A Bad Rap for Heinrich

 

 A Bad Rap for Heinrich

I think that poor old Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890) has gotten a bad rap over the years. His detractors have focused on his seemingly destructive approach to archaeology, his misattribution of finds and their faulty dating, his lack of formal training and ignorance of professional and scientific standards, and his removal of valuable objects from Turkey without permission. Despite these criticisms, the fact remains that he was the visionary who unearthed Homer’s Troy for the world and brought us to the understanding that the Iliad was as much a history book as it was a story book.

The main accusation levied against Schliemann was the fact that he drove a deep and destructive trench through the mound of Hisarlik and in doing so, damaged the archaeological context of the site, to the extent that much of the valuable evidence of the various levels of Trojan history was lost forever. The problem with that condemnation is that Schliemann is being judged for his actions based on today’s standards of archaeology. Indeed, Schliemann had no formal training in the science of archaeology, but that science was just in its infancy. We cannot condemn the man for his lack of knowledge about stratification, ground-penetrating radar, Lidar, Carbon-14 dating and all the other modern scientific tools and methods that are brought to bear at modern archaeological digs. These things simply did not exist and for the most part, neither did archaeologists. Most history buffs in Schliemann’s day were known as antiquarians and not scientists. They were the precursors to modern archaeology and were generally enthusiasts, collectors or scholars of antiquities who had the time, passion and money to pursue their hobby. Their sole purpose was to put shovels in the ground, unearth the past and find hidden treasures to add to their collections. They seldom recorded what they were doing or the results of their actions. We may question their methods today, but we do so with highly informed and scientific hindsight.

The second accusation against Schliemann was that he misidentified many of the most significant objects that he found and was far off the mark with his attempts at dating. For example, the gold and jewels that he discovered at Troy and called the Treasure of Priam of the Jewels of Helen actually dated from approximately 1,000 years before the time of the Trojan War. We now believe that Homer’s Troy was Troy VI or perhaps VII and the treasure in question was dug out of the rubble of Troy II. Likewise at the site of Mycenae in the Greek Peloponnese, what Schliemann discovered at the bottom of the shaft graves in Grave Circle A, and especially the famous Death Mask of Agamemnon, actually dated to a period several hundred years before the time of the famous king of the Late Bronze Age. But as far as dating is concerned, Schliemann had no access to or knowledge of modern dating methods such as Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrometry, or scanning electron microscopy or the measurement of isotope ratios. He was simply looking to prove the historical fact of the city of Troy and the people and war that led to its destruction and the objects which he found fit neatly with his argument. He may have jumped to a wrong conclusion about the objects that he held in his hands, but the fact remains that he actually uncovered them in the first place and for this we must give him full credit.

Schliemann is also accused of some shady dealings, especially when it came to spiriting objects out of Turkey without the official permission of the Turkish authorities. First of all, let us bear in mind that the government of Turkey took an adversarial position against Schliemann from the very start and did everything in its power to delay the issuance of his firman or official dig permit. After the government had eventually given its permission for the dig at Hisarlik, it posted guards at the site and watched Schliemann’s every move to ensure that half of everything that was gathered from the site was allocated to the Turkish government. Schliemann’s attitude towards the Turks was typical of that held by many Europeans and was intensified by the way that he felt he had been treated by them. The Turks or the Ottomans were frequently seen as barbarians, infidels and a threat to European civilization. They were seen as non-white, non-Christian foreigners whose empire was stagnant and backward and ruled by a cruel and despotic regime. During the Balkan revolts of the 1870’s, there were several reports of Ottoman atrocities against Christian subjects and this fueled extreme outrage. Europeans viewed Turks, Arabs, Egyptians and Africans as lesser beings worthy of exploitation, colonization and even enslavement. Schliemann’s attempts to get the upper hand, though certainly not praiseworthy or acceptable by modern standards of morality, were certainly in keeping with the general opinion of the day among his peers.

Heinrich Schliemann was a man with a mission. He set out to prove to the world that the city of Troy was more than a fanciful place in an old story and that Homer’s Iliad was based on facts and was not fiction or mythology. He proved conclusively that the mythical city existed and he single-handedly brought ancient history to life through his excavation of all nine layers of the Trojan city. Though his methods now seem crude to us, he was one of the founding fathers of the science of archaeology and his work at Troy, Mycenae and Tiryns paved the way for future scholars.

Schliemann was a wealthy businessman who funded his own archaeological dreams. He had made two fortunes and was lucky enough to be able to retire and pursue his passion. He was an amateur archaeologist who was obsessed with Homer and the civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean and Aegean. He had vision, passion and determination and the money to act. He was accompanied by his Greek wife Sophia at every step along the way. He did not have any formal training but was a master of languages and knew how to write well. It is said that he could learn a new language in the space of three weeks. He published his findings freely and in fact was awarded a PhD in absentia by the University of Rostock for one of his books that he had submitted to them as a dissertation. Heinrich and Sophia had two children, interestingly named Andromache and Agamemnon. Heinrich died on Christmas Day in 1890 in Naples while on a journey to visit Pompeii.

Many of the criticisms of Schliemann and his work come from scholars like Calder writing in 1972, or a National Geographic article in 2002, or Professor Brian Rose in 2004. In each case, the accusations and criticisms leveled against Schliemann are based on modern approaches to the science of archaeology and fail to take into account that Heinrich Schliemann was truly a man of his times and operated within the framework of what was deemed reasonable in his day. He may not have been what we would today refer to as an archaeologist of the highest order, but the fact remains that he was a genius who gave life to Troy and the Iliad. He did not seek treasure for his own gain. He sought the truth and we are today grateful that he did.