Heinrich Schlieman

1021 Words3 Pages

Was Heinrich Schliemann a good archeologist?

In this essay my aim is to separate the truth from the predjudice and find out whether Heinrich Schliemann was a greedy charlottarian, a talented archeologist or just someone who stumbled upon a great discovery.
Heinrich Schliemann was born on January 6, 1822 in the small village of Neu Buckow, Germany. His interest in Homeric Troy started when his father, a protestant minister, gave him a book or Christmas in 1829 by Ludwig Jerrer entitled Illustrated History of the World .
Though he was realizing his dream of becoming rich, Schliemann remained a tortured spirit. He learned that Minna, his childhood sweetheart, had married someone else. This threw him into a state of depression, and he vowed that someday he would be rich enough to marry any woman he wanted. Wealth became the elusive idol he strove for he imagined it was a panacea that would cure all his personal shortcomings.
When his beloved cousin Sophie died, Schliemann nearly went mad with grief. Her death forced him to ask himself questions he had been avoiding - what was the meaning of life? What was he really living for? He turned to Homer's Odyssey and found comfort in the idea of the hero, Odysseus, returning home. He decided to follow Odysseus' example, and resolved to return to Ithaca, the island that Odysseus ruled.
Schliemann set out to find Troy. At that time, Bunarbashi was believed to be the site of Troy, but Schliemann thought that the nearby hill Hissarlik was a more likely area. Frank Calvert, an Englishman who owned the eastern half of the hill, agreed with Schliemann, and had discovered the ruins of a palace or temple made out of large blocks of hewn stone.
After marrying for the second time Schliemann returned to Hissarlik in 1870, convinced that the most important discoveries would be found on the western side of the hill, which was owned by two Turks. They agreed to let Schliemann continue digging on their property if Schliemann would let them have the stones of the building foundation he had uncovered for a bridge they were building. Schliemann reluctantly agreed, and his excavation progressed until April, when the Turks decided they had enough stone and ordered him to stop his excavati...

... middle of paper ...

...sp; In September of 1878, Schliemann arrived at Hissarlik, and on October 21, 1878 he found a small cache consisting of 20 gold earrings, some gold spiral rings, 2 electrum bracelets, 11 silver earrings, 158 silver rings, and many gold beads. This time Schliemann was able to kept only one-third of his findings the Imperial Museum at Constantinople claimed the rest.
Heinrich Schliemann found his last treasure in April of 1879 with two small areas of treasure, consisting of gold disks, chains, earrings, and bracelets. His years of luck had run out he would continue attempts at excavation for the rest of his life, but never again would he experience the success of his earlier years.
In conclusion I think that Heinrich Schliemann was an extremely bad archeologist, the importance of his finds cannot be denied but the way he excavated in such an offhand manner destroyed many precious artifacts. The way he stole much of the treasure he found makes him even lower in my opinion. In my view Scliemann was just a treasure hunter obssessed with money, whot somehow stumbled upon- and destroyed generations of history.

Open Document