The Hero Schliemann

by Laura Amy Schlitz

  This sounds like the sort of telegram Heinrich might have sent if he had thought of it, but the words are not his. Some other romantic soul invented the tale of the telegram — for once Heinrich himself was not responsible — and it has become part of the colorful Schliemann legend.

  Was the dead king Agamemnon? No. Scholars have since determined that the shaft graves date from a hundred to three hundred years before the Trojan War. They were, however, Bronze Age graves. Heinrich was getting closer to the Homeric world he sought, but it still eluded him.

  When a triumphant Heinrich published his findings about Mycenae, he revealed a lost world. The Bronze Age, that shadowy period between 1600 and 1100 BCE, had been drawn into the spotlight. The glory of that spotlight cast a golden glow over Heinrich Schliemann. He became a celebrity.

  For the second time in his career, Heinrich’s finds gave rise to scholarly debate. Many scholars felt that none of the shaft graves was ancient enough to be the resting place of the legendary king. One critic even thought that the “mask of Agamemnon” was meant to be an image of Jesus Christ. Heinrich grew testy when scholars refused to accept his bearded warrior as Agamemnon. “All right,” he snapped, “let’s call him Schultze!” From that moment on, the warrior king was referred to as “Schultze.” Schultze’s mask continues to puzzle archaeologists up to the present day. It is unique in design, and some scholars consider it a forgery.

  Nevertheless, Heinrich had made two of the greatest discoveries in archaeological history. He traveled widely during the next year, relishing his newfound fame. But even as he boasted, he was nagged by doubt. In studying the Mycenaean tombs, Heinrich formed a clearer idea of what Bronze Age artifacts looked like. Unfortunately, what they didn’t look like were the artifacts he had found at Hissarlik. If Hissarlik and Mycenae were both remnants of Homer’s heroic world, why were the sites so different from each other? Why weren’t the treasures more alike?

  In 1878, Sophia gave birth to a little boy, and Heinrich returned home for the christening. Heinrich had planned to call his son Odysseus, but changed his mind after his triumph at Mycenae. The infant was christened Agamemnon. Heinrich laid a book against the baby’s head and read his newborn son a hundred lines of Homeric verse.

  Shortly after his son’s birth, Heinrich decided to return to Hissarlik. He wanted to re-examine the site. He was eager to find artifacts that would confirm his “Troy” as a Bronze Age city.

  He applied to the Turkish government for a firman and, surprisingly, got it. He was even allowed to keep one third of whatever he found. During the 1879 excavations at Hissarlik, Heinrich was accompanied by a scholar and doctor named Rudolf Virchow.

  Rudolf Virchow and Heinrich had a lot in common. Both loved Homer. The two men came from working-class backgrounds and were almost exactly the same age. Virchow’s powers of energy and concentration were the equal of Heinrich’s — and he shared Heinrich’s fascination with human bones. In disposition, however, they were different: Heinrich was hotheaded, touchy, and dreamy; Virchow was thoughtful and self-contained.

  Rudolf Virchow became a sort of father figure to Heinrich. He encouraged Heinrich to observe the land around Hissarlik, to take note of animal and plant life. He taught him to keep more accurate records and to think twice before jumping to conclusions. Virchow even advised Heinrich about personal matters. He reminded him to pay attention to Sophia and gave suggestions about what to feed the infant Agamemnon. Heinrich, who was not good at listening to other people, paid attention to Dr. Virchow — except when his new friend warned him against the dangers of bathing in icy water. Heinrich suffered from chronic earaches; Virchow told him, correctly, that his sea bathing would make the earaches worse. Heinrich ignored him.

  Together Virchow and Schliemann tackled the mound at Hissarlik. More precious objects were found — Heinrich was almost getting used to finding treasure — but none of the objects resembled what he had found at Mycenae. Heinrich decided to explore other Bronze Age sites. He was driven by two hungers — to learn more and to prove that his earlier theories were right.

  He excavated at Orchomenus, another of the cities that Homer had described as “rich in gold.” At Orchomenus, it was Sophia’s turn to make a major discovery. She found a treasury room belonging to a legendary king, covered with intricate carvings of flowers and spirals. The chamber was so beautiful that the Schliemanns paid to have it restored.

