Schliemann Digs for Troy at Hisarlik

In 1870, Heinrich Schliemann began cutting deep trenches into the mound of Hisarlik in northwestern Turkey, determined to demonstrate that Homer's Iliad described real places. Before his arrival, the most common scholarly candidate for ancient Troy was a hilltop at Pinarbasi. Schliemann conducted trial soundings there but found nothing of interest. It was Frank Calvert, an English amateur archaeologist and local landowner, who identified Hisarlik as Troy and persuaded the wealthy German to dig on land belonging to Calvert's family.

Schliemann brought enormous wealth and singular drive to the effort, having retired from international commerce and speculative banking. At Hisarlik, he uncovered evidence of nine superimposed cities spanning millennia of human habitation. Relying on sheer speed and massive trenches rather than careful stratigraphic documentation, his laborers dug through thick accumulations of soil. Deep within the mound, the excavators found copper implements, metal molds, tools, shields, and vases.