In case anyone is wondering, it is Michael Wood's excellent In Search of the Trojan War - apparently some of the information is a bit out of date, but overall the series is wonderful - I've watched it many times since it was first broadcast.
For what it's worth, I spent an entire semester researching possible gold links between Schliemann's Troy and the Royal Graves at Ur. My eyes glazed over while reading and I was unable to finish the piece...
No, it was more in terms of techniques, motifs and styles of working the medium. Possible cultural contacts, mostly via trade, were a consideration. There were similarities between the two but so was the case with the Incas who obviously had no contact. I concluded the similarities were mostly the result of the medium itself, pure gold. It lends itself to wire, leaf and embossed designs for decoration and is ill-suited for anything utilitarian...
Pure is 24. It's too soft to make good jewelry, so you'd only see 24K gold in an object that was meant to be owned as a conversation piece of some kind, but not worn.
The article is quite kind to Schliemann. Kinder than many archaeological experts.
The excavated area thought to be "Troy" had about nine distinct layers. The "Troy" that everyone is interested was one of the upper layers (like Layer VIII, the second from the top), which Schliemann kept digging through. The one he finally settled on and brought "Priam's Treasure" from was much older, long before the era of the fabled Trojan war.
To boot, with each successive layer, the previous layer he simply dumped to the side and didn't take much care in preserving. So much of the Trojan layer that the classicists are interested in studying has actually been destroyed by his attempts to dig deeper.
Schliemann was a curious character--he seems to have been as much of a pillager as an archeologist. As a non-sequitur his personal story is a testament to how much more "globalized" the world was in the 19th century, for better or worse.
Yes, a real disaster for us now. He didn't just "dig" through, but bulldoze to where he thought Homer's Troy should be. Doing this destroyed a lot of the evidence of the actual Troy he was looking for. Some of this has been recovered and pieced together by later and better archeologists but still a great loss.
The best video documentary I've seen on this is Michael Wood's BBC series "In Search of the Trojan War" from 1985. Six parts covering the history of the dig and the background of the war and aftermath. Much of it is on YouTube I think.
> he encouraged Schliemann to pick up where he left off
Yeah, like Schliemann arrived, dismissed Calvert suggestions that it was Troy, and when finally convinced, cheated, stole and took all credit for discoveries from Calvert despite Calvert owning half of the land of the mound and sorting out a ton of practical matters for him (Calvert was consul and well established in the area).
Troy is perhaps the most important archaeological site in Turkey (in greek-mithology terms) and one of the worst to visit. While it is amazing to be on the spot, prepare to put lots of imagination on this particular site.
If you happen to visit the area, I would actually recommend to skip it. Go to Assos instead: the citadel, the walls, the theater... all more impressive than Troy. Go the Alexandria Troas and see the baths, the aqueduct, the temple they were digging up a few years ago. Go to see the grandiose Temple of Apollo Smintheum in Gülpinar.
The most impressive thing sadly left in Troy is Schliemann's trench.
> But, more than that, he points out that it shows the world was not divided between East and West in quite the way it was long assumed to be. One of the foundational legends of Western culture, it turns out, involved a powerful political actor that lay across the sea from Europe, in what is now Turkey, with influence that extended all the way to central Anatolia.
This is very misleading. Anyone familiar with history knows that Anatolia was part of the West — it was, after all, held by the Roman Empire for centuries. It was only lost during the Arab-Byzantine Wars, and the Arabs were eventually replaced by the Turks. But once upon a time, Anatolia was Western.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 46.1 ms ] threadWhat were your conclusions?
The excavated area thought to be "Troy" had about nine distinct layers. The "Troy" that everyone is interested was one of the upper layers (like Layer VIII, the second from the top), which Schliemann kept digging through. The one he finally settled on and brought "Priam's Treasure" from was much older, long before the era of the fabled Trojan war.
To boot, with each successive layer, the previous layer he simply dumped to the side and didn't take much care in preserving. So much of the Trojan layer that the classicists are interested in studying has actually been destroyed by his attempts to dig deeper.
The best video documentary I've seen on this is Michael Wood's BBC series "In Search of the Trojan War" from 1985. Six parts covering the history of the dig and the background of the war and aftermath. Much of it is on YouTube I think.
> he encouraged Schliemann to pick up where he left off
Yeah, like Schliemann arrived, dismissed Calvert suggestions that it was Troy, and when finally convinced, cheated, stole and took all credit for discoveries from Calvert despite Calvert owning half of the land of the mound and sorting out a ton of practical matters for him (Calvert was consul and well established in the area).
If you happen to visit the area, I would actually recommend to skip it. Go to Assos instead: the citadel, the walls, the theater... all more impressive than Troy. Go the Alexandria Troas and see the baths, the aqueduct, the temple they were digging up a few years ago. Go to see the grandiose Temple of Apollo Smintheum in Gülpinar.
The most impressive thing sadly left in Troy is Schliemann's trench.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaz%C4%B1l%C4%B1kaya,_Eski%C...
I’d never heard of Phrygia before a friend mentioned the Midas Monument to me. If you’re passing through that area, check it out.
This is very misleading. Anyone familiar with history knows that Anatolia was part of the West — it was, after all, held by the Roman Empire for centuries. It was only lost during the Arab-Byzantine Wars, and the Arabs were eventually replaced by the Turks. But once upon a time, Anatolia was Western.