  At Orchomenus, Heinrich first hired Wilhelm Dörpfeld, whom later archaeologists were to call “Schliemann’s greatest discovery.” Dörpfeld was twenty-seven years old. He had been trained as an architect, and he had a genius for looking at ancient ruins and envisioning how they appeared long ago. Like Virchow, Dörpfeld was a good influence on Heinrich. He taught him how to excavate with care. Though he understood the science of archaeology far better than Heinrich did, Dörpfeld loved and admired the older man.

  With Wilhelm Dörpfeld at his side, Heinrich set off for Tiryns, a city linked in myth with Hercules and the “warlike Diomedes” of The Iliad. Tiryns was Heinrich’s third great triumph. With the help of Dörpfeld, he uncovered a majestic palace, decorated with wall paintings of Bronze Age men and women. The site yielded vast amounts of jewelry and pottery. In both size and decoration, it was the sort of palace that Heinrich had hoped to find at Hissarlik.

  Heinrich was moving into his own palace around this time. He persuaded a famous architect to create a house that would celebrate Homer’s heroic poetry. The “Palace of Troy” was a fantasy world, richly adorned with statues, murals, and Homeric inscriptions, “but it contained not one stick of comfortable furniture,” complained his daughter Andromache.

  The lack of comfort didn’t bother Heinrich. Even in his sixties, he preferred to read and write standing up. Sophia and the children were forced to make the best of living in a museum. When Heinrich went away on business, they packed a picnic basket and spread out their picnic on one of the hard mosaic floors.

  Heinrich ruled over his Homeric palace like a king. He gave the servants names out of Homer and Greek mythology. He kept hens and pigeons and forbade anyone to kill them for food. No one was allowed to pluck the flowers in the garden — Heinrich had an odd theory that plants suffered when they were picked. Besides the birds, Heinrich doted on the family dog and a kitten he had rescued from Hissarlik.

  During the last decade of his life, Heinrich received many visitors at his “Palace of Troy.” He had grown more comfortable with people and entertained guests with kindness and generosity. He was an affectionate but demanding father, insisting that his children study hard, exercise vigorously, and speak foreign languages. His daughter Andromache wrote, “Throughout my own girlhood he would often get me up at five o’clock in the morning in winter to ride horseback five miles . . . to swim in the sea, as he himself did every day. . . . Beneath these imperious traits Father was warmhearted and generous to a fault. He was humble, too, in his own way.”

  Humble? Perhaps not. When Heinrich wrote about his finds at Tiryns, he stated, “Once again the gods granted me . . . one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever made . . . from now till the end of time.” Conceited though this sounds, there is truth in it. Though the palace of Tiryns is the least famous of Heinrich’s three great triumphs, excavating it was a stupendous achievement. Once again, Heinrich crowed with triumph before the public, and the public responded with a mixture of catcalls and cheers.

  Wilhelm Dörpfeld, who was responsible for the superb quality of the excavation work, stood in the wings, allowing Heinrich the limelight. Perhaps he understood that his time would come, that the older man would soon withdraw from the world of archaeology.

  During the last ten years of his life, Heinrich was often tired and sick. His earaches tortured him, and he suffered from malaria. In spite of his illness, he continued to travel, to swim, to write, and to dig.

  In 1890, he returned once more to Hissarlik. It was his twelfth visit, and little had changed: it was still a place of owl
s and scorpions, poisonous snakes, wind and dust. On this particular visit, Heinrich did rather a mysterious thing: he began to excavate outside the walls of “his” Homeric Troy.

  It may have been Dörpfeld’s idea. Or it may have been Heinrich’s — he had always been haunted by the fact that his prehistoric city was so small. In any event, once the two men dug outside the boundaries of what Heinrich had claimed was Troy, they came upon two buildings similar to the Bronze Age palace at Tiryns. Inside, at last, they found what Heinrich had been looking for: pottery similar to that he had found at Mycenae. As if that were not enough, there was one last treasure — four stone axes of polished green jade and lapis lazuli. “I saw Pallas Athena in front of me,” wrote Heinrich, “holding in her hands those treasures which are more valuable than all those I uncovered at Mycenae. . . . I cried for joy, fondled and kissed her feet. I thanked her from the bottom of my heart.” He was later to smuggle the axes out of the country. He was not to be reformed.

