Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T02:42:07.468Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Schliemann and the Shaft Graves

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Extract

Though not the earliest excavator, Schliemann is surely one of the best known, and though he is perhaps most famous as the excavator of Troy his work at Mycenae was equally spectacular in its results and ultimately of greater importance for the study of Aegean prehistory. It seems appropriate, in the centenary year of his excavation of the Shaft Graves in 1876, to present an up-to-date assessment of their significance and of Schliemann himself. This study has developed from the chance discovery that in a letter to Max Müller at Oxford Schliemann reported a detail of the excavation that is not in the published account; in an ensuing hunt for other documents contemporary with the actual excavation, I learned much about Schliemann that seemed to me of considerable interest, as I hope it will be to others outside the small circle of Aegean specialists.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1. Meyer, E., ‘Schliemann's Letters to Max Müller in Oxford’, JHS 82 (1962), 92CrossRefGoogle Scholar: the first finds in the ‘largest tomb’, i.e. T. IV.

2. ‘Schliemann on Schliemann: a Study in the Use of Sources’, GRBS 13 (1972), 335–53.

3. Ludwig, E., Schliemann of Troy: the Story of a Goldseeker (trans. Tait, D. F., Boston, 1931), p. 185.Google Scholar

4. Ludwig, , op. cit.Google Scholar

5. Ludwig, , op. cit.Google Scholar; Payne, R., The Gold of Troy (New York, 1959)Google Scholar; , L. and Poole, G., One Passion, Two Loves (New York, 1966).Google Scholar

6. Meyer, , op. cit., p. 94.Google Scholar

7. Meyer, , op. cit., p. 86.Google Scholar

8. Tagebuch, 2 march 1874, translated from the French.

9. Tagebuch, 26, 28 February 1874.

10. Schliemann, H. and Dörpfeld, C., Tiryns (London, 1886), pp. liv and 368.Google Scholar

11. Ludwig, , op. cit., pp. 201–7.Google Scholar

12. Meyer, , op. cit., p. 90.Google Scholar

13. Tagebuch, 9 August 1876.

14. Ludwig, , op. cit., p. 202.Google Scholar

15. Ludwig, , op. cit., pp. 298–9.Google Scholar

16. Meyer, , op. cit., p. 89.Google Scholar

17. The Times, 11 September 1876, 11.

18. Tagebuch, 5 September 1876; also The Times, 1 November 1876, 4, in slightly different form.

19. Ludwig, , op. cit., p. 208.Google Scholar

20. Meyer, , op. cit., p. 92.Google Scholar

21. Meyer, , op. cit., p. 95.Google Scholar

22. Ludwig, , op. cit., p. 209.Google Scholar

23. Tsountas, C. and Manatt, J. I., The Mycenaean Age (London, 1897).Google Scholar

24. Evans, A. E., The Shaft Graves and Bee-Hive Tombs of Mycaenae (London, 1929).Google Scholar

25. Karo, G., Die Schachtgräber von Mykenai (Munich, 19301933).Google Scholar

26. G. E. Mylonas, ‘O Ταφικ⋯ς Κ⋯κλος Β τ⋯ν Μυκην⋯ν (Athens, 1973).

27. ‘The Shaft Graves and Mycenaean Origins’, BICS 19 (1972), 146–7 (summary), and The Origins of Mycenaean Civilization (forthcoming).