Heinrich Schliemann

Heinrich Schliemann was a German businessman and pioneering archaeologist whose excavations fundamentally shaped the modern understanding of the Aegean Bronze Age. He is most famous for his work at the site of Troy and at Mycenae, where he claimed to have discovered the world of Homer's epics. While his dramatic finds, such as "Priam's Treasure" and the "Mask of Agamemnon," captured global imagination, his methods and interpretations have been the subject of enduring controversy. His work, nonetheless, ignited public interest in prehistoric archaeology and laid the groundwork for the professional study of the Mycenaean and Minoan civilizations.

Early life and education

Born in the small town of Neubukow in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, he was the son of a poor Lutheran pastor. His childhood was marked by his father's tales of the Trojan War, which instilled in him a lifelong passion for the works of Homer. After his mother's death, he was sent to live with an uncle and his formal education was cut short, leading him to become a grocer's apprentice in Fürstenberg. A workplace injury later forced him to abandon manual labor, and he found employment as a cabin boy on a ship bound for Venezuela, though the vessel was wrecked off the coast of the Netherlands. Stranded in Amsterdam, he began working as a clerk, where he demonstrated a prodigious talent for languages, eventually mastering over a dozen including Dutch, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian.

Business career and early travels

His linguistic skills launched a highly successful commercial career. Employed by the trading firm B. H. Schröder & Co., he was sent to Saint Petersburg in 1846 as their agent, where he founded his own indigo trading business. During the Crimean War, he profited greatly as a military contractor, dealing in commodities like saltpeter, sulfur, and lead. He became a naturalized Russian citizen and married Ekaterina Lyschin, the niece of a wealthy merchant. Amassing a considerable fortune, he retired from business in his mid-forties to pursue his archaeological ambitions. He traveled extensively, visiting China, Japan, and California during the Gold Rush, and studied archaeology in Paris and at the University of Rostock, where he received a doctorate.

Archaeological work and discoveries

Guided by his belief in the historical truth of the Iliad and the Odyssey, he identified the mound of Hisarlik in Anatolia as the site of ancient Troy, contrary to prevailing scholarly opinion. Beginning excavations there in 1871, he uncovered the remains of multiple superimposed cities. In 1873, he announced the spectacular discovery of "Priam's Treasure," a hoard of gold jewelry, vessels, and weapons. Turning his attention to mainland Greece, he secured permission from the Greek Archaeological Society to excavate at Mycenae in 1876. Within the grave circles inside the Lion Gate, he unearthed spectacular gold funerary goods, including the famous "Mask of Agamemnon." Subsequent excavations at Orchomenus and Tiryns further revealed the grandeur of Mycenaean palace architecture.

Methods and controversies

His archaeological legacy is deeply contested. A fervent amateur, he employed destructive, rapid excavation techniques, famously digging a great trench through Hisarlik that destroyed many later stratigraphic layers in his quest for Homeric Troy. The circumstances surrounding his most famous finds, particularly "Priam's Treasure," have been widely questioned; many scholars believe the hoard was an assemblage of artifacts from different periods and locations. The authenticity and dating of the "Mask of Agamemnon" have also been debated. His tendency to sensationalize discoveries and conflate archaeological evidence with Homeric narrative drew criticism from contemporary professionals like Ernst Curtius and Wilhelm Dörpfeld, the latter of whom later brought more scientific rigor to his work at Troy.

Later life and legacy

In his later years, he continued to excavate and publish his findings, dividing his time between Athens, where he built a mansion (the Iliou Melathron), and further fieldwork. He conducted final campaigns at Troy with Wilhelm Dörpfeld and planned excavations on Crete, which were realized after his death by Arthur Evans at Knossos. He died suddenly in Naples in 1890 and was interred in a grand mausoleum in the First Cemetery of Athens. Despite the controversies, his work revolutionized archaeology, transforming Homer from myth into a subject of historical inquiry and proving the existence of a sophisticated prehistoric Greek civilization. He inspired a generation of archaeologists and his collections, divided between the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, remain foundational to the study of the Aegean civilizations.

Category:German archaeologists Category:19th-century German businesspeople Category:People from Mecklenburg