Heinrich Schliemann

Heinrich Schliemann
Portrait of Dr. phil. Dr. h. c. Heinrich Schliemann; In his excavations at Troy, Schliemann found many swastikas adorned on pottery and consulted with French Orientalist, classical philologist and Aryan researcher Émile-Louis Burnouf to identify the symbol. Stating that the symbol was connected with the Aryans, Burnouf adopted and popularised the swastika as a symbol of Aryan identity. Schliemann's decision to consult Burnouf can thus be seen as having triggered the use of the swastika as an Aryan symbol.
Born	6 January 1822(1822-01-06) Neubukow, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, German Confederation
Died	26 December 1890 (aged 68) Naples, Kingdom of Italy
Nationality	German
Fields	Archaeology
Spouse	∞ Ekaterina Petrovna Lyschin (m. 1852; div. 1869) ​∞ Sophia Schliemann (m. 1869)​ 5 children (3 w/ Lyschin, 2 w/ Schliemann, incl. Agamemnon)

Johann Ludwig Heinrich Julius Schliemann (6 January 1822 – 26 December 1890) was a German businessman and archaeologist, and an advocate of the historical reality of places mentioned in the works of Homer. Schliemann was an archaeological excavator of Troy, along with the Mycenaean sites Mycenae and Tiryns. His work lent weight to the idea that Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid reflect actual historical events.

Schliemann was the first to uncover a Bronze Age settlement outside of Egypt and Mesopotamia and thus opened up a completely new field of work for ancient studies. The excavator of Ancient Greek sites is not only considered the modern discoverer of prehistoric Greece but as the "Father of Mycenaean archaeology".

Life

Schliemann in: Hanns von Zobeltitz, Dreissig Lebensbilder deutscher Männer aus neuerer Zeit, Velhagen & Klasing, 1892, pp. 288 ff.

Archaeological map of Asia Minor (1899) by Dr. phil. Walther Ruge (father of Friedrich Ruge) and Dr. phil. E. Friedrich

Childhood, youth, and life as a businessman

Schliemann was born in Neubukow in 1822. His father was a Protestant minister named Ernst Schliemann. Heinrich's mother, Luise Therese Sophie, died in 1831, when he was just 9. After her death, Heinrich was sent to live with his uncle. He was enrolled in the Gymnasium at Neustrelitz at age 11 with his attendance paid for by his father. He attended the grammar school for at least a year. He would later state that his interest in history had been encouraged by his father, who, he said, had schooled him in the tales of the Iliad and the Odyssey and had given him a copy of Ludwig Jerrer's Illustrated History of the World for Christmas in 1829.

His interest in the classics continued during his time at the Gymnasium, so it is likely that he would have been further exposed to Homer. However, he was transferred to the vocational school, or Realschule, after his father was accused of embezzling church funds, and had to quit the vocational school in 1836 when his father was no longer able to pay for it. According to his diary, his interest in ancient Greece was conceived when he overheard a drunken university student reciting the Odyssey of Homer in classical Greek and Heinrich was taken by the language's beauty. However, the accuracy of that information remains questionable, as do many details in his diary, given that he was demonstrably not always scrupulous about providing the whole truth (he forged documents to divorce his wife and lied in his application for US citizenship). He is also accused of being a black market trader, though several documentaries from the late 80s and early 90s prefer to gloss over this accusation.

Schliemann's early academic experiences established the fundamental character of his later life. He wanted to return to the educated life, to reacquire all the things of which he was deprived in childhood. Yet in his archaeological career, there was always a division between him and the educated professionals. Heinrich developed a tendency to pose as something he was not. Moreover, his father's experiences gave him a sympathy to means that were not always legal or aboveboard.

After leaving Realschule at age 14, Heinrich became a grocer's apprentice at Herr Holtz's grocery in Fürstenberg. He worked in the grocery for five years, reading in his spare time. In 1841, Schliemann fled to Hamburg and became a cabin boy on the Dorothea, a steamer bound for Venezuela. After twelve days at sea the ship foundered in a gale, and the survivors washed up on the shores of the Netherlands.

On March 1, 1844, he took a position with B. H. Schröder & Co., an import/export firm. There he evidenced such judgement and talent for the work that they sent him as a General Agent in 1846 to St. Petersburg, where the markets were favorable. He represented a number of companies. He prospered there, but how well is not known; in view of his later experiences with his first wife, he probably did not become rich. He did learn Russian and Greek, employing a system that he used his entire life to learn languages -- Schliemann wrote his diary in the language of whatever country he happened to be in.

Schliemann had a gift for languages, and by the end of his life he was conversant in English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Italian, Greek, Latin, Russian, Arabic, and Turkish as well as his native German. Schliemann's ability with languages was an important part of his career as a businessman in the importing trade. How well he actually knew those languages is another question, but he seemed reasonably at home in many nations.

In 1850 Heinrich learned of the death of his brother, Ludwig, who had become wealthy as a speculator in the California gold fields. Taking the cue, Schliemann went to California in early 1851 and started a bank in Sacramento. The bank bought and resold over a million dollars in gold dust in just six months. The prospectors could mine or pan for the gold, but they had no way to sell it except to middlemen such as Schliemann, who made quick fortunes on it.