  Heinrich’s last visit to Hissarlik uncovered more than treasure. At long last, he discovered the part of Hissarlik that matched the Bronze Age palace at Tiryns and the Bronze Age pottery he had unearthed at Mycenae. Historians are still wondering whether Schliemann fully understood what this latest find meant. What it meant, of course, is that the part of Hissarlik that he had maintained was Homeric Troy (Troy 2) did not date from the Bronze Age and was therefore not the Troy of Homer’s Iliad. The books and articles that he had published were all wrong. Moreover, if this newly discovered layer of the mound (later called Troy 6) was Homer’s Troy, he had thrown great heaps of it away. During his earlier attacks on Hissarlik, he had dug straight through the layer that he was trying to find. In his frenzy, he had destroyed buildings and artifacts that dated from the time of the Trojan War.

  Wilhelm Dörpfeld, who excavated Troy 6 after Heinrich’s death, had his own story about Heinrich’s understanding of this latest find. He maintained that he broke the news to Heinrich and explained to the older man what the new findings signified: that Heinrich’s earlier theories were wrong. “I discussed the matter with Schliemann, who listened carefully without saying much. He then retired into his own tent and remained incommunicado for four days. When he finally came out, he quietly said to me: ‘I think you are right.’”

  It was perhaps the most extraordinary moment of an extraordinary life.

  In the autumn of 1890, Heinrich’s earaches became agonizing. He lost nearly all of his sense of hearing. When doctors examined him, they found bony growths inside his ears. Rudolf Virchow advised Heinrich to have the growths cut out in a hospital in Germany. The operation was painful but successful. Afterward, Heinrich lay in bed reading the Arabian Nights (in Arabic, of course) and planning his next season’s excavations.

  The weeks that followed were lonely. Heinrich wrote a love letter to Sophia, praising her virtues. “At all times you were to me a loving wife, a good comrade . . . a dear companion on the road and a mother second to none.” He was homesick. Against his doctor’s orders, he made up his mind to leave the hospital and travel back to Athens, hoping to celebrate Christmas with his wife and children.

  As he journeyed south, the pain in his ears returned and quickly grew worse. On Christmas Day 1890, he collapsed in Naples. Before a crew of doctors could agree how to treat his illness, he died.

  The funeral was brilliant: Heinrich would have loved it. He was given a state burial, with a carriage drawn by eight black horses. Sophia recited Homer. Copies of The Iliad and The Odyssey were placed inside the coffin. Several hundred obituaries praised Schliemann’s patience and industry, his unflagging energy, his uncanny hunches. William Gladstone, four-time prime minister of England, wrote that “Either his generosity without his energy, or his energy without his generosity might well have gained celebrity; in their union they were no less than wonderful.” The inscription above the tomb read, To the Hero Schliemann.

  Wilhelm Dörpfeld said, more simply, “Rest in peace. You have done enough.”

  What had he done? He had labored to prove that Homer’s poetic world was true. He had done his energetic best to find Troy. Though most scholars now agree that Homeric Troy (Troy 6 or Troy 7) was located at Hissarlik, others await further proof. Today’s archaeologists mourn the carelessness of Heinrich’s excavations and the dishonesty that made him hedge about his finds. Heinrich Schliemann was a man who did things on a large scale, and his mistakes were not small ones.

  Nevertheless, he took the world by storm. As ruthless as Achilles, as cunning as Odysseus, he rebelled against a commonplace fate. His hunger for a heroic life, his craving to be somebody, were not in vain. He did become rich; he did become famous; he did find lost cities and buried treasure. He spoke twenty-two languages. He wrote twelve books. Though he could not prove every detail of Homer’s story, he changed the way archaeologists look at stories: he forced them to see that stories could unlock the door to great discoveries.

  His excavations at Hissarlik, Mycenae, and Tiryns brought the Bronze Age to life. He once bragged: “Wherever I put my spade I always discovered new worlds for archaeology.” It was true.

  Many of his ideas were prophetic. Some of his most outlandish hunches — that the ancient people of Tiryns and Mycenae spoke Greek, for example — were later proved true by scholars who had the tools and training he lacked.

