ARCHEOLOGY. 



any bishopric. He was possessed of great 

 wealth, derived entirely from his parents, as 

 he solemnly declares in his will, and at his 

 death left his property mainly to his family. 

 He was a man of taste, had a fine gallery and 

 a remarkable collection of gems, which he be- 

 queathed to the Vatican Museum. He was in- 

 terred in the cemetery of San Lorenzo, with- 

 out the walls of Rome. 



ARCHAEOLOGY. The excavations of Dr. 

 Schliemann in Mycenae and General di Ces- 

 nola upon Cyprus have brought to light mon- 

 uments of ancient art and culture, affording a 

 revelation of the early Greek world, as impor- 

 tant and interesting as any archaeological dis- 

 coveries made in modern times. These dis- 

 coveries were not in any manner accidental. 

 The two explorers are zealous students of 

 archaeology, who pursued their investigations 

 with an intelligent preconception of the re- 

 sults, amid many difficulties, and only achieved 

 their great discoveries after long and arduous 

 and expensive preliminary labors. Both ex- 

 plorers, with disinterested generosity, relin- 

 quished the pecuniary profits which they might 

 have reaped from their long and difficult inves- 

 tigations, whose expense they had borne un- 

 aided, and in which they had embarked their 

 private fortunes. Dr. Schliemann has presented 

 his treasure outright to the Greek Government, 

 and General di Cesnola has abated a consider- 

 able profit, in order that, in the interest of 

 science, his collection might be preserved en- 

 tire, and has delivered it by preference to the 

 study of his fellow-citizens of America. Archae- 

 ological research has been prosecuted with 

 activity of late also at Pompeii, Rome, and else- 

 where. The wealth of art which lies concealed 

 under the soil of Cyprus is probably far from 

 exhausted ; and the treasures buried in the ruins 

 of Mycenae are still being unearthed by the 

 energetic German Hellenist. These extraor- 

 dinary discoveries will probably stimulate an- 

 tiquarian investigation to new efforts, and fur- 

 ther revelations of the life, art, and history of 

 the great nations of antiquity may be yet sifted 

 out of the secular dust of buried cities. 



Dr. Heinrich Schliemann, whose archaeo- 

 logical discoveries in Asia Minor, and much- 

 doubted identification of the site of ancient 

 Troy, brought to the enthusiastic explorer 

 rather unmerited ridicule than the honor which 

 belongs to an attempt so disinterested to clear 

 up the history of those races whose splendid 

 deeds were the burden of Homer's song, has 

 made further archaeological discoveries this 

 last year in Argolis, which cannot fail to win 

 the applause which his enthusiastic purpose 

 has amply deserved. In excavating upon the 

 site of Mycenae, Dr. Schliemann has discovered 

 the remains of a well-built city of prehistoric 

 date, and in richly-furnished dwellings and 

 tombs of the same has found relics of a fine 

 art-culture. These discoveries, in confirming 

 Homer's accounts of thf> culture and advance- 

 ment of the Argives, go further to establish 



the historic truth of the " Iliad " than would 

 the recovery of an authentic record, or the 

 location of all the places mentioned in the 

 epic. 



Heinrich Schliemann, whose parents were 

 not wealthy, acquired the knowledge of the 

 Greek language first when he was well ad- 

 vanced in years. Though always showing a 

 love of study, he received no academic educa- 

 tion, but entered the employ of a mercantile 

 house at an early age, and in the progress of 

 an industrious commercial career acquired a 

 considerable fortune in St. Petersburg. In the 

 mean time he had learned several modern lan- 

 guages, Greek among them, and gained a good 

 store of general information, and, when at last 

 he had leisure, he devoted himself to the study 

 of ancient Greek, for which he had a long- 

 cherished inclination. Impressed with the 

 vivid narrative of the Homeric epos, he be- 

 came fired with the purpose of restoring to the 

 province of history the stories of the " Iliad," 

 which over-critical modem scholarship had 

 relegated to the land of fable. To this pur- 

 pose he devoted his leisure and his means and 

 energetic abilities, acquired in the school of 

 practical affairs. 



Seeking the ancient Ilion, he excavated in 

 the hill of Hissarlik, which the mass of ancient 

 testimony pointed out as the site of Troy. 

 Here he indeed discovered the remains of a 

 great city of high antiquity, which may very 

 probably have been the Troy of Homer, though 

 that can hardly be proved. His excavations 

 were laboriously pursued on a large scale 

 between 1870 and 1873, his method being to 

 sink vertical shafts and then cut transverse 

 galleries underground. There were found 

 traces of two different cities. The upper one 

 was Greek ; and near the surface coins were 

 found of the time of Constantino. From forty 

 to fifty feet below the surface were found the 

 remains of an older town, which the doctor too 

 positively asserts to have been Troy, and which, 

 in his much- criticised book, " Trojanische Al- 

 terthilmer " (1874), he endeavors to prove. 

 Among the objects disinterred were a rich 

 store of pottery of Oriental form and ornamen- 

 tation, articles of jewelry, etc. A treasure was 

 found in the ruins of a palace which seemed 

 to have been abandoned in haste ; an abun- 

 dance of red ashes bears witness to a conflagra- 

 tion ; a large number of helmeted skeletons, 

 found in what Schliemann identifies as the 

 temple of Athene, the patron saint of Ilion, 

 show that the city was captured and destroyed 

 in war ; but there is too little evidence, and 

 the evidence is too inconsistent, to establish its 

 identification with the Homeric Ilion. The in- 

 habitants of this ancient city were of Aryan 

 stock, as is proved by an abundance of Aryan 

 symbols among the relics. 



Dr. Schliemann next transferred his opera- 

 tions to Mycenaa, the capital of Argolis and 

 seat of Agamemnon. Here again he has been 

 rewarded during the past year, after extensive 