Later Heinrich stated to have acquired United States citizenship when California was made a state. According to his memoirs, before arriving in California he had dined in Washington with President Millard Fillmore and family. He also published an account of the San Francisco fire of 1851.

He was not in the United States long. On April 7, 1852, he sold his business rather suddenly (allegedly due to fever) and returned to Russia. There he attempted to live the life of a gentleman, which brought him into contact with Ekaterina Lyschin, the niece of one of his wealthy friends. Previously he had learned that his childhood sweetheart, Minna, had married.

Heinrich and Ekaterina were married on October 12, 1852. The marriage was troubled from the start. Ekaterina wanted him to be richer than he was and withheld conjugal rights until he made a move in that direction, which he did. The canny Schliemann cornered the market in indigo and then went into the indigo business, turning a good profit. This move won him Ekaterina's intimacy and they had a son, Sergey. Two other children followed.

Having a family to support moved Schliemann to tend to business even though he still had his first fortune. He found a way to make yet another quick fortune as a military contractor in the Crimean War, 1854-1856. He cornered the market in saltpeter, brimstone, and lead, constituents of ammunition, which he resold to the Russian government.

By 1858, Schliemann was wealthy. Some say he retired at 36, which would have been in 1858; others say 1863, at age 41. In his memoirs, he stated that he wished to dedicate himself to the pursuit of Troy.

Life as an archaeologist

It is not certain by what path Schliemann really did arrive at either archaeology or Troy. He traveled a great deal, seeking out ways to get to famous cultural and historical icons. One of his most famous exploits was disguising himself as a Bedouin tribesman to gain access to forbidden areas of Mecca, the holy Muslim city.

His first interest of a classical nature seems to have been the location of Troy. The city's very existence was then in dispute. Perhaps his attention was attracted by the first excavations at Santorini in 1862 by Ferdinand Fouqué. This possibility argues for an early retirement date, as he was already an international traveller by then. On the other hand, he may have been inspired by Frank Calvert, whom he met on his first visit to the Hissarlik site in 1868.

Somewhere in his many travels and adventures he lost Ekaterina. She was not interested in adventure and had remained in Russia. Schliemann stated to have utilised the divorce laws of Indiana in 1850, after becoming a citizen, in order to divorce Ekaterina in absentia. This story established more of a distance between his first and second wives.

Schliemann decided that Hissarlik was the site of Troy. In 1868 — a busy year for Schliemann — he visited sites in the Greek world, published Ithaka, der Peloponnesus und Troja in which he advocated for Hissarlik as the site of Troy, and submitted a dissertation in ancient Greek proposing the same thesis to the University of Rostock. In 1869, he was awarded a PhD in absentia from the University of Rostock, in Germany, for that submission.

In 1868, regardless of his previous interests and adventures, or the paths by which he arrived at that year, Schliemann's course was set. He would take over Calvert's excavations on the eastern half of the Hissarlik site, which was on Calvert's property. The Turkish government owned the western half. Calvert became Schliemann's collaborator and partner.

Schliemann brought dedication, enthusiasm, conviction and a not inconsiderable fortune to the work. Excavations cannot be made without funds, and are vain without publication of the results. Schliemann was able to provide both. Consequently, he made his name in the field of Mycenaean archaeology during his lifetime and despite some later criticism, his work still earns the favor of some classical archaeologists.

Schliemann knew he would need an "insider" collaborator versed in Greek culture of the times. As he had just dumped Ekaterina (1868), he was in a position to advertise for a wife, which he did, in the Athens newspaper. His friend, the Archbishop of Athens, suggested a relative of his, the seventeen-year-old Sophia Engastromenos. As she fit the qualifications, he married her almost at once (1869). They later had two children, Andromache and Agamemnon Schliemann; he reluctantly allowed them to be baptized, but only solemnized the ceremony by placing a copy of the Iliad on the children's heads and reciting a hundred hexameters.

By 1871 Schliemann was ready to go to work at Troy. Thinking that Homeric Troy must be in the lowest level, he dug hastily through the upper levels, reaching fortifications that he took to be his target. In 1872 he and Calvert fell out over this method. Schliemann flew into a fury when Calvert published an article stating that the Trojan War period was missing from the record, probably meaning that Schliemann had destroyed it.

As if to exonerate his views, a cache of gold suddenly appeared in 1873, which Heinrich dubbed "Priam's Treasure." According to him, he saw the gold glinting in the dirt and dismissed the workmen so that he and Sophie could personally excavate it and remove it in Sophie's shawl. Sophie wore one item, "the Jewels of Helen", for the public. He published his findings in Trojanische Altertümer, 1874.

This publicity stunt backfired when the Turkish government revoked his permission to dig and sued him for a share of the gold. Collaborating with Calvert, he had smuggled the treasure out of the Ottoman Empire, which did not endear him to the Ottoman authorities. This was not the first time Calvert and Schliemann had smuggled antiquities.

