Heinrich Schliemann Debunked

Anyone who has studied archaeology has heard of Heinrich Schliemann. He is popularly acclaimed as the bold, talented, German-American amateur archaeologist who discovered the lost city of Troy at Hisarlık in what is now northwest Turkey. In truth, this image is largely a fabrication of Schliemann’s own making. The real Heinrich Schliemann was a lying, cheating, grifting, thieving charlatan and overall scumbag who only became famous because he was extremely rich and highly skilled in the art of lying to make himself seem more impressive than he really was.

Even though Schliemann is popularly credited as the “discoverer” of Troy, he was not the first person to identify Hisarlık as Troy. He was not even the first person to excavate there. Furthermore, his attempts to excavate the ruins of Troy were so hopelessly incompetent that he ended up actually destroying most of the ancient site.

The myth of Schliemann

The story of Heinrich Schliemann’s life has been so thoroughly romanticized that it has become a legend in its own right. The traditional story goes that, in the nineteenth century, scholars universally rejected the idea that Troy had ever been a real city. Then Heinrich Schliemann, the bold amateur archaeologist who had dreamt of discovering Troy ever since he was a small child, came along.

The story goes that Schliemann followed Homer’s description of the area around Troy and, based on Homer’s account alone, was able to locate Troy at Hisarlık in what is now modern Turkey. The story goes that Schliemann dug up all nine layers of Troy, proving once and for all to those ignorant scholars that Troy was a real city and that the Trojan War really happened.

That’s what Schliemann wanted you to believe, anyway. Quite frankly, though, this whole story is mostly a fairy tale concocted by Schliemann for the purpose of self-glorification.

ABOVE: Portrait of Heinrich Schliemann from 1879

The truth about Troy, part one: never really forgotten

While people in the west had no idea that Hisarlık was Troy until the early nineteenth century, the local people living in the area around Hisarlık always had some idea that Hisarlık was the site of ancient Troy. The site had only been abandoned since the Late Middle Ages (lasted c. 1250 – c. 1500 AD), ruins from the later periods of the city’s history were still plainly visible, and memory of the fact that it was Troy had survived through local tradition. In other words, the fact that Hisarlık was Troy was never really completely forgotten.

When westerners visited the Ottoman Empire in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, they heard stories from the locals about the ruins of Troy, which were at Hisarlık. The first westerner who is known to have written about Hisarlık and identified it as the site of Troy was the English traveler Edward Daniel Clarke (lived 1769 – 1822), who wrote about having visited the site of Troy in 1801.

ABOVE: Portrait of Edward Daniel Clarke, who wrote about having visited the site of the ancient city of Troy over half a century before Schliemann’s excavations

At one point during the Crimean War (lasted 1853 – 1856), the British engineer John Brunton conducted some excavations at Hisarlık and uncovered finds dating to the Roman period, including “ancient tombs, sarcophagi, amphorae… vases, armlets, anklets, earrings,” the ruins of a Roman-era temple with Corinthian capitals, and a house with a mosaic. Brunton later wrote about his discoveries in his memoir John Brunton’s Book.

In 1847, an Englishman named Frederick Calvert bought a plot of land which included roughly half of Hisarlık. Frederick’s brother, Frank Calvert (lived 1828 – 1908), was an amateur archaeologist who was obsessed with the myth of the Trojan War. Frank Calvert knew a great deal about the emerging field of archaeology and had visited many archaeological sites, but he was self-conscious because he had no formal training in the subject; his knowledge of archaeology was wholly self-taught.

At some point prior to 1865, Frank Calvert began to conduct small-scale, methodical excavations on the part of Hisarlık that his family owned. As a result of these excavations, he turned up a number of artifacts dating to the later periods of ancient history. Calvert was convinced that Hisarlık was Troy and desperately wanted to excavate further, but, unfortunately, he did not have a big enough budget to fund any large-scale excavations on his own.

ABOVE: Photograph of the English amateur archaeologist Frank Calvert, who had been excavating at Hisarlık for at least seven years before Schliemann ever showed up

Oh, yeah, you know that whole story about how Schliemann supposedly identified Hisarlık as the site of Troy all on his own just by reading the Iliad? The whole story is pure bunk. Schliemann actually thought Troy was at Pınarbaşı, a site near Hisarlık, but, after excavating there, he was disappointed by his findings and was about to give up on his whole expedition to find Troy altogether.

