Today, Heinrich Schliemann is hailed as the “Father of Modern Archaeology,” yet by modern standards the methods he used to excavate the Ancient City of Troy leave something to be desired, in the professional opinion of modern scientists. Modern studies have since shown that Schliemann’s aggressive excavation methods, especially his liberal use of dynamite, most likely destroyed the level of the city that might have been associated with Homer’s Troy. We know this because the artifacts that Schliemann unearthed, that he claims to have been “Priam’s treasure,” actually predate the war by approximately 1,250 years, leading Smithsonian Magazine’s Meilan Solly to hypothesize that it actually belongs to an entirely different civilization. Schliemann incorrectly assumed that the lowest level of the man-made mound he had been excavating would be the site of the Troy of antiquity. Thus, his rushing of the excavation of higher layers is believed to have inadvertently destroyed the very thing he sought to uncover. As Kenneth Harl, a famed classicist, joked, Schliemann effectively accomplished what the Greeks never could, totally leveling the walls of the once great city. But Schliemann’s actual excavation techniques are not the only aspects of his story that draw valid criticisms, as his methods were not only unethical, but downright illegal. This is illustrated by Schliemann having to halt excavations between 1874 and 1876 in order to fight a lawsuit leveled at him by the Ottoman Government over the artifacts (specifically the gold ones) he had actively smuggled out of the country. Schliemann eventually gained permission to resume his excavations, but the entire situation calls into question the efficacy of his earlier work in the region. Furthermore, the gift nature of his collections adds more complexity to his life’s great accomplishments. Throughout initial excavations, Schliemann traded some of his archaeological finds with specific Ottoman Government officials in order to gain digging permission, representing a sort of gift-giving with clear motivations: enabling Schliemann to pursue his work despite efforts of the larger Ottoman Government. In addition, Schliemann’s numerous (and often failed attempts) to bequeath parts of his collection to other institutions were not simply out of the goodness of his heart. As Marcel Mauss hypothesizes in his book The Gift, these attempts at gift-giving were part of a larger attempt to build relationships and can be divided into three distinct parts: the offering, the acceptance, and the reciprocation.

Part of Priam's Treasure. Public Domain.

Fig. 9

Sophia Schliemann wearing "Priam's Treasure," Circa 1874, Public Domain