DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.959#0185
124 TROY AND ITS REMAINS. [Chap. VIII.
quated theory that Troy is to be looked for at the back
of the Plain, upon the heights of Bunarbashi, will at once
condemn that theory, for the Acropolis and town which
once stood upon those heights, and the small area of which
is accurately defined by the ruins of the surrounding walls
and by the precipices, is scarcely large enough to have
contained a population of 2,000 souls; the accumulation of
dSrts moreover is extremely small. In many places, even
in the middle of the Acropolis, the naked rock protrudes,
and between the area of this small town and Bunarbashi
the ground—in some places pointed, in others abrupt, but
in all parts irregular—shows that no village, much less a
town, can ever have stood upon it. Immediately above
Bunarbashi, and in fact wherever there was any earth at all,
I and my guide, with five workmen, made (in August
1868) a long series of borings at distances of 100 meters
(328 feet) apart, as far as the Scamander, but we found
the primary soil in all cases directly, and the rock at quite
an insignificant depth; and nowhere was there a trace of
fragments of pottery or other indications that the place
could ever have been inhabited by human beings. Even
in Bunarbashi itself I found the primary soil at a depth of
less than 2 feet. Besides this, if Troy had been built at the
back of the Plain, upon the heights of Bunarbashi, Homer
(Iliad, XX. 216-218) would not have expressly said that
previous to its foundation by Dardanus it had not yet been
built in the Plain.
The primary soil of Hissarlik is indeed less than 20
meters (6$h feet) above the Plain, immediately at the foot
of the hill; but at all events the Plain itself, and especially
that part bordering upon the hill, has increased in height
considerably in the course of 31 centuries. But even
if this had not been the case, still the Troy built upon
this hill running out into the Plain would, on account
of its high and imposing position, deserve the Homeric
epithets of 6(f>pv6eo-<ra., aiircLmj, and rjvefi6e<r(ra, especially
quated theory that Troy is to be looked for at the back
of the Plain, upon the heights of Bunarbashi, will at once
condemn that theory, for the Acropolis and town which
once stood upon those heights, and the small area of which
is accurately defined by the ruins of the surrounding walls
and by the precipices, is scarcely large enough to have
contained a population of 2,000 souls; the accumulation of
dSrts moreover is extremely small. In many places, even
in the middle of the Acropolis, the naked rock protrudes,
and between the area of this small town and Bunarbashi
the ground—in some places pointed, in others abrupt, but
in all parts irregular—shows that no village, much less a
town, can ever have stood upon it. Immediately above
Bunarbashi, and in fact wherever there was any earth at all,
I and my guide, with five workmen, made (in August
1868) a long series of borings at distances of 100 meters
(328 feet) apart, as far as the Scamander, but we found
the primary soil in all cases directly, and the rock at quite
an insignificant depth; and nowhere was there a trace of
fragments of pottery or other indications that the place
could ever have been inhabited by human beings. Even
in Bunarbashi itself I found the primary soil at a depth of
less than 2 feet. Besides this, if Troy had been built at the
back of the Plain, upon the heights of Bunarbashi, Homer
(Iliad, XX. 216-218) would not have expressly said that
previous to its foundation by Dardanus it had not yet been
built in the Plain.
The primary soil of Hissarlik is indeed less than 20
meters (6$h feet) above the Plain, immediately at the foot
of the hill; but at all events the Plain itself, and especially
that part bordering upon the hill, has increased in height
considerably in the course of 31 centuries. But even
if this had not been the case, still the Troy built upon
this hill running out into the Plain would, on account
of its high and imposing position, deserve the Homeric
epithets of 6(f>pv6eo-<ra., aiircLmj, and rjvefi6e<r(ra, especially