Then Schliemann had a chance run-in with Frank Calvert (you know, the amateur archaeologist who had already been excavating at Hisarlık for years before Schliemann ever arrived). Calvert told Schliemann that he was digging at the wrong site and that the real Troy was at Hisarlık.

Schliemann didn’t believe Calvert at first, because the Iliad describes there as being two streams that flow past the city of Troy, one hot and one cold, and there are no such streams at Hisarlık. Nonetheless, Calvert was obstinate that Hisarlık was Troy. He told Schliemann that the streams could have easily dried up in the 3,000 years that had passed since the time of the Trojan War and showed him some of the ancient artifacts he had found at Hisarlık.

Eventually, after much persuading, Calvert managed to convince Schliemann that Hisarlık was the site of Troy. In other words, Schliemann’s whole story that he managed to identify Hisarlık as Troy on his own was a lie; without Calvert, Schliemann would have never found Troy.

The truth about Troy, part two: didn’t really prove much

If you know one thing about Schliemann’s “discovery” of Troy, it is probably that he proved all those awful, skeptical scholars wrong and proved that the Trojan War really happened. The problem is that he didn’t. Before Schliemann, most scholars were at least open to the possibility that Troy might have been a real city; it was mainly the story of the Trojan War itself that they were skeptical of, not the existence of Troy altogether.

The thing is, while Schliemann’s excavations definitely proved that Troy was a real city, they most emphatically did not prove that the Trojan War really happened or that any of the characters described in the Iliad really existed. As I myself discuss in great detail in this article I published in March 2019, the fact that Troy was a real city does not by any means prove that the Trojan War really happened.

Fictional stories can be set in real places. Calling the existence of Troy “proof of the Trojan War” is like calling the existence of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France proof that The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo is a work of nonfiction. The existence of Troy does not prove the existence of Priam, just like the existence of Notre Dame does not prove the existence of Quasimodo.

In other words, the only thing that Schliemann’s excavations at Troy really proved was something that many scholars had already at least suspected: that Troy was a real city. Schliemann, however, greatly exaggerated the extent to which previous scholars had doubted the existence of Troy and the extent to which his own discoveries actually made a difference.

ABOVE: The existence of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris does not prove the existence of Quasimodo, just like the existence of Troy as a real ancient city does not prove that the Trojan War as described in ancient Greek literary sources was a real historical event.

Irreversible harm to the site of Troy

Frank Calvert’s excavations at Troy had been severely limited by his small budget. Heinrich Schliemann, however, was independently wealthy and, unlike Calvert, could afford to launch a full-scale excavation of Hisarlık. Calvert and Schliemann therefore agreed to work together as partners.

The irony is that, through his own recklessness and incompetence, Schliemann destroyed more ruins at Troy than he actually discovered. You see, Schliemann was absolutely convinced that the ruins of Homeric Troy could only be at the very bottom of the hill, so he dug a massive trench straight through the city of Troy using tools that would be better suited to a siege than an archaeological excavation.

Schliemann’s favorite “tool” was dynamite, which he used liberally over the course of his excavation. Schliemann pretty much deemed all the remains that were found in the upper layers of Troy worthless, because he only cared about finding the Homeric Troy and did not care about any of the later cities that had been built on top of it. Consequently, Schliemann plowed through the upper layers of Troy, carelessly destroying most of the remains he found in those layers in the process. Finally, he reached the level which archaeologists have labelled “Troy II.” Schliemann declared that this was none other than the Homeric Troy.

Schliemann’s partner Frank Calvert, who had been mostly sidelined in this whole process, strongly opposed Schliemann’s destructive methods. The two men clashed over the issue and Calvert published an article exposing Schliemann’s destructiveness.

ABOVE: Photograph of the pit at Troy dug by Schliemann’s workmen, known today as “Schliemann’s Folly.” Dynamite was used extensively in the digging of this pit and countless ancient ruins were destroyed in the process, including most of the ruins of Troy VIIb, the level of Troy thought by archaeologists to date to the time period when the Trojan War is said to have happened.

