 two-fdired copper daggers, a part of a swore', and some 

 r articles. 



THE DOUBLE-MOUTHED GOLDEN CUP, FROM THE 

 HOUSE OF PRIAM. 



All these objects were closely packed in a quad- 

 rangular space, surrounded with wood ashes, and 

 near them lay a copper key, 4 inches in length, 

 whence Schlieraanu conjectured that they had been 

 packed in a wooden chest, which, left behind in the 

 terror of the conflagration, was afterward covered 

 by the ruins of the fal.ing beams and walls. Within 

 the House of Priam, on the inside of the city wall, he 

 found a helmet and a silver vase about 7A inches in 

 hight, in which were two diadems of golden scales. 

 a golden coronet, 56 golden ear-rings, and 8,750 small 

 gold rings, buttons, &c. The fashion of all these 

 articles has no resemblance to the ancient Egyptian 

 or Assyrian ornaments: the Trojan jewelry.no less 

 than the pottery, is entirely original. Whatever 

 symbolic forms it assumes (with the exception of the 

 owl of Pallas) point toward the far-off, mysterious 

 home of the Aryan race in Central Asia. The value. 

 Ly weight alone, of all the gold and silver found in 

 or near the House of Priam, has been estimated at 

 20,000. 



GOLDEN EAR-RINGS, FKOM THE HOUSE OF PKIAM. 



Schliemann now hastened to bring his labors to an 

 end. and thus secure the results of what he had al- 

 ready accomplished. He broke away a large part of 

 the upper Avail which rested on the ashes where the 

 treasure was found, enlarged the excavation around 

 the Scsean Gate, and opened new rooms of the royal 

 house; but little of interest was found except a 

 tablet of red slate, with an inscription in some un- 

 known Ian gu a ere, and three silver bowls. He also, 

 by sinking a number of shafts k the lower plateau 

 of Hissailik, and lindiug now here auv trace of either 



Trojan walls or Trojan pottery, convinced himself 

 that ancient Ilium did not extend beyond the cir- 

 cuit of the upper plateau, and could hardly have 

 contained a population of more than 5,000 inhab- 

 itants. This, however, is no measure of the power 

 of the Trojan State, or the auxiliary forces which 

 it could bring into the Held. Tho large, heroic can- 

 vas of Homer, he argues, has misled the antiquarian?, 

 and he points to tho fact that Athens Vv'as famous 

 when the Acropolis smaller than the Ferganios of 

 Troy inclosed the whole of the primitive city. 



On tho 17th of June the researches came to an end. 

 What has been uncovered will be left so. and it is to 

 be hoped that the legend of the Savior's visit to 

 King Priam will take root among tho ignorant 

 modern Trojans and preserve the walls which no 



other argument could make sacied to them. 

 Schliemann's wonderful success in 1878 was due, 



in a great measure, to the conclusions which he had 

 reached during the excavations of 1872. He con- 

 tinued the classification of the ruins and the relics 

 they contained, and soon found that they might be 

 divided into four distinct strata, each of which 

 represented a long historic period. Further com- 

 parison convinced him that the third of these strata, 

 counting from the top, was tue only one which met 

 the requirements of Homer and Greek tradition ; 

 consequently, here was Troy. But under Troy there 

 was an earlier layer of ruin, varying from 13 to 20 

 feet in depth, before the primitive soil was reached. 

 This discovery is hardly less interesting than that 

 of tho position of Troy. It carries the antiquity of 

 the city back into that immense, shadowy past of 

 the human race, which stretches like a mysterious 

 twilight land behind our oldest history. The geo- 

 graphical position of Ilium explains its importance 

 in those far-off ages. The gorges of Ida protect it 

 in the rear ; seated at the junction of the Hellespont 

 with the ^3geau, it made a station between Colchis,- 

 at the eastern extremity of the Euxine, and all the 

 Grecian, Egyptian, and Phoenician coasts ; the rich 

 plain around it furnished abundant supplies, which 

 could readily be exchanged for foreign merchandise, 

 and as its people became rich and impregnable 

 within their citadel-town, the other and ruder tribes 

 in their neighborhood would yield to their power. 

 It is certainly older, by a great many centuries, than 

 Athens, and its immemorial importance was no 

 doubt the first cause of the jealousy of the sensitive 

 Greeks. 



The topmost historical stratum, which is only 6} 

 feet in depth, seems to begin about the year 700 

 B. C., when a Grecian settlement was established 

 there under the Lydian dynasty. From that period, 

 coins and inscriptions indicate the subsequent cen- 

 turies until about the middle of the fourth century 

 of our era. There are no later coins or medals than 

 of Constans II., whose reign ceased in 361 A. D. 

 Schliemann is of the opinion that the city was de- 

 stroyed at that time, or soon afterward, but gives 

 no conjecture of the manner of its fall. It seems to 

 me that the raids of the Goths, then settled on the 

 northern shore of the Black Sea where they built 

 fleets, even sailing through the Bosphorus in proud 



