10 



Tribune Extras Lecture and Letter Series. 



defiance of Constantinople, to ravaire the coasts of 

 Greece anil Asia .Minor, give us an easy explanation. 

 The Greek Ilium, which covered the whole el' tin- 

 lower plateau of Hissarlik, must have contained 

 100,000 inhabitant s. It was a rich, and at that time 

 donbtle. a luxurious ciiy, clearly visible from the 

 waters of the Hellespont, speedily reached and in- 

 capable of resisting Mich stalwai is. 



We have ll.iis an age if) for the first 6 



feet of rubbish. At this dijn.i the Give!; masonry 

 suddenly cva-i s and a .-tratum 17 feet in thick- 

 ness intei venes between it and the massive budd- 

 ings of the Trojan era. The relics here found are 

 of a perplexing character, and will give plciitv of 

 work to lie- arch;e, .heists. The walls are built of 

 earth a:nl .-mall s, me-, but the abundance of wood 

 allies s!n>ws that the city or the successive cities- 

 was chieily built of wood. If the chronology of the 

 Trojan auc can b approximately established, it- 

 will, of course, trive us t he duration of this interme- 

 diate bi-H c t' ruin ; at present, it is scarcely possible 

 even t,i guess. 



The ruins of Troy form a stratum averaging 10 feet 

 in thieknos, ihe. depth (from the surface) leaching 

 from _':;: to 834 feet. Si m.-o the foundation of the 

 city is conj'ctnr-'l to have taken place about 1400 

 L. C.. and its fall and destruction by fire to have 

 occurred about 1100 13. C., this would give three 

 centuries f>.r the formation of ten feet of ruin 

 which is quite sufficient it' we imagine a small but 

 crowded city, with houses of more than one story 

 and much wood-work, of which the ruins give ample 

 evidence. The marks of intense heat are everywhere 

 manifest. When the Sca-an Gate was first uncovered, 

 the pavement seemed uniformly T)erfect; but at the 

 end of two or time months the stone blocks along 

 the upper part of the street, which had been exposed 

 to the flame, crumbled almost entirely away, to a 

 distance of ID feet from the Gate. The other blocks, 

 protected by their situation, remain solid, and 

 promise to stand for centuries. 



Finally, under Troy, there is a fourth stratum of 

 ruin, varying from 13 to 20 feet in depth, as I have 

 already stated. Tito age of this is a matter of pure 

 conjecture, since t he vicissitudes of the city's hist or\ 

 frequent destruction and rebuilding would have 

 the sain-- practical ellect, or very nearly so, as a 

 long interval of time. We have anywhere from 

 two to live thousand years before Christ taxing 

 Kiryptian, I'lucniriaa. or Pelasgic remains as guides 

 as the dale of t he foundation of ttwfint Troy. 

 l:i M \I\-i or THK FIRST PKRIOD. 



Filled with iiis Homeric enthusiasm, Schliomann 

 gives us in the pi-e.-;.-nt work, only fragmentary and 

 imperfect accounts of the characteristics of the 

 earliest ruin-. The m-i,! remarkable feature, per- 

 haps, is the siipi -ii inly of the terra-cotta articles, 

 which indicate a irivaler decree of taste and skill 



than those in the subsequent strata. From the be- 

 ginning down to the (ireek period, the evidences of 

 tk ffradltclljl dcdinhifj nrili^ntinn are to clear, in the 

 discoverer's opinion, that they mn-t be accepted. 

 The early vases are of a shining black, red or brown 

 color, \vi:h ornamental patterns, first cut into the 



10 tery and then filled whb a white substance. Only 



Hne pice.- of pai'itcd terra-cotta was four.:!. 'I'ho 

 iahabitants ol tlie city were certainly Aryans. This 

 fact i;< illustrated in their manner ot building, and 

 .il-oin the ircqncncy of the earliest An an reliuiciis 

 symbols, upon the terra- ot. a disks especially the 

 two forms of the C'ld s : 



r-Jj^TL 



" i I Ir- 



AUYA.N .sV.MI'.ilI.S TIIK C KOSS. 



The first of these svmbi.l- refers to J-'i re, or rather 

 the birth of lire, 1 he legend of which, ir. the Sanskrit 

 liiij-l'i-d/t, has such an astoni-hini: resemblance to 

 the outline of the Christian theology. The other 

 appears to be a modification of the sain idea. Since 

 the path of early Aryan migration westward irua 

 Central Asia seems to have been by way of the Cas- 

 pian and Black Seas, it is reasonable to suppose that 

 one of its many dividing and subdividing currents 

 found a permanent rest ing-place in the Troad. 

 REMAINS OF TIIK SKCOX1), OH TUOJAX PKKIOD. 



I must not omit to mention That, among other evi- 

 dences of the destruction of Trov by a lii-rce conlla- 

 gration, Dr. Schliemann found a layer of Blairs of 

 melled lead and copper, in soaie places an inch 

 t hick, extending over the whole site of a city. Tho 

 blackened walls, the masses of wood-a .-lies and cal- 

 cined stone, tillinar up the chambers of the ruined 

 houses until a rough plain was left for tlio next city- 

 "builders, would, however, have been a sr;llicient con- 

 firmation of the Grork legend. With the except ion of 

 the large and stately edifice of massive stone between 

 the Tower and the Sciran G:te, nearly all the houses 

 of Troy were built of unbnrned brick (afterward part- 

 ly burned and hardened by tin; conflagration), with 

 sills of hewn stone. Tho size and character of the 

 large house, together with t he greater excellence ot 

 the vases fi>und in its chambers, the helmeted skele- 

 tons at its dours, the heap of human bones, siigirest- 

 i;r;- a desperate defense, and finally tlu treasures of 

 gold and silver found beside it, en (he city wall all 

 these circumstances so disf iiiL'iiisli if, ar.img the 

 ot her and loss important ruins that it may well have 

 been a royal residence. The number of articles col- 

 lected is so enormous, and their character is so iinu- 

 enal and various, I hat I cannot undertake to describe 

 them in detail. Only one inscription was found, and 

 that in unknown characters. I copy, from Schliv- 

 manifs photographic atlas, the form of a singular 

 \ ase found in the House of 1'riam. 



The owl-headed Minerva was frequently recovered, 

 especially upon another large vase in the royal 

 house. Many of the urns and jars are made with 

 shallow channels passing around the middle, to hold 

 the cords by which they were siisp-a-.h-d. Of arti- 

 cles of pure art, then' we nly found :t Unto mado 



of bone, and a fragment of a four-stringed lyre, of 

 ivory, elegantly carved. Tho Aryan symbols, in- 