Meanwhile Heinrich published Troja und seine Ruinen (Troy and her ruins) in 1875 and excavated the Treasury of Minyas at Orchomenus. In 1876, he began excavating at Mycenae. Upon discovering the Shaft Graves, with their skeletons and more regal gold, such as the Mask of Agamemnon, Schliemann cabled the king of Greece. The results were published in Mykena in 1878.

Although he had received permission to excavate in 1876, Schliemann did not reopen the dig at Troy until 1878–1879, after another excavation in Ithaca designed to locate the actual sites of the Odysseus story. This was his second excavation at Troy. Emile Burnouf and Rudolph Virchow joined him in 1879. There was a third excavation, 1882–1883, an excavation of Tiryns in 1884 with Wilhelm Dörpfeld, and a fourth at Troy, 1888–1890, with Dörpfeld, who taught him to stratigraphize.

The following new research methods he invented are still used today:

• Preliminary investigation of the area by sondagen (search trenches);
• Excavation down to the natural ground;
• attention to stratigraphy (sequence of layers);
• Search for the conductive ceramic (“conductor fossil”) for the individual layers;
• interdisciplinary collaboration with other sciences, including Anthropology, paleontology, paleography, topography and chemistry.

Through his numerous publications, he has significantly promoted the public's interest in serious archaeological research. His reports on the connections between Tiryns, Mycenae and Crete first brought these sites to the attention of historical science. Prof. Dr. med. Dr. h. c. mult. Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow said about him:

“Today it is an idle question whether Schliemann began his investigations with correct or incorrect assumptions. Not only did success decide for him, but the method of his investigation also proved successful. It may be that his assumptions were too bold, even arbitrary, that the enchanting picture of immortal poetry captivated his imagination too much, but this error of mind, if one may call it that, also contained the secret of his success. Who would have undertaken such great work, continued over many years, expended such enormous resources from his own possessions, dug through an almost endless series of layers of rubble piled up on top of each other down to the primeval soil at a greater depth than a man who was confident, even enthusiastic? Even today, the burned city would be resting in the secrecy of the earth if imagination had not guided the spade.”

Decline

On 1 August 1890, Schliemann returned reluctantly to Athens, and in November traveled to Halle for an operation on his chronically infected ears. The doctors dubbed the operation a success, but his inner ear became painfully inflamed. Ignoring his doctors' advice, he left the hospital and traveled to Leipzig, Berlin, and Paris. From the latter, he planned to return to Athens in time for Christmas, but his ears became even worse. Too sick to make the boat ride from Naples to Greece, Schliemann remained in Naples, but managed to make a journey to the ruins of Pompeii.

Death

On Christmas Day, he collapsed and died in a Naples hotel room the next day on 26 December 1890. His corpse was then transported by friends to the First Cemetery in Athens. It was interred in a mausoleum shaped like a temple erected in ancient Greek style designed by Ernst Ziller. The pedimental sculpture and the frieze circling the outside of the mausoleum shows Schliemann conducting the excavations at Mycenae and other sites. His magnificent residence in the city centre of Athens, houses today the Numismatic Museum of Athens.

In his will, he gave special consideration to his children from his first marriage, who inherited his houses in Paris, and from his second marriage, who received the property in Greece. But his living German relatives also received generous inheritances.

Honours

In 1881, through Virchow's intervention, Schliemann donated his collection of “Trojan antiquities” to the German people and became an honorary citizen of Berlin and an honorary member of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory. He published his research results under the title Ilios as well as his autobiography.

His sixth excavation campaign began in Troy in 1882 with the collaboration of the young master builder Wilhelm Dörpfeld. In the same year he was appointed external member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. In 1883, Schliemann received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford and an honorary fellow of Queen's College.

Today the Heinrich Schliemann Gymnasiums in Fürth and Berlin, the Heinrich Schliemann Neubukow regional school and the Heinrich Schliemann Institute for Classical Studies at the University of Rostock bear Schliemann's name. In Schwerin there has been a bust monument to Schliemann at the Pfaffenteich since 1895, created by the sculptor Hugo Berwald, but it was stolen at the end of August 2011. Since May 2012, a bronze replica based on a plaster cast of the original bust has stood in the same location.

His parents' house in Ankershagen has housed the Heinrich Schliemann Museum since 1980. Among other things, ceramic and bronze original finds and replicas from Mycenae and Troy are presented there. The Heinrich Schliemann Memorial in Neubukow has also been providing information about the city's most famous son since 1972 and exhibits original finds and replicas. The asteroid (3302) Schliemann and a lunar crater on the far side of the moon were named after Heinrich Schliemann.

In 1990, the German Federal Post Office (Deutsche Bundespost) and the Greek Post Office issued a special stamp as a joint issue to mark the 100th anniversary of Schliemann's death. In the same year, the GDR's Deutsche Post issued a special stamp with its own motif. In January 2022, the Federal Ministry of Finance issued a special stamp to mark the 200th birthday.

See also

• Troy
• Mycenaean Greece

External links

Encyclopedias

• Encyclopedia Britannica: Heinrich Schliemann
• Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 Edition: Heinrich Schliemann
• Encyclopedia.com: Heinrich Schliemann