DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.959#0281
2,i6 TROY AND ITS REMAINS. [Chap. XIII.
yellow terra-cotta, a drawing of which I give. It is quite
inexplicable to me for what purpose it can have been used;
it is almost in the shape of a shield, and by the side of the
handle which is ornamented with a tree, it has a cavity
for putting the hand in. As it is made of terra-cotta it
cannot, of course, have been used as a shield.*
After having had no rain here for four months, to-
day, curiously enough, just after stopping the works, we
have had a thunderstorm accompanied by a tremendous
downpour of rain, and I regret extremely not to have been
able to make a channel for leading off the rain-water from
the Tower as far as the western declivity of the hill. But
such a channel would need to be 50 feet deep and as many
broad, otherwise its walls, consisting of calcined ruins and
loose red ashes, would fall in. I should therefore have to
remove 5000 cubic meters (6000 cubic yards) of dttris,
and such a gigantic piece of work I cannot now under-
take.
In stopping the excavations for this year, and in looking
back upon the fearful dangers to which we have continually
been exposed since the 1st of April, between the gigantic
layers of ruins, I cannot but fervently thank God for His
great mercy, that not only has no life been lost, but that
none of us has even been seriously hurt.
Now, as regards the result of my excavations, every-
one must admit that I have solved a great historical
problem, and that I have solved it by the discovery of a
high civilization and immense buildings upon the primary
soil, in the depths of an ancient town, which throughout
antiquity was called Ilium and declared itself to be the
successor of Troy, the site of which was regarded as iden-
tical with the site of the Homeric Ilium by the whole
civilized world of that time. The situation of this town
not only corresponds perfectly with all the statements or
the Iliad, but also with all the traditions handed down to
* See Plate XXL, No. 309.
yellow terra-cotta, a drawing of which I give. It is quite
inexplicable to me for what purpose it can have been used;
it is almost in the shape of a shield, and by the side of the
handle which is ornamented with a tree, it has a cavity
for putting the hand in. As it is made of terra-cotta it
cannot, of course, have been used as a shield.*
After having had no rain here for four months, to-
day, curiously enough, just after stopping the works, we
have had a thunderstorm accompanied by a tremendous
downpour of rain, and I regret extremely not to have been
able to make a channel for leading off the rain-water from
the Tower as far as the western declivity of the hill. But
such a channel would need to be 50 feet deep and as many
broad, otherwise its walls, consisting of calcined ruins and
loose red ashes, would fall in. I should therefore have to
remove 5000 cubic meters (6000 cubic yards) of dttris,
and such a gigantic piece of work I cannot now under-
take.
In stopping the excavations for this year, and in looking
back upon the fearful dangers to which we have continually
been exposed since the 1st of April, between the gigantic
layers of ruins, I cannot but fervently thank God for His
great mercy, that not only has no life been lost, but that
none of us has even been seriously hurt.
Now, as regards the result of my excavations, every-
one must admit that I have solved a great historical
problem, and that I have solved it by the discovery of a
high civilization and immense buildings upon the primary
soil, in the depths of an ancient town, which throughout
antiquity was called Ilium and declared itself to be the
successor of Troy, the site of which was regarded as iden-
tical with the site of the Homeric Ilium by the whole
civilized world of that time. The situation of this town
not only corresponds perfectly with all the statements or
the Iliad, but also with all the traditions handed down to
* See Plate XXL, No. 309.