Mycenae as told by Heinrich Schliemann
Bound in a blue cloth with black and gold stamped designs of squids and geometric designs, Mycenæ; A Narrative of Researches and Discoveries at Mycenæ and Tiryns by influential German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1899), published in New York by Scribner, Armstrong, & Co. in 1878, is a personal account of the excavation of the Bronze-Age Greek settlements of Mycenae and Tiryns by the businessman-turned-archaeologist.
The book contains dozens of detailed wood-engraved and lithographic depictions of artifacts discovered, as well as details of the sites and ground plans themselves. There are a handful of color images, produced by the Major and Knapp Lithograph Company, of hand-painted artifacts. Schliemann explains in the text accompanying these lithographs what inspired him to undertake this dig, his methods, as well as relevant excerpts from the Iliad and the Odyssey relevant to his discussion.
Fascinated in his youth by the legendary tales of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Schliemann set out in 1870 from Germany to Greece and, later, Asia Minor, to begin his quest for the Trojan world that would continue for just over twenty years to prove the historicity of the ancient epics. While Heinrich Schliemann remains one of the most influential figures in modern archaeology, he did much damage to the sites and artifacts he encountered. Ancient burials and cities were desecrated and ransacked, artifacts were plundered and distributed to many different individuals and groups in Schliemann’s life, and some of the most important pieces of history that remain from the pre-Classical era were lost to rudimentary and barbaric excavation and preservation methods. He even smuggled priceless artifacts out of the then-Ottoman Empire, the most famous being what he dubbed “Priam’s Treasure”, which have been in Russia since the Soviet invasion of Germany in 1945.
-- Gabby, Undergraduate Classics Special Collections Fieldworker
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