Laura Schlitz: The Hero Schliemann

Heinrich was outwardly delighted, and inwardly puzzled, by this city. He wanted nothing more than to believe that he had found Homer’s Troy, but the city was very small — only about a hundred yards across. He found bronze and copper weapons, but the pottery found at this level was oddly primitive.

And there was no treasure. By now, Heinrich had been an archaeologist long enough to understand that he was supposed to be seeking knowledge, not treasure, and he was quick to assert that his only desire was to find Troy itself. But the lack of treasure was a nagging disappointment. Homer said that Troy was “rich in gold,” but Heinrich had found little that was precious.

It was not until 1873 that Heinrich found the riches his heart craved. According to Heinrich, the treasure was found on the last morning of May. He was digging into a wall when he caught a glimpse of shining gold. Some instinct told him that there was a rich treasure hidden within the wall, and he resolved to dig it out for himself. He announced to the workers that it was his birthday (it wasn’t) and told them to take the day off. He summoned Sophia to his side and told her to fetch her red shawl. Together, the husband-and-wife team worked to dig the artifacts out of the wall. There were thousands of precious objects: helmets and swords, vessels of gold and silver, shields, lances, vases, cauldrons, and jewelry. There were more than eight thousand gold rings; there were earrings and bracelets and necklaces and diadems.

Sophia bundled the treasure in her shawl and carried it back to their living quarters. Once they were alone together, Heinrich decked his beautiful wife in the golden diadem that had once kissed the brow of Helen of Troy.

This is a good story. It is still found in books, but it is not true. For one thing, Sophia Schliemann was not with her husband on May 31. Her father had recently died, and she had gone to Athens for the funeral. As early as December 1873, Heinrich admitted to a friend at the British Museum that he had made up the story of Sophia and her red shawl. He explained that Sophia was becoming a gifted archaeologist and he wanted to encourage her by including her in the story of his great discovery.

Sophia’s absence is not the only thing wrong with Heinrich’s account of that day. Scholars who have examined Heinrich’s notes also know that some of the objects in the treasure were found earlier — he had dated and photographed them before May 31. In fact, Heinrich combined several finds in order to make up what he called “Priam’s treasure” after King Priam in The Iliad . His dramatic instinct demanded that the treasure be as lavish as possible, so he added to what he found.

Heinrich had a theory — or fantasy — about the treasure, and he wanted the world to share it. According to him, the treasure was hidden on the night Troy was invaded by the Greeks. Led by the crafty Odysseus, the Greek soldiers infiltrated the city, concealed within a wooden horse. Now they attacked with fire and sword. “The treasure was packed together at terrible risk of life, and in the greatest anxiety,” wrote Heinrich. For Heinrich, a well-built city, signs of fire, and a hastily hidden treasure added up to one thing: Homeric Troy. He had solved what he modestly referred to as “the greatest and most important of all historical riddles.”

Heinrich told the story of how he discovered Priam’s treasure many times, and he never told it the same way twice. His shiftiness about the finding of the treasure was so noticeable that some of his fellow scholars suspected him of paying artists to make the precious objects and burying them himself, only to dig them up later. “Priam’s treasure,” which Heinrich thought would be the greatest triumph of his career, was also the greatest scandal.

A word about the treasure: It did not belong to King Priam, and it was not worn by Helen of Troy. Though the treasure is ancient and genuine, it predates the Trojan War by a thousand years. Modern archaeologists have since divided the site at Hissarlik into at least nine different Troys, dating from nine different periods of occupation. Heinrich’s prehistoric city, second from the bottom, is generally known as Troy 2. Heinrich’s dating, for both the treasure and the city, was a thousand years off: Troy 2 was not Homeric Troy.

It’s easy to laugh now. To be “off” by a thousand years is to be pretty far “off.” It’s important to remember, though, that ancient artifacts do not come out of the ground with dates on them. Modern dating methods, such as radiocarbon dating, did not exist in Heinrich’s time. In Heinrich’s day, archaeologists had to figure out how old objects were by keeping track of how deep they were buried and by comparing them to other objects. Because the artifacts Heinrich was finding were so ancient, he didn’t have objects with which to compare them. Later on, archaeologists came to date materials by creating a sequence of styles in pottery. Though Heinrich loved gold and precious stones, he was one of the first archaeologists to realize the importance of pottery. In this, he was ahead of his time.

In falsifying details of the treasure, however, he was doing his fellow archaeologists the kind of injury they find hard to forgive. All archaeologists, past and present, work together. Each object is a clue to the past, and archaeologists count on one another to pass on only the right clues. In hedging about exactly where and when the objects were found, Heinrich cheated his colleagues of the opportunity to learn the real history of his treasure.

Though finding “Priam’s treasure” was the thrill of a lifetime, it created a dilemma for Heinrich. According to the rules of the firman , half of the excavated goods belonged to the Turks. Heinrich had two choices: he could surrender half the treasure, or he could keep it a secret. He could not publish his great discovery without losing half of what he had found.

Either option was more than body and soul could bear. Heinrich could not wait to dazzle the public. He believed that the Trojan gold would bring him undying glory. The temptation to publish his finds was irresistible.

On the other hand, he could not stand to part with any of the treasure. Heinrich had a childish “finders-keepers” feeling about the Trojan gold. It was his connection to Homer, something he could hold in his hands. He had borne heat and dust and ridicule for it. He could not let it go.

The solution to this problem was a crooked one. Heinrich was neither the first nor the last archaeologist to resort to it. He smuggled the treasure out of the country. No one knows exactly how he did it: he may have been helped by the Calvert brothers or by members of Sophia’s family, but the finding of the treasure was kept a secret. Once the gold left Turkey, Heinrich closed down the excavation and returned to Athens. There he photographed the treasure and wrote articles about its finding.