  All his life, Heinrich was a lucky man, and he knew it. “I have had more luck than foresight in my life,” he admitted. It could also be said that he made his own luck. He spared no effort and he never gave up. In the second half of his life, he had the good fortune to win the loyalty of three exceptional people: Sophia Schliemann loved and comforted him. Rudolf Virchow and Wilhelm Dörpfeld were his teachers, his counselors, and his friends.

  Heinrich Schliemann wanted his life to be like a story — and it was. His rampant imagination changed archaeology forever. Some of the tales he told — like the tale of Sophia wrapping “Priam’s treasure” in her red shawl — are everlasting, false though they may be. Heinrich’s stories are chronic and irresistible. They are part of the Schliemann legacy. Storyteller, archaeologist, and crook — Heinrich Schliemann left his mark upon the world.

  Though I have consulted all the books in the bibliography, the following sources were especially helpful:

  Deuel, Leo. Memoirs of Heinrich Schliemann: A Documentary Portrait Drawn from His Autobiographical Writings, Letters, and Excavation Reports. Heinrich Schliemann from his own point of view. Schliemann’s personality — his excitement, his conceit, his romanticism — manifests itself in every line. The editor, Leo Deuel, provides valuable background information.

  Ludwig, Emil. Schliemann: The Story of a Gold-Seeker. Emil Ludwig was the first biographer to grapple with the great mound of writing that Schliemann left behind (two trunks full of materials written in ten different languages). When Ludwig was young, he met the aging Schliemann. After Schliemann’s death, he interviewed Sophia Schliemann about her life with her husband.

  Traill, David A. Schliemann of Troy: Treasure and Deceit. David Traill is the most skeptical of Schliemann’s biographers. He has spent two decades studying Schliemann’s life, working tirelessly to try to sort through Schliemann’s half-truths and downright lies. Traill is a meticulous researcher and Heinrich Schliemann’s sternest judge.

  Moorehead, Caroline. Lost and Found: The 9,000 Treasures of Troy: Heinrich Schliemann and the Gold That Got Away. Caroline Moorehead’s biography is also a story of the “Trojan Gold” and its disappearance during the Second World War. Though Moorehead is familiar with Traill’s research, and rightly skeptical of Schliemann’s stories, her view of the man himself is more tolerant than Traill’s.

  Wood, Michael. In Search of the Trojan War. Wood’s book (and the accompanying videotapes) was enormously helpful in explaining the history and archaeology of Schliemann’s Homeric Quest. Wood also has a knack for explaining archaeology to the layperson.

  Poole, Lynn and Gray. One Passion, Two Loves: The S
tory of Heinrich and Sophia Schliemann, Discoverers of Troy. The Pooles interviewed Alex Mélas, the last living grandchild of Heinrich and Sophia Schliemann, who shared family stories with them and showed them documents that had never been published before. A good source for details about the Schliemanns’ domestic life.

  Chapter I

  “the mysterious and the marvelous” Deuel, p. 23.

  “Behind our garden . . .” Ibid., p. 24.

  “Father . . .” Ibid., p. 25.

  “my separation from my little bride” Ibid., p. 28.

  Chapter II

  “The view of Hamburg . . .” Deuel, p. 39.

  “I would never again . . .” Ibid., p. 42.

  “flew like a seabird . . .” Ibid., p. 43.

  “I barely saved my life . . .” Ibid., p. 46.

  “gave my body over to the sharks” Ludwig, p. 24.

  “God must have chosen me . . .” Deuel, p. 51.

  “I felt reborn” Ibid., p. 52.

  “Friendships were made . . .” Ibid.

  “crowned with the fullest success” Ibid., p. 54

  “the greatest disaster” Ibid., p. 55.

  “swindling” “cunning” “immense love of money” Ibid., p. 71.

  Description of the falsified diary noted by Traill, p. 12.

  “I lay more dead than alive. . . .” Deuel, pp. 83–84.

  Chapter III

  “All through the war . . .” Moorehead, p. 46.

  “How is it possible . . .” Ludwig, p. 74.

  “I cannot remain . . .” Ibid., p. 79.

  “How is it . . .” Payne, p. 77.

  “downright falsehoods . . .” Deuel, p. 127.

  Chapter IV

  “the fatherland of my darling Homer” Moorehead, p. 70.

  “It is very possible . . .” Traill, pp. 45–46.