Archaeology and Heinrich Schliemann 2012

8 Manfred Korfmannthe epithet “windy” to the city of Ilios several timesin his epics. The technology necessary to sail againstthe wind was only first developed during the Romanperiod. Before that, ships would be forced to wait ina bay outside the entrance to the Dardanelles untilthe wind changed. This could take weeks or evenmonths. In addition to the winds, a powerful currentreaching speeds of up to seven kilometres per hourran from the straits into the Aegean.These two navigation factors, together with thefavourable geographical location, placed the inhabitantsof Hisarlik in a particularly powerful position.They could levy a toll in almost any amount upon theships forced to wait. This surely annoyed many, andthere was probably a certain degree of strife aroundthe site. The continually renewed defensive wallsspeak for themselves. We do not know, and probablywill never learn, if the Iliad summarizes many warsfrom a nebulous past or reports on one very specificone. It is however certain that there were many warsat Hisarlik/Troy/Ilios during the 14 th and 13 th centuriesBC.From this we can, with simple arguments, answerthe question of whether or not there is a real historicalbasis to the Iliad. It depends upon only what onemeans by “historical”. In this region of the world menand cultures were constantly in conflict with eachother. It was worth suffering, either as defenders orattackers, in order to enjoy the benefits of a site sowell situated in regard to transport and trade - be itat the beginning of Troy I in the third millennium BC,or at the end of Troy VI in the 13 th century BC. Ofcourse, this goes as well for the time of Homer in thelate 8 th and early 7 th centuries BC, when the Greekworld was colonizing not only the Mediterraneancoast, but the Black Sea as well. The strategic importanceof the Dardanelle Straits was well known duringHomer’s time. Soon after, the Greek city-stateswould battle for supremacy in the Dardanelles.The first cuts of the spade at Troy and the resultingdiscoveries occurred during a period of Germannational pride following the victory over France. Thiswould make demands on the internationally-mindedSchliemann. At the start of the Troy excavations, thisGerman, Russian and American citizen lived in Parisand Athens. He received the excavation licensethrough the agency of the American ambassador inConstantinople. Schliemann was moved only with difficultyto give over the finds from Troy, which werebeing exhibited in London, as “a gift to the Germanpeople”. A German nationalist tone is foreign to Schliemann.In view of this personal background, Schliemann’snumerous references in his first book toswastikas and other “Aryan symbols” among thefinds from Troy should not be interpreted otherwisethan in the way they were meant. Schliemann noticedthat these “symbols” occurred with particular frequencyin the deepest levels at Troy. He believedthey were proof of the presence of Indo-EuropeanGreeks, potential participants in the Trojan War - atthe time the “first settlement” was Schliemann’ssought after Troy of Homer.This early equation of material culture with ethnicityis likewise methodologically interesting andwell worth emphasizing. The “foreign people” whohad left their traces two meters beneath the moundsurface in the form of a completely new ceramic type,the “knobbed ware”, is a further example of such aninterpretation. Schliemann’s attempt at a culture-historicalinterpretation of the archaeological legacy wasextraordinarily stimulating for prehistoric archaeology.This approach would later be applied in otherregions by his friend and co-worker Rudolf Virchow.The archaeology of the time, for those who wouldreproach it, was not capable of achieving very much.We cannot today understand why Schliemann placedsuch immense importance upon “carousels” and “volcanos”when the objects in question were merely simpleclay spindle whorls employed by many culturesto spin wool. For Schliemann, these pieces were “sacrificial”finds on account of their richly incised decorationand symbols. Doubts about his own interpretationcame to him again and again, particularly as the“colossal amounts” of such finds surprised him. Inthinking over this problem, he comes at one pointvery close to the solution. Here, as well as on manyother points, one encounters the scholar who sought“the truth”.The frequently occurring representations of ahuman face or pair of eyes on vases and marble“idols” were for Schliemann the faces of “owls”,which he associated with the symbolic animal of thegoddess Pallas Athena, who was worshipped in Troy.He was manifestly not intimidated by the frequentlynoted depictions of female sexual characteristics; hewas clearly not biased in this regard.At the time, Schliemann believed in the accuracy