Schliemann, Heinrich: Troy and its remains: a narrative of researches and discoveries made on the site of Illium, and in the Trojan Plain (London, 1875)

i87i.]

GROWTH OF THE HILL.

97

last lying before me, to prove that the Iliad is founded on
facts, and that the great Greek nation must not be deprived
of this crown of her glory. I shall spare no trouble and
shun no expense to attain this result.

I must still draw attention to the remarkable growth
of this hill. The huge square stones of the foundations of
the house on the summit of the hill (where I found the in-
scription which appears to belong to the third century B.C.),
which in its day must have been on the surface, are now in
some places only 13 inches, in others only 3^ feet below
the earth. But as the colossal ruins, which I positively
maintain to be those of ancient Troy, lie at a depth of
33 feet, the accumulation of debris on this part must have
amounted to more than 30 feet during the first 1000 years,
and only from 1 to 3 feet during the last 2000 years.

But, strange to say, on the north side of the hill, with
its steep declivity, at the place where I am digging, the
thickness of the hill has not increased in the slightest degree.
For not only do the ruins of the innumerable habitations
in all cases extend to the extreme edge of the declivity, but
I also find up to this point the same objects that I find
on the same horizontal line as far as the opposite end of
my excavations. Hence it is interesting to know that the
declivity of the hill on the north side was exactly as steep
at the time of the Trojan war as it is now, namely, that
even at that time it rose at an angle of 40 degrees.

No- 64. A stone Implement of unknown No. 65. A strange Vessel of Terra-cotta

use. Weight 472 grammes. (2M.) (15 »'■)•

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