Academic literature on the topic 'Sophia Schliemann'

Sophia Schliemann is a familiar figure. The name readily conjures up a determined young Greek woman, who shared with her older German husband a passion for Homer and archaeology. We see her gamely putting up with the inconvenient realities of living at the site of an excavation — uncomfortable lodgings, often shared with exotic and undesirable fauna, blazing sun, freezing cold, rain and mud at Mycenae, and the relentless wind and dust of Troy. In recent years we have come to admire a woman who seemed easily to transcend the limitations imposed on her sex by the era and society in which she lived. She commanded groups of workmen at Troy, Mycenae and Orchomenos. Above all, we see her playing a crucial supporting role at the climactic moments of Heinrich’s excavations. At Troy she stood by his side and wrapped up Priam’s Treasure in her shawl. At Mycenae she got down on her hands and knees in the Shaft Graves and extricated the gold jewellery and masks from the mud.

The legendary excavation of Mycenae’s Grave Circle A in 1876 resulted in the celebration of Heinrich and Sophia Schliemann as the sole excavators. The crucial role of Panayotis Stamatakis, the systematic and perceptive archaeologist who was assigned to supervise the excavation as a representative of the Greek state, was – for a long time – largely unacknowledged. Stamatakis’ invaluable manuscripts, where he recorded one by one all the finds and their locations, attributing them to specific burials, went missing for more than a century. Now part of the Archive of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, these manuscripts shed new light on the taphonomy and burial customs of Grave Circle A, revealing the biographies of the first Mycenaean rulers.

Schliemann's first campaign of excavation at Troy (1871–3) culminated in the discovery of ‘Priam's Treasure’. The find remains the largest and certainly the most controversial ever to have been made at Troy. In 1984 l argued that it was not a single find, as Schliemann reports, but a composite, comprising a core of pieces actually found on 31 May 1873 and a number of other pieces found earlier (Traill 1984 = 1993: 127–53). The article generated a considerable response and, apparently, some confusion. For instance, after demonstrating that Schliemann's story of Sophia's assistance at the discovery was a lie, I asked if there were adequate grounds for believing that he had actually found the pieces of ‘Priam's Treasure’ at Troy rather than, say, bought them from local dealers. I then indicated that the answer was ‘overwhelmingly in the affirmative’ and listed six specific reasons why we should believe this. I concluded: ‘These facts constitute a powerful argument that most, and probably all, of the pieces of ‘Priam's Treasure’ were in fact found in Early Bronze Age Troy’ (Traill 1984: 111 = 1993: 148–9). It would have been remarkable if after this I went on to argue, or even to suggest, that some of the pieces might be fakes. I did not. I have never suggested that any item of ‘Priam's Treasure’ is a fake. Yet critics have persistently represented me, either explicitly or implicitly, as holding this view, thereby muddying waters already murky and distracting attention from the real issues. It is hoped that this paper will refocus the debate on relevant topics.