Heinrich Schliemann: Encyclopedia II - Heinrich Schliemann - The dark side of Schliemann

Heinrich Schliemann - The dark side of Schliemann

Schliemann's career began before archaeology developed as a professional field, and so, by present standards, the field technique of Schliemann's work leaves a lot to be desired. Indeed, further excavation of the Troy site by others has indicated that the level he named the Troy of the Iliad was not that; in fact, all of the materials given Homeric names by Schliemann are considered of a pseudo- nature, although they retain the names. His excavations were even condemned by the archaeologists of his time as having destroyed the main layers of the real Troy. They were forgetting that, before Schliemann, not many people even believed in a real Troy.

One of the main problems of his work is that King Priam's Treasure was putatively found in the Troy II level, of the primitive Early Bronze Age, long before Priam's city of Troy VI or Troy VIIa in the prosperous and elaborate Mycenaean Age. Moreover, the finds were unique. These unique and elaborate gold artifacts do not appear to belong to the Early Bronze Age.

In the 1960's, Dr. William Niederland, a psychoanalyst, conducted a psychobiography of Schliemann, to account for his unconscious motives. Niederland read thousands of Schliemann's letters and found that he hated his father and blamed him for his mother's death, as evidenced by vituperative letters to his sisters. This view seems to contradict the loving image Heinrich gave and calls the entire childhood dedication to Homer into question. Nothing in the early letters to indicate that he was even interested in Troy or classical archaeology.

Niederland concluded that Schliemann's preoccupation (as he saw it) with graves and the dead reflected grief over the loss of his mother, for which he blamed his father, and his efforts at resurrecting the Homeric dead represent a restoration of his mother. Whether this sort of evaluation is valid is debateable.

In 1972, Professor William Calder of the University of Colorado, speaking at a commemoration of Schliemann's birthday, revealed that he had uncovered several untruths. Other investigators followed, such as Professor David Traill of the University of California.

Schliemann claimed in his memoirs to have dined with President Millard Fillmore in the White House in 1850. However newspapers of the day make no mention of such a meeting, and it seems unlikely that the president of the United States would have a desire to hob-nob with a poor immigrant. Schliemann left California hastily in order to escape from his business partner, whom he had cheated. In the frontier society of the gold rush, cheating was punishable by lynching.

Nor did Schliemann become a U.S. citizen in 1850 as he claimed. He was granted citizenship in New York city in 1868 on the basis of his false claim that he had been a long-time resident. He did divorce Ekaterina from Indiana, but in 1868, an obvious hasty move to clear the way for Sophia.

He never received any degree from the University of Rostock, which rejected his application and thesis.

Schliemann's worst offense, by academic standards, is that he may have fabricated Priam's Treasure, or at least combined several disparate finds. His servant, Yannakis, testified that he found some of it in a tomb some distance away, and that it contained no gold. Later it developed that he hired a goldsmith to manufacture some artifacts in Mycenaean style, and planted them at the site. Others were collected from other places on the site. Though Sophia was in Athens visiting her family at the time, it is possible she colluded with him on the secret, as he claimed she helped him and she didn't deny it.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The dark side of Schliemann", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki