Since then, the story of Sheriman and Troy has become one of the great legends in archaeology, and the content of the story is touching! Sheriman, passionate, taught himself archaeology and rose from the predicament by personal struggle. He firmly believes in his ideal, even if the academic circles tell him that it is wrong, he is also convinced that the ancient epic written by the ancient Greek bard contains clues to treasure hunting; And he firmly believes that although the treasure is buried deeply, he must dig it out desperately for science. Of course, well-known legends can't tell the whole truth, and none of them can fully reflect their true colors.
Few legends like the Trojan War have survived to this day! In the 8th century BC, the Greek poet Homer wrote two epics: Heriat and Odyssey. The events described in these two epics may be 500 years earlier than those written in the poems, that is, BC13rd century. "Heriat" tells the story of how Prince Paros of Troy kidnapped Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world and the wife of Wang Mo Nereus of Sparta. How to take her across the Aegean Sea to Troy; How Menelaus's brother Agamemnon assembled the Greek army for revenge (including the brave warrior Achilles); How to lead this army to Troy; How the Greek army attacked the city and plundered the land, and how Priam, the last king of Troy, defended his country 10. Hiriart ends with a cruel battle scene. The battle took place outside Troy, between Achilles and the Trojan Lord Heckert. The story in Odyssey tells how a small group of Greek soldiers hid in the Damocles and finally occupied Troy. Unsuspecting Troy pushed Big Troy into his own city by car, and Greek soldiers jumped out of Troy and occupied the city of Troy.
In the heyday of ancient Greek civilization (700 BC ~ 200 BC), the Trojan War was regarded as a period of early Greek history. Achilles and Agamemnon are both heroes in ancient Greek culture, and Troy is also known as the place where the ancient Greeks won brilliant victories. It is said that Alexander the Great made a short stop in Troy on his way to attack the Persians in 334 BC to offer sacrifices to the gods who helped the Greeks defeat the Trojans. Like others of his time, Alexander the Great regarded every story in Homer's epic as a historical fact. As for Homer, it is said that he is an ancient Greek bard and an inspirational chronicler. Later, the Romans rose and ruled the Mediterranean countries. They are very interested in the story of Troy.
They called Troy Elon, and they also built a city called New Troy, which is located in the northwest of Asia Minor. They think that ancient Troy is here, which is now Turkey. However, in the 6th century AD, the Romans had left Asia Minor and the city was abandoned. So far, no one can know exactly where Troy was.
By the19th century, Troy and the Trojan War were no longer considered as history; They are regarded as vague myths or legends. Although Hiriart and Odyssey are still regarded as early literary classics, no westerner really believes that they are true. Scholars even began to doubt whether Homer existed. They speculated that these poems were written by many poets instead of one. In the long years, so many poets have been polishing these poems, recording them systematically and passing them down from generation to generation in the form of stories. Historians can only trace the ancient Greek civilization back to the 8th century BC. Before that, the land around the Aegean Sea seemed to be inhabited by poor and illiterate farmers. In other words, in the vague prehistoric period, there were no prosperous cities and kings in charge of power in Homer's epic. In 1822, this view is very popular; Also in this year, archaeologist Sherman was born in Germany.
Sheriman's childhood life is sad, which can be seen from his melancholy paintings. There is no doubt that his childhood was unhappy. His father is a pastor of this church, and he was expelled from the church for drinking, adultery, embezzlement and other bad habits. However, Sheriman's brother is an educated man, and he has great interest in literature and history. He gave Sherman a book when he was only seven years old. This book tells the story of the Trojan War, and one of the illustrations is the Trojan Gate in the fire. Sheriman said in his autobiography that this book left a deep mark on his young mind and he was amazed; That Troy must be real; And vowed to find it when I grow up!
Sheriman's "guide" is none other than the epic author Homer! He has regarded Heriat and Odyssey as history, not as simple literary poems. Sheriman was fascinated by Homer's power. When he visited Ithaca, he thought he had really returned to that era. Ithaca is an island in Greece. It is said that Odysseus, the hero of the Odyssey, and his wife Penelope lived there. Sheriman wrote: "Every mountain, every stone, every river and every olive garden reminds me of Homer. I found myself spanning hundreds of years and entering a shining era in the style of ancient Greek knights." He hired four migrant workers to start excavating the legendary Odyssey Palace ruins. Sheriman was overjoyed when the migrant workers dug up two jars full of ashes. He thought, Are these the ashes of Odyssey and Penelope? ! He wanted to find evidence immediately to verify the accuracy of Homer's epic, so he rushed to Turkey on the other side of the Aegean Sea.
Two places in the northwest of Turkey have long been mysteriously associated with the legend of Troy, namely, a village named Buna Brazil and a hill named SiSarric. Holding Homer's epic in his hand, Sheriman investigated the two sites, and he decided that Mount Sisarik was more in line with the position of Troy he found in Heriat's epic. Although before this, several people speculated that Mount Sisarik was the lost position of Troy; But only here and now did Sherman believe their story.
Sheriman needs permission from the Turkish government before he can start excavating the site of Sisarik. He clearly knew that at that time, Americans were more likely to obtain permits issued by the Turkish government than Germans and Russians, so he spent 1869 in Indianapolis, Indiana, in order to obtain American citizenship. Sheriman's stay in the United States also made him divorce his Russian wife soon, and he wanted to remarry. At that time, he was so obsessed with ancient Greek culture and history that he thought only Greek women were suitable for him. He began to ask friends to introduce him. He reminded these friends: "She must be passionate about Homer." Finally, 47-year-old Sheriman chose one of them. Her name is Sophia Guesto Menos, 17 years old. They got married soon. To the surprise of many people who are familiar with him, this marriage is very happy and full of infinite true love.
1870, Sheriman returned to West Sarik. He still didn't get permission from the Turkish government, but he started digging the hill. Two weeks before the Turkish authorities ordered him to stop illegal excavation, Sheriman dug up a stone wall. He wrote excitedly: "This stone wall is 6 feet thick and the building is extremely strong!" " He firmly believes that this is the Trojan wall described in Homer's epic!
Finally, Sheriman got permission from the Turkish government. He officially started digging in 187 1, and he found that Troy's desire was crazy! His excavation method is a bit reckless, reckless. He didn't dig this 50-foot-high hill from top to bottom. In the words of serious archaeologists, it is necessary to use standard traditional excavation methods to find cultural relics carefully. Sheriman hired 120 migrant workers and ordered them to dig as wide and deep as possible. From one end of the mountain to the other, he dug a pit 130 feet long, which was like cutting a cake in the middle to see what was inside. Someone sarcastically said, "He is simply digging the Suez Canal, which is not like digging at an archaeological site!"
The stone wall that Sheriman discovered before is only the first layer of this "cake". To Sheriman's great surprise, he not only discovered Troy, but also discovered a big city buried underground. Layer after layer of ruins, one after another, one after another, as deep as 45 feet! Each floor represents a city-a city built on the basis of previous ruins. There are many layers of soil between layers. Several layers of ashes show that some of these cities were razed to the ground by fire. Sheriman is not interested in the upper level, because he thinks that the real Troy, that is, the Trojan in Homer's epic, should be at or near the bottom. Therefore, to the deep regret of later archaeologists, Sheriman ordered his migrant workers to drag away thousands of cubic yards of soil and stones mercilessly with trolleys, so that several layers of strata with archaeological experience value above the mound of this site were lost to the bottom under his bold and reckless excavation! As Sheriman himself said, "My purpose is to dig out Troy. I estimate that it is one of the lower ruins. I have to destroy and abandon many interesting sites on the upper floor. " His recklessness and recklessness made some scholars at that time very dissatisfied and called him "the second destroyer of Troy".
1873, Sherman's belief in the accuracy of Homer's epic is immeasurable. His migrant workers dug up stone pavements and large pottery pots near the mountains. In May of the same year, they excavated another large construction site. Sheriman firmly believes that he has found the palace ruins of the last king of Troy. Homer called the king Priam in the epic, and all the classical works also called him that way. "The climax of this large-scale excavation lasted until the end of May, when Sheriman unearthed one of the most extraordinary sites that archaeologists could find: the golden treasure of King Priam!
According to Sheriman's records, when he was digging the cornerstone of King Priam's palace, he suddenly saw a flash of golden light in the darkness. In order not to let migrant workers see it, he hurriedly told them to stop working. He didn't want them to report the discovery of gold to the authorities. Because according to the requirements of the permit, the digger has to hand over half of the discovery to the Turkish government. However, Sheriman is determined to hand over all the cultural relics he found to the Greek government, because he has made Greece his home. As soon as the migrant workers left, Sheriman tried his best to dig for gold. At this point, he has ignored the danger that Shi Zhuan, whose head is crumbling, is about to fall. He found that a large number of gold ornaments were stored next to each other, as if they had been put in wooden boxes before, and then the wooden boxes rotted. It is said that Sophia Sheriman stole the treasure from here with her red shawl. Later, in a small room at the top of the pit, he found many gold and silver utensils, as well as some silver ingots and tools. However, the most striking thing is gold jewelry, including 3 headdresses, 60 earrings and 6 bracelets. Nearly 9,000 gold beads (which Sheriman later used to make an extremely precious gold necklace) were the most valuable discoveries in archaeology at that time. The Sheriman family successfully transported these pearls out of Turkey and to Greece, and then Sophia's relatives hid them in gardens and sheds until 1874 Sheriman was ready to make them public.
Once Sheriman's discovery was published, it immediately caused an uproar. The Turkish government is very angry and demands the return of these treasures; Archaeologists and scholars all over the world strongly demand the exhibition of this rare discovery; In the eyes of ordinary people, the treasure hunter Sheriman became a great hero overnight. However, Priam's treasure brought trouble to Sheriman. He did not apologize to Turkey, nor did he ask them to forgive him for not fulfilling his promise to Turkey. Because at that time, European archaeologists were still plundering underground treasures in Egypt and the Near East, which has become a practice. Many archaeologists are also complacent about becoming millionaires by doing so. But to Sheriman's disappointment, the Greek government refused to accept this treasure under the pressure of the Turks. Finally, Sherman had to send them to Germany and store them in a national museum in Berlin. The Turkish government vowed to settle accounts with him, and he didn't want to be severely punished, so he compensated the Turkish government for five times the fine.
The fate of Priam treasure has become one of the biggest secrets of modern archaeology. During World War II, German art treasures (including Troy's gold treasures) were packed and hidden in underground bunkers to avoid accidents. In the chaos at the end of the war, the victorious Russian and American troops occupied Germany, and many treasures disappeared. Famous paintings, ancient books, jewels, antiques and other valuable things were either taken away by soldiers or confiscated as trophies of the winners. Ironically, many treasures were also possessed by some Germans in the same way. At this point, Troy's gold treasure can no longer be seen! Historians lament this loss and worry about whether these rare cultural relics have been cast into gold ingots. Now there are only some written descriptions and incomplete photos, including those of Sophia Sheriman, which give people a strong shock. In this photo, we can see that Sophia is wearing the headdress, earrings and jewels that Princess Troy once wore in the ancient kingdom.
Not only did the treasure disappear, but modern archaeologists even began to doubt whether the treasure hunt described by Sheriman was true. The first question is the legendary story that Sophia stole the treasure with a red shawl. If we study Sheriman's article carefully, we will find that Sophia was not digging these treasures in Sisarik Mountain. Moreover, there are contradictions between Sheriman's various records and the description of the hidden treasure. Therefore, some scholars think that this treasure is not an excavation, and Sheriman himself mentioned it. These scholars suggested that it was Sheriman who collected many smaller treasures excavated at different levels and locations of the site and declared them "Priam treasures" in the future, in order to more strongly render the sensational effect of this rare archaeological discovery.
As for how and when Sheriman discovered this treasure, no one will know the details, but the mystery of the whereabouts of this treasure has been solved. The rumor that "Troy's gold treasure was once seen in Russia" was confirmed in 1993, when the Russian government announced that the treasure excavated by Sheriman had been transferred to Moscow after the war. As Turkey, Greece, Germany and Russia had a heated debate about the ownership of these treasures, the treasures excavated by Sheriman were only exhibited in Moscow 1996. This is the first public appearance of the treasure after it was unearthed for more than half a century. As for the negotiation of ownership, it will take several years; However, archaeologists all over the world hope that these priceless and unique art collections can be rediscovered as soon as possible for scholars to study in depth.
The discovery of Troy's gold treasure, although attracting worldwide attention, is only a fragment of Sheriman's archaeological career. He directed the excavation of Sisarik in 1890 until his death. /kloc-in the mid-1970s, he also excavated an ancient Greek site named Mycenae, which is said to be the hometown of King Aganon, commander-in-chief of the Greek allied forces who conquered Troy. There, Sheriman found another more valuable treasure-"Royal Cemetery", which contains many remains decorated with gold ornaments, men and women, old and young! One of the male skeletons wore a gold mask. Sheriman wrote with pride and awe: "I stared at Agamemnon's face for a long time!" " For a long time! "
Now it seems that Sherman was mistaken for Agamemnon. The cemetery found in Mycenae can be traced back to BC 1600. If Agamemnon was the king, he lived in a later era, that is, the Trojan War, about 1250 BC. However, Sheriman's discovery in Mycenae is the first clear evidence of the peak culture in the centuries before the rise of ancient Greek civilization. As scholars pointed out when praising Sheriman's archaeological excavations, Mycenae culture dominated the Aegean region from about 1600 BC to 1050 BC, and in the14th century BC and13rd century BC, at the peak of Mycenae, their life and trade footprints were all over Greece, Crete and other places. About 1 1 century BC, the Mycenae Empire collapsed. The local people mixed with tribes from the north and established Greek civilization, which reached its peak in the 8th century. The language, literature and religion of ancient Greece preserved many elements of Mycenae culture, including legends about wars and kings, which became the material of the legendary stories of the Trojan War.
Sheriman also admitted Troy. According to modern archaeologists, the strata excavated by Priam were formed from 2500 BC to 2200 BC. This was earlier than the legendary Trojan War 1000 years. Rushing to the bottom of the site-the location of Troy in Sheriman's eyes-is bound to greatly exceed the real location of Troy in Homer's epic. This is really stupid!
The main authority to calculate the age of each stratum is William Doberfield, who was hired by Sheriman in 1882 to supervise the excavation progress. According to his assertion, the whole site consists of nine different strata, from the oldest Trojan I at the bottom to the latest Trojan I at the top. Among them, Troy II is the stratum of Troy that Sheriman thinks is mentioned in Homer's epic. But William believes that the real site is much older than Sherman estimated before; Moreover, the Trojan described in Homer's epic, that is, Troy in the 3rd century BC/Kloc-0, will be found in a much closer stratum, that is, Troy VI. Although Sheriman was greatly surprised, he finally accepted the evidence collected patiently by William and thought that it was possible that the treasure he found might not belong to King Priam. Before his death, he admitted that the artistic treasure he discovered may be earlier than Priam's reign 1000 years.
After Sheriman's death, William continued to explore the site of Sarric, and successfully found some remains of Troy VI. This is the part of Sheriman's migrant workers that has not been destroyed.
He found a huge stone wall and found evidence that Troy VI had been burned. William declared that this was the "real" Troy. Modern archaeologists have confirmed his calculation of the age, that is, Troy I can be traced back to around 3000 BC; Troy II (Troy in Sheriman's eyes), from 2500 BC to 2200 BC; Troy VI, BC13rd century (the era described in the epic of Heriat); Troy VIII, a Greek city visited by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC; Troy VII, the highest level, is the new Troy of ancient Rome.
The next archaeologist working in Sarric is an American named Carl Bregen. This man came from 1932. His excavation method embodies the archaeological attitude of the new science in the 20th century, that is, slowly and carefully measure, record and take photos, and then remove the found things. In the unexplored hilly areas left by Sheriman and William, Bragen got a lot of information about Troy III, IV and V; Like his predecessors Sheriman and William, he is most interested in confirming Troy in Homer's epic. He further divided William's nine floors into 46 floors. He concluded that one of the strata of Troy VII was probably the legendary Troy.
Today's West Sarric is completely different from the Nibao Mountain that Sheriman started digging at 1870. It is like a quarry, with many holes and trenches and broken stone walls. Leaving an unrecognizable trace of the city. At present, it is one of the main cultural landscapes in Turkey, attracting 300,000 tourists every year. Visitors can see a three-story wooden horse as soon as they arrive here, which embodies the eternal Homer legendary style. You can watch the performance in the theater. This theater was built by the Romans in the 1 th century. Of course, important scientific investigations are still going on. Starting from 1988, a group of German and American archaeologists conducted a series of explorations and found a relic that might be used as a defensive boundary around the top of this mountain-a trench 10 foot wide. This trench has been dug deep into the basement rock and surrounded a large area; This shows that some early cities on the site may be five times as big as archaeologists estimated. Other recent discoveries include: the marble statue of the Roman emperor Hadrian unearthed by Troy VII is larger than a real person; Archaeologists have begun to investigate the prehistoric sites of Troy, but so far there has been little new progress.
In Mycenae, Sheriman's second greatest discovery was this golden mask, which was called "cangue door mask". However, this mask was made hundreds of years before the rule of King Agamemnon (if he really existed).
The new excavation method marks a major change in the archaeological history of Troy. For the first time, archaeologists working in the site were no longer at the mercy of Homer and Heriat. German archaeologist Marfred Kaufman is in charge of the excavation. He thinks it doesn't matter whether the events described in Heriat's epic have happened. He said, "I believe that Hiriart described the core of historical events: wars really keep happening in this dangerous area. Whether there are people like palos and Helen is not the main problem. "
1On August 8, 993, archaeologists discovered the marble statue of Hadrian, the Roman emperor in the 2nd century A.D., while restoring a theater built by Romans.
Troy is undoubtedly an ancient power. Located on the cape, overlooking the important trade channel between Europe and Asia, that is, the waterway between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Troy, as a city at the crossroads of trade and tourism, is easily involved in war and attacked, and this conflict may be remembered for centuries and passed down from generation to generation, thus adding more rendering power to Homer's legendary story. Unlike Sheriman, today