Priam's Treasure is a cache of

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

and other artifacts discovered by classical

archaeologists Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

Frank Calvert Frank Calvert (1828–1908) was an English immigrant who was a consular official in the eastern Mediterranean region and an amateur archaeologist. He began exploratory excavations on the mound at Hisarlık (the site of the ancient city of Troy) ...

and

Heinrich Schliemann Johann Ludwig Heinrich Julius Schliemann (; 6 January 1822 – 26 December 1890) was a German businessman and an influential amateur archaeologist. He was an advocate of the historicity of places mentioned in the works of Homer and an archaeolo ...

at Hisarlık on the northwestern coast of modern

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. The majority of the artifacts are currently in the

Pushkin Museum The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (, abbreviated as , ''GMII'') is the largest museum of European art in Moscow. It is located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Sviatos ...

in Moscow. Schliemann claimed the site to be that of

Homeric Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his authorship, Homer is ...

Troy Troy (/; ; ) or Ilion (; ) was an ancient city located in present-day Hisarlik, Turkey. It is best known as the setting for the Greek mythology, Greek myth of the Trojan War. The archaeological site is open to the public as a tourist destina ...

, and assigned the artifacts to the Homeric king

Priam In Greek mythology, Priam (; , ) was the legendary and last king of Troy during the Trojan War. He was the son of Laomedon. His many children included notable characters such as Hector, Paris, and Cassandra. Etymology Most scholars take the e ...

. This assignment is now thought to be a result of Schliemann's zeal to find sites and objects mentioned in the Homeric epics which take place in what is now northwestern Turkey. At the time the

stratigraphy Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...

at Troy had not been solidified, which was done subsequently by the archaeologist

Carl Blegen Carl William Blegen (January 27, 1887 – August 24, 1971) was an American archaeologist who worked at the site of Pylos in Greece and Troy in modern-day Turkey. He directed the University of Cincinnati excavations of the mound of Hisarlik, th ...

. The layer in which Priam's Treasure was alleged to have been found was assigned to Troy II, whereas Priam would have been king of Troy VI or VII, occupied hundreds of years later.

Background

With the rise of modern critical history, Troy and the

Trojan War The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans (Ancient Greece, Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris (mytho ...

were consigned to the realms of legend. As early as 1822, however, the famed Scottish journalist and geologist Charles Maclaren had identified the mound at Hisarlık, near the town of Chanak (Çanakkale) in north-western Anatolia, Turkey, as a possible site of Homeric Troy. Later, starting in the 1840s, Frank Calvert (1828–1908), an English expatriate who was an enthusiastic amateur archaeologist as well as a consular official in the eastern Mediterranean region, began exploratory excavations on the mound, part of which was on a farm belonging to his family, and ended up amassing a large collection of artefacts from the site. Meanwhile, Heinrich Schliemann, a wealthy international entrepreneur who had achieved a PhD in Classics from the

University of Rostock The University of Rostock () is a public university located in Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Founded in 1419, it is the third-oldest university in Germany. It is the oldest university in continental northern Europe and the Baltic Se ...

in 1869, had begun searching in Turkey for the site of the historical Troy, starting at Pınarbaşı, a hilltop at the south end of the Trojan Plain. Disappointed there, Schliemann was about to give up his explorations when Calvert suggested excavating the mound of Hisarlık. Guided to the site by Calvert, Schliemann conducted excavations there in 1871–73 and 1878–79, uncovering the ruins of a series of ancient cities, dating from the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

to the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

period. Schliemann declared one of these cities—at first Troy I, later Troy II—to be the city of Troy, and this identification was widely accepted at that time. His and Calvert's findings included the thousands of artefacts – such as diadems of woven gold, rings, bracelets, intricate earrings and necklaces, buttons, belts and brooches – which Schliemann chose to call "Priam's treasure". Schliemann described one great moment of discovery, which supposedly occurred on or about May 27, 1873, in his typically colorful, if unreliable, manner: Schliemann's oft-repeated story of the treasure being carried by his wife, Sophie, in her shawl was untrue. Schliemann later admitted making it up, saying that at the time of the discovery Sophie was in fact with her family in Athens, following the death of her father.

