DR. SCHLIEMANN : HIS LIFE AND WORK. 35 



the sentimentality of vulgar upstarts, began to parade Ilium as the home of their 

 ancestors, that another important town marked the persistent site. 



Moreover, he had also failed to distinguish clearly the second and third 

 layers of remains on this ever re-established site, for the settlers who came after 

 the great conflagration did not level more than they wanted, and the old build- 

 ings here and there reach up through the stratum produced by the third settle- 

 ment. Again, what he calls the sixth city was not marked by a layer of soil, 

 but only by a large assortment of very peculiar non-Hellenic pottery, which he 

 had called Lydian, but which he now declines to call by any name, while insist- 

 ing upon the fact of its presence and peculiar character. The outcome of his 

 long labor is, therefore, briefly this : on the site of Hissarlik, and there only in 

 the Troad, there are piled up one upon the other a great series of human traces, 

 reaching from the most remote antiquity into the decline of the Roman Empire. 

 These human traces were separated into periods, in that each of them is covered 

 by a more or less distinct layer of earth and ashes, upon which the next is laid. 

 There are at least six of these layers ; and what is most important and remarka- 

 ble, only the topmost (sixth or seventh) is of what we call a historical char- 

 acter. It alone shows the distinctly Hellenic character in both its pottery, 

 its utensils, and its buildings, and reaches a very little way (not more than six 

 feet) into the earth. Nevertheless, we know that a small Greek town existed 

 there for at least six centuries before Christ. If, then, the remains of such an- 

 tiquity reach down to only six feet under-ground, what shall we say of the anti- 

 quity of the older settlements, which are to be traced down to fifty-two feet under 

 the present level ? The mind recoils somewhat aghast from so gigantic a com- 

 putation. But the character of these older remains corroborates our conclusion. 

 They all bear a distinctly prehistoric character. There is no trace of coinage, of 

 writing, of painting on terra cotta, nay, in the deepest layers even the potter's 

 wheel seems hardly known, and the wares are of the rudest hand-made descrip- 

 tion. The closer details as to these successive lasers of pottery are very clearly 

 given in a remarkable letter from Rudolph Virchow — a European name — and 

 printed (pp. 376 et seq.) in the new volume. He there shows " that there is no 

 place in Europe known which could be put in direct connection with any one 

 of the lower six cities of Hissarlik." And again, after describing the character 

 of archaic Greek pottery, he adds : " Seeing, then, that this highly characteris- 

 tic archaic pottery is totally absent in the deeper strata in Hissarlik, we are at a 

 loss to discover what in all the world is to be called Greek in them. With equal 

 truth might many kinds of vases from Mexico and Yucatan, nay, even from the 

 river Amazon, be called Greek." This is in answer to the ignorant people who 

 attempt to assign late historical dates to all the successive settlements, save one. 

 The non-Hellenic, if not pre-historic, character of these rude wares is singularly 

 illustrated by comparing them with the oldest pottery our author found at 

 Mycenae. In the latter, though there can be little doubt that their date is not 

 later than ten centuries before Christ, we find the unmistakable character of 

 Hellenic work. They are the direct ancestors of the splendid vases imported to 



