Sept. lo, T874] 



NATURE 



385 



true, believed that they had discovered the ruins long ago. 

 Towards the end of last century (i 7S8), a French traveller, 

 Le Chevalier, professed even to have proved that Virgil 

 was mistaken in placing, along with all Greek antiquity, 

 the city of Troy and its citadel on the heights indicated 

 by Homer, the little hill which to-day bears the name of 

 Hissarlik.* According to him, the Homeric city must 

 have been built upon the site occupied by the present 

 village of Bunarbashi ; the citadel of Pergamos was 

 situated, on the contrary, on one of the rocky hills 

 which encloses the Scamander, and at the summit of 

 which is seen three conical knolls, ranged in a line, which 

 Le Chevalier regarded as the tombs of the Trojan heroes. 

 As to the springs which flow from the foot of the hill, 

 these were, according to the author of the " Voyage en 

 Troade," those where the Trojan girls went to wash their 

 clothes. 



Although based on topographic data very open to con- 

 troversy and upon te.xts falsely interpreted, the work pub- 



lished in 17SS by Le Chevalier had a very great success 

 (three editions from 17SS-1802), and his opinion, tho- 

 roughly erroneous as it was, acquired, so to speak, the 

 force of law. 



Even quite recently (in 187 1), this opinion found an 

 unfortunate defender in Dr. Karl Curtius, of Berlin, and 

 that at the very moment when the excavations of Sir John 

 Lubbock, of Consul Hahn, and, above all, those of Dr. 

 Schliemann, put Bunarbashi out of the question, and 

 brought forward the most convincing proofs in favour of 

 Hissarlik. 



In fact, these excavations have demonstrated, as far as 

 evidence can go, that neither the pretended Trojan tombs 

 indicated by Le Chevalier, nor the site of Bunarbashi 

 itself, contains any archaic object, any trace of human 

 habitation. It is, then, neither at Bunarbashi, nor at 

 Chiblak, nor at Atchi-Kienni (which is now quite given 

 up), that we must seek for the veritable Troy and the 

 citadel of Pergamos. Let us see if we shall be more 



fortunate in carrying on our investigations on the site of 

 Hissarlik ; that is to say, in allowing ourselves to be guided 

 by popular tradition, the writings of the most ancient 

 trustworthy authors, and chiefly by the gigantic excava- 

 tions executed at so great an expense and with so much 

 zeal and intelligence by Dr. Schliemann and his wife. 



Here, independently of the authority of Homer, we have 

 still that of Herodotus, of Xcnophon, of Arrian, of 

 Plutarch, of Justin, who all agree in placing the Ilion of 

 Homer at Hissarlik ; that is, at the place where Dr. 

 Schliemann has found ruins overlaid by many layers of 

 more recent ruins. In one of these layers, which extends 

 from seven to ten metres below the summit of the hill, 

 are found, in fact, incontestable proofs of a violent 

 fire,f — a palace, a double gate situated on the west of this 



* For an excellent study on the topography of Troy, see an article by M. 

 Emile Bumouf in the Revue lies Deux-Mondes of Jan. i, 1874. 



t M. E. Burnouf places the fire in the seventeenth, century B.C., 700 

 years, according to some, before the time of Homer. 



palace, a tower rising at some distance from the double 

 gate, religious symbols (images and vases in the shape of 

 an owl, -yXotiKcoTTis 'A^i/i'i;), and finally a treasure containing 

 objects which, in their smallest details, answer to the 

 descriptions which Homer gives us. Is there not here 

 enough to satisfy the most sceptical and most exalt- 

 ing .?' 



Begun in the month of April 1870, the excavations 

 executed by Dr. Schliemann were only terminated in 

 October 1873. They have thus occupied him three entire 

 years, and that in the midst of the greatest difficulties, 

 sometimes even at the risk of his life and that of the 

 numerous workmen, Turks and Greeks, whom he employs 

 in these works. I pass in silence the harassing difficul- 

 ties which the Turkish Government has raised to prevent 

 him attaining the precious results with which these exca- 

 vations have enriched the science of the past. 

 ( To be continued^ 