Treasure

A partial catalogue of the treasure is approximately as follows: * a copper shield * a copper cauldron with handles * an unknown copper artifact, perhaps the hasp of a chest * a silver vase containing two gold diadems (the "Jewels of Helen"), 8750 gold rings, buttons and other small objects, six gold bracelets, two gold goblets * a copper vase * a wrought gold bottle * two gold cups, one wrought, one cast * a number of red terracotta goblets * an

electrum Electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, with trace amounts of copper and other metals. Its color ranges from pale to bright yellow, depending on the proportions of gold and silver. It has been produced artificially and is ...

cup (mixture of gold, silver, and copper) * six wrought silver knife blades (which Schliemann put forward as money) * three silver vases with fused copper parts * more silver goblets and vases * thirteen copper lance heads * fourteen copper axes * seven copper daggers * other copper artifacts with the key to a chest

Art collection

Apparently, Schliemann smuggled Priam's Treasure out of Anatolia. Officials were informed when his wife, Sophia, wore Helen of Troy's golden diadem and necklaces in public. The Ottoman official assigned to watch the excavation, Amin Effendi, received a prison sentence. The Ottoman government revoked Schliemann's permission to dig and sued him for its share of the gold. Schliemann went on to

Mycenae Mycenae ( ; ; or , ''Mykē̂nai'' or ''Mykḗnē'') is an archaeological site near Mykines, Greece, Mykines in Argolis, north-eastern Peloponnese, Greece. It is located about south-west of Athens; north of Argos, Peloponnese, Argos; and sou ...

. There, however, the Greek Archaeological Society sent an agent to monitor him. Later Schliemann traded some treasure to the government of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

in exchange for permission to dig at Troy again. It is located in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. The rest was acquired in 1881 by the Royal Museums of Berlin ''(Königliche Museen zu Berlin)''. After the capture of the

Zoo Tower The Zoo flak tower (German: ''Flakturm Grosser Tiergarten, Tiergarten'', ''Tiergarten Flak Tower'' or commonly referred to as the "Zoo Tower") was a fortified flak tower that existed in Berlin from 1941 to 1947. It was one of several flak towers ...

by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

during the

Battle in Berlin The battle in Berlin was an end phase of the Battle of Berlin. While the Battle ''of'' Berlin encompassed the attack by three Soviet Front (military formation)#Soviet fronts in World War II, fronts (army groups) to capture not only Berlin but t ...

, Professor Wilhelm Unverzagt turned the treasure over to the Soviet Art Committee, saving it from plunder and division. The artefacts were then flown to

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. During the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, the Soviet government denied any knowledge of the fate of Priam's Treasure. Rumours abounded: that was in a vault in Leningrad (closest to the truth), that it was secretly owned by an American millionaire, and that the hoard had been melted down to fund a Nazi pension fund. Finally, in 1994 the

admitted it possessed the Trojan gold. Russia keeps what the West terms the

looted art Looted art has been a consequence of looting during war, natural disaster and riot for centuries. Looting of art, archaeology and other cultural property may be an opportunistic criminal act or may be a more organized case of Crime, unlawful or u ...

as compensation for the destruction of Russian cities and looting of Russian museums by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. A 1998 Russian law, the Federal Law on Cultural Valuables Displaced to the USSR as a Result of the Second World War and Located on the Territory of the Russian Federation, legalizes the looting in Germany as compensation and prevents Russian authorities from proceeding to restitutions.

Authenticity

In addition to the criticism of Schliemann's archeological methods and motivations, doubts about the authenticity of the treasure and its story have long been raised. Schliemann's haste in terming it "Priam's Treasure" has long been criticised, and the described layer of origin is now agreed to be prior to King Priam's lifetime. The artefacts themselves are likely to be a composite of multiple finds across the site rather than one hoard in Schliemann's account. Schliemann himself is known to have falsified his initial description of the finding circumstances, exaggerating Sophia's role in the excavations, and planting a story that the treasure had been smuggled away from the site in Sophia's shawl. Because the treasure's whereabouts had not been publicly known for half a century, modern scientific analysis of the artefacts which would help to validate some of Schliemann's claims was impossible for a long period of time.

References

External links