As it turns out, though, Schliemann’s assumption that the Homeric Troy would be at the bottom of the hill was completely wrong. Frank Calvert recognized based on the pottery that was found in Troy II that Troy II was clearly far too early to be the Homeric Troy. Nevertheless, no matter what Calvert said, Schliemann refused to accept that he was wrong; he continued to wrongly insist until the day he died that Troy II was the Homeric Troy, even though most archaeologists agreed with Calvert.

In truth, the Troy that is thought most likely to be the Homeric Troy is Troy VIIb—one of the levels of Troy that Schliemann mostly destroyed in his mad quest to get to the bottom of the hill. If it had not been for Schliemann’s recklessness, we would know a lot more about what the city of Troy was like in the time period when the Trojan War is supposed to have happened than we do today.

Here is a succinct, but rather memorable description of Schliemann’s destruction of Troy given by Yu V. Andreyev in a footnote at the bottom of page 325 of the book Early Antiquity, which was published in 1991 by the University of Chicago Press:

“H. Schliemann, who discovered Troy in 1870, was mistaken in assuming that Homer’s Troy was the settlement second from the bottom of the seven occupations discovered at the same site. In fact, it has now been established that Troy II belongs to the second half of the third millennium B.C.; that is, it was occupied almost a thousand years before the Trojan War. Troy VIIa was ignored by Schliemann. Even worse, the relatively well preserved stone walls of Troy VIIa were demolished to construct barracks for the workers hired by Schliemann; he even failed to sketch them. Thus, Schliemann succeeded in completing Agamemnon’s work by destroying Troy and not leaving a trace. The (alleged) “backwardness” of archaeological science of that time is a poor excuse in this case, because archaeology had by then accumulated more than one century of experience.”

Quite frankly, it would have been far better for archaeology if Schliemann had never done any excavations at all.

ABOVE: A surviving portion of the walls of the acropolis of Troy VII

ABOVE: A surviving portion of the walls of Troy VII

ABOVE: Archaeological plan retrieved from Wikimedia Commons showing the layout of the citadel of the actual ancient city of Troy

Schliemann’s theft of historic artifacts from Troy

At some point in late May 1873, Schliemann or his workmen discovered some treasures which Schliemann concluded (on the basis of absolutely no evidence whatsoever other than his own imagination) were none other than the treasures of King Priam of Troy himself. Unfortunately, the true circumstances of how these artifacts were discovered are quite murky, largely due to Schliemann’s persistent habit of lying about how the artifacts he discovered were really found.

Schliemann repeatedly claimed that he had seen the gold glittering in the dirt and told the workmen to take a break while he and Sophia excavated the treasure themselves. He claimed that they had hidden the treasure in Sophia’s shawl and carried it off. Schliemann himself, however, later admitted to having fabricated this story for dramatic effect. He admitted that Sophia had actually been in Athens mourning the death of her father with her family at the time the treasure was discovered.

The scholar David A. Traill has argued that Schliemann may not have even found the artifacts that made up the so-called “Priam’s Treasure” in the same place, but rather may have found the artifacts in various locations over the course of the excavation and only later claimed that they had been found together. The artifacts have been shown to all date to Troy II, but this does not necessarily mean they were really found in the same place as Schliemann claimed.

ABOVE: Photograph of “Priam’s Treasure”

Regardless of how he found the artifacts, Schliemann certainly stole them. Schliemann illegally smuggled the artifacts that made up “Priam’s Treasure” out of the Ottoman Empire and brought them back to Athens. In Athens, Schliemann announced the discovery of the treasure and had his wife Sophia wear the so-called “Jewels of Helen” publicly.

The Ottoman government, upon learning of Schliemann’s theft of the artifacts, revoked Schliemann’s permission to excavate at Troy and sued him for its share of the treasure, since it owned half the land and had only granted Schliemann permission to excavate on its land under the condition that it would receive half the artifacts he discovered.

Eventually, Schliemann gave a portion of the artifacts to the Ottoman government in exchange for permission to dig at Troy again. In 1881, Schliemann donated the rest of the treasure to the Königliche Museen zu Berlin.

