Heinrich Schliemann and the Destruction of Troy
To some degree, I think everyone has heard of Troy. Not Troy, Alabama (though I’m sure it’s wonderful in its own right) but ancient Troy: the battleground of gods, the birthplace of heroes, and the origin story for the three most well-known epics that grace the Earth today. The radiance of this mythological city is impossible to deny, but a myth is all that Troy will ever be.
Right?
Well, not entirely. Similarly to the stories that shroud it, the real-life excavation of Troy is tragic, terribly ironic, and quite fascinating as a cautionary tale of how archaeology can go horribly wrong. That’s right everyone! It's time for the story of the worst archaeologist you’ve never heard of: the story of Heinrich Schliemann and the Destruction of Troy.
Heinrich Schliemann was born in 1822 to a poor pastor in Germany with just about nothing. He claimed that at seven years old, he saw a picture of the city of Troy going up in flames, which apparently inspired his lifelong desire to unearth the city. Life moved on for good old Schliemann, and after years of hard work and a couple of good business decisions, he was in possession of a sizable fortune, sizable enough that at the age of thirty-six, he was able to retire.
Retirement for Schliemann though was not about taking a nice vacation, as he still ‘remembered’ his old childhood dream of discovering Troy. He thus packed up his fortune and moved his life to Greece, studying the land and visiting ancient sites. Around this time, he divorced his first wife, the mother of his three children, to marry a seventeen-year-old Greek schoolgirl.
Schliemann… buddy… get some help.
And he did get help, but not from the professional psychologist he likely needed. A year after moving to Greece, he met a local archaeologist named Frank Calvert, who explained to Schliemann his theory of Troy’s real location. See, it was widely believed at the time that Troy was located in Pınarbaşı, but Calvert knew from his own exploration of the land that it was actually located at Hisarlık, a site which was conveniently owned by his family.
After their chance encounter, Schliemann said something to the effect of “Good God, you might actually be right about something!” and published a paper plagiarizing Calvert’s findings. He then received a grant to begin excavating the site.
And excavate he did. Immediately he had crews come in and clear away the first five layers of earth to get down to the level at which he suspected they would find Troy. It’s important to note that by this time, Schliemann was obsessed with being the man to uncover Troy. He described himself as an adventurer and archaeologist; he wanted to go down in history as the man to have made this phenomenal discovery.
So his crews began digging toward the bedrock using only the most advanced and delicate tools.
Dynamite. He used dynamite to excavate Troy.
And remember how he was convinced that Troy couldn’t be anywhere near the first five layers of earth? Well, modern carbon dating reveals that any physical remains of Troy would have been in the first or second layer. So in his overzealousness to be the man who discovered Troy, Schliemann destroyed any possible evidence of its existence.
It is tragic to think of how much knowledge was lost because one fool succumbed to his pride. The irony with all of this is that Troy is famous for being the catalyst for many great epics, which more often than not, centered around heroes who faced their downfall due to excessive Hubris. With that, there is something almost poetic about how this real-world archaeologist committed the fatal mistake that the very city he destroyed warned him not to commit.
Citations:
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. (n.d.). Heinrich Schliemann. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Heinrich-Schliemann
Isa. (2020, August 15). Schliemann's Trench in Troy. Turkish archaeological news. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://turkisharchaeonews.net/object/schliemanns-trench-troy