Heinrich Schliemann

Heinrich Schliemann
Ed. Schultze Hofphotograph Heidelberg Plöckstrasse 79 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Name	Heinrich Schliemann
Birth date	6 January 1822
Birth place	Neubukow, Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
Death date	26 December 1890
Death place	Naples, Kingdom of Italy
Nationality	German
Occupation	Businessman, amateur archaeologist
Known for	Excavations at Troy and Mycenae

Heinrich Schliemann was a 19th-century German businessman turned amateur archaeologist best known for excavations at Troy and Mycenae that he claimed connected the Homeric epics to material remains. His work ignited debates across classical archaeology, philology, Byzantine studies, and public discourse in Germany, Greece, and Turkey. Schliemann’s methods and interpretations provoked responses from figures such as Arthur Evans, Heinrich Dressel, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and institutions including the British Museum and the Austrian Archaeological Institute.

Early life and education

Born in the village of Neubukow in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Schliemann grew up during the era of the German Confederation and the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. He was the son of a Lutheran pastor and was exposed early to Greek language and classical studies through household readings of Homer, Virgil, and Herodotus. Schliemann received limited formal schooling in nearby Wismar and later apprenticed in commercial houses linked to St. Petersburg and Moscow, where he encountered networks connecting Tsarist Russia and Prussia. His autodidactic studies involved texts by Friedrich Schiller, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Immanuel Kant alongside works by August Böckh and Karl Otfried Müller on antiquity.

Business career and travels

Schliemann’s commercial career began in Lübeck and extended to Amsterdam, Hamburg, and the United States, and later concentrated in St. Petersburg where he worked for textile and mercantile firms linked to Nicholas I of Russia’s era. He established trading ventures between Asia Minor, Smyrna, Constantinople, and San Francisco during the gold rush, engaging with firms tied to Leipzig and Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft. His business contacts included agents and merchants from Liverpool, Genoa, and Marseilles, and he traveled aboard ships registered in Bremen and Trieste. These global movements brought Schliemann into proximity with expatriate communities in Odessa, Alexandria, and Istanbul and provided capital that later funded excavations in Hellespont regions and the Peloponnese.

Archaeological pursuits and discoveries

Influenced by readings of Homer and the philological arguments of scholars like Ernst Curtius and Friedrich Carl von Savigny, Schliemann began excavations at Hisarlık (identified by him with Troy) in the 1870s with permission from the Ottoman Empire authorities based in Istanbul. His teams uncovered stratified remains that he labeled as sequential Homeric levels, and he famously declared discoveries such as a cache he termed “Priam’s Treasure,” which involved contacts with dealers in Smyrna and sales to institutions including the Staatsmuseum zu Berlin and collectors linked to Tsar Alexander II. Schliemann later excavated at Mycenae, uncovering shaft graves and artifacts he associated with Agamemnon and the Late Bronze Age. His finds prompted engagement from contemporaries including Wilhelm Dörpfeld, Heinrich Dressel, Theodor Mommsen, and William Gladstone, and influenced the emerging discipline of Aegean archaeology and debates within the European archaeological community.

Methodology and controversies

Schliemann’s excavation techniques—rapid trenching, use of explosives in some accounts, and selective recording—drew criticism from scholars such as Alexander Conze, Arthur Evans, and Vasileios Stais for damaging stratigraphy that later researchers like Carl Blegen and Manfred Korfmann would re-evaluate. Questions arose about the provenance and handling of the so-called “Treasure of Priam,” involving legal and diplomatic disputes with the Ottoman government and later with the German Empire and Russian Empire, culminating in transfers to museums in Berlin and Moscow. Critics accused Schliemann of interpretive bias favoring Homeric correlation, with philologists like Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and archaeologists such as Johannes Overbeck challenging his chronological assertions. Debates over authenticity, alleged forgeries, and Schliemann’s excavation records engaged figures including Friedrich Adler, Guido Bruck, and later commentators like Robert B. Koehl.

Personal life and legacy

Schliemann married Ekaterina Lyschin, often referred to as Shusha, and later married the American-born Sophie Engastromenos; his family connections linked him to cosmopolitan circles in Athens, Paris, and London. His daughter Nadezhda Schliemann and son Heinrich Schliemann Jr. participated in the management of collections and in diplomacy involving artifacts that reached institutions like the Hermitage Museum and the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Schliemann’s popular persona influenced cultural representations in Victorian literature, German nationalism, and nationalist discourses in Greece and Russia, inspiring discussion by public intellectuals such as Gustav Körte and Theodor Mommsen. Modern reassessments by archaeologists including Spyridon Marinatos, John Pendlebury, C.W. Blegen, and Manfred Korfmann have recognized both his contributions to public interest in Homeric studies and the problematic aspects of his field methods, leading to conservation and reinterpretation projects involving institutions like the Istanbul Archaeology Museums and the Archaeological Museum of Hisarlik.

Category:1822 births Category:1890 deaths Category:German archaeologists Category:People from Mecklenburg