Schliemann, Heinrich

Schliemann, Heinrich 1822-1890

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Born in Neubukow in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany, on January 6, 1822, the son of a Lutheran minister, Heinrich Schliemann received his secondary education in Neustrelitz and became a grocer’s apprentice (1836–1841). He took an intensive course in bookkeeping, but finding no suitable employment in Germany, he decided to sail to Colombia to make his fortune there. When the ship ran aground off the coast of Holland, he became a clerk with Schroeder’s, a large trading company in Amsterdam, and eventually their agent in St. Petersburg, where he also set up his own business and married Yekaterina Lyshin in 1852. The marriage produced three children but was not a happy one. Schliemann made a great deal of money buying and selling commodities on the St. Petersburg exchange. In 1868 he went on a grand tour through Italy and Greece to the Troad in Turkey, hiring workmen to make tentative excavations on Ithaca and at Pinarbashi (Troad). The British expatriate Frank Calvert, who had made small excavations at Hisarlik, convinced Schliemann that that was the site of Troy. Schliemann resolved to return and dig there. In 1869 he received a doctorate from the University of Rostock for his book Ithaque, le Péloponnèse et Troie (Ithaca, the Peloponnesus, and Troy), divorced his Russian wife in Indianapolis, and married Sophia Engastromenos in Athens. This marriage, which was almost as stormy as the first, produced two children.

After an exploratory (and illegal) dig in 1870, he began a campaign of excavations at Hisarlik (1871–1873) with a large number (70–100) of workmen. These revealed a series of nine superimposed settlements. Schliemann reckoned the second oldest of these (Troy II) to be Homeric Troy. This seemed to be confirmed in May 1873 when he found at that level a large hoard of metal objects including gold and silver vessels and jewelry, which he called “Priam’s Treasure.” Even more important were his excavations at Mycenae (1876). These brought to light an advanced civilization on mainland Greece that predated Periclean Athens by a thousand years. Before Schliemann, no one had dreamed of its existence. The finds in the shaft graves there were richer and far more sophisticated than those at Troy. Attempting to establish clear connections between Troy and Mycenae, Schliemann returned to excavate at Troy in 1878, 1879, 1882, and 1890. Finally, in 1890 conclusive proof emerged that Troy II was far earlier than the shaft grave burials at Mycenae, though Schliemann did not acknowledge this in his 1890 report. Subsequent excavation has shown that Homeric Troy should be dated to the last levels of Troy VI (according to Wilhelm Dörpfeld and recently the German-American excavation team led by Manfred Kormann) or to Troy VII (according to Carl Blegen, who excavated Troy 1932–1938). Among the many other sites Schliemann excavated, Tiryns and Orchomenos are the most important. He died in Naples on December 26, 1890.

The accuracy of some of Schliemann’s archaeological reports has been questioned in recent years. It is now clear, for instance, that “Priam’s Treasure” is not a single find, as Schliemann claimed, but a composite of many pieces found over months of excavation. However, much of his work has been confirmed by his successors. He remains a crucial figure in Aegean archaeology.

SEE ALSO Archaeology

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY WORKS

Schliemann, Heinrich. [1878] 1976. Mycenae. New York: Arno Press.

Schliemann, Heinrich. [1881] 1976. Ilios. New York: Arno Press.

SECONDARY WORKS

Easton, Donald. 1998. Heinrich Schliemann: Hero or Fraud? Classical World 91: 335–343.

Fitton, J. Lesley. 1995. The Discovery of the Greek Bronze Age. London: British Museum.

Traill, David A. 1995. Schliemann of Troy: Treasure and Deceit. London and New York: John Murray.

Traill, David A. 2000. “Priam’s Treasure”: Clearly a Composite. Anatolian Studies 50: 17–35.

David A. Traill