ABOVE: Photograph of Sophia Schliemann wearing the so-called “Jewels of Helen,” which Schliemann stole

Schliemann’s destruction of historical monuments elsewhere

Heinrich Schliemann did not just destroy historical monuments and artifacts at Troy, though. Oh no, he was happy to destroy historical monuments anywhere, anytime. You may notice, for instance, that there are currently no monuments on the Athenian Akropolis dating to later periods of Greek history after the end of classical antiquity. Well, the reason for that is not because people stopped building monuments, but rather because all the later monuments were torn down in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Schliemann was one of the foremost proponents of destroying historical monuments on the Akropolis that were not from classical antiquity. For instance, in 1874, Schliemann initiated and financed the destruction of the Frankish Tower, a large tower on the western end of the Akropolis next to the Propylaia that had been built by the Franks in the Late Middle Ages. The reason why Schliemann wanted the tower demolished was because it was not from classical antiquity and he wanted to purify the Akropolis by removing non-antique monuments.

Nonetheless, this historic tower had long been regarded as an iconic feature of the Athens skyline for centuries. The destruction of the tower was strongly opposed by members of the Greek public and by King Georgios I of Greece himself, who directly ordered Schliemann to stop. Schliemann wrote an angry letter to the king basically telling him to go screw himself and tore the tower down anyways.

Here is a photograph of the western end of the Akropolis taken in 1874, showing the Frankish Tower and the Propylaia shortly before the tower’s destruction:

Here is a photograph of the Frankish Tower and the Propylaia taken at some point between c.1868 and 1874:

Here is a photograph from Wikimedia Commons taken of the eastern façade of the Propylaia on 9 October 2017:

As you can see, there is nary a trace of the Frankish Tower to be seen, all thanks to Schliemann.

Schliemann the pathological liar

Unfortunately, a lot of our information about Heinrich Schliemann comes from Schliemann himself, but Schliemann is well-known to have been a pathological liar who routinely and deliberately fabricated stories to garner attention and to portray himself in a more positive light.

For instance, Schliemann claimed in his diary that he met President Millard Fillmore at the White House on 21 February 1851, but this story has been shown to have been completely made-up. Schliemann also claimed that the reason why he suddenly left Sacramento in 1852 was on account of his health, but it was later shown by Professor David A. Traill in a paper published in 1979 titled “Schliemann’s Mendacity: Fire and Fever in Sacramento” that Schliemann really fled Sacramento because he had been cheating his business partner and his business partner had found out.

Schliemann also claimed that, in 1868, he submitted a dissertation written in Ancient Greek in which he argued that the city of Troy was located at Hisarlık to the University of Rostock for which he was awarded a PhD in absentia. There is no record from outside of Schliemann’s own writings for the existence of this dissertation, however, and what Schliemann seems to have actually written was an eight-page personal vita in a combination of Greek, Latin, and French.

Schliemann claimed that he became an American citizen in 1850, but the scholar W. M. Calder III uncovered that Schliemann actually only became an American citizen in 1869. David A. Traill further uncovered that Schliemann only gained his American citizenship through bribery, deliberate misrepresentation, and perjury.

Conclusion

Heinrich Schliemann was a dirtbag who misrepresented his findings and their significance to garner fame. Because so much of the traditional narrative relies on what Schliemann wrote about himself and about his findings, the earlier archaeologists to excavate at Troy, including Frank Calvert—the very one who told Schliemann that Troy was at Hisarlık—have been almost completely written out of the narrative. Furthermore, Schliemann’s reckless and destructive methods have erased much of the information that we otherwise would have had about Troy.

Make no mistake: I am not judging Schliemann by an anachronistic standard here; I am judging him by the standards of his own era. Even Schliemann’s own partner Frank Calvert—who, need I remind you all, was an amateur just like Schliemann—knew that Schliemann’s excavation techniques were misguided and destructive.

Just about every other archaeologist of Schliemann’s time lived up to a higher standard than he did. Indeed, whatever Sir Arthur Evans’s faults were in his excavations at Knossos, he at least did not think to use dynamite on the site he was excavating. The biggest problem with Schliemann’s excavations at Troy was not just the usual methods of nineteenth-century archaeology in general; the biggest problem was Schliemann himself.