Schliemann digs at Hissarlik

Heinrich Schliemann began excavating at Hissarlik in modern Turkey, which he believed was Homer's Troy. The site has many layers, and his rough methods destroyed some of them.

Context

Schliemann was a wealthy German businessman turned self-taught excavator. The mound at Hissarlik had already been identified as a likely Troy by the British resident Frank Calvert, who owned part of it and encouraged Schliemann's work.

Schliemann cut a large trench through the mound and, assuming Homer's city lay near the bottom, dug through upper levels that he did not record carefully. Archaeologists now recognize about nine major settlements stacked at the site, with many sub-phases, spanning thousands of years.

The gold he called Priam's Treasure, found in 1873, actually belongs to a level roughly a thousand years older than the traditional date of a Trojan War. Later teams, including Wilhelm Dorpfeld, Carl Blegen and Manfred Korfmann, refined the sequence, and the layer called Troy VI or VIIa is often discussed as the best match to the legend.

Whether a historical war lies behind Homer's story remains uncertain. The site is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

His work is therefore remembered both for proving the mound hid a major ancient city and for the harm done to its archaeological record. Careful modern excavation has since shown how complex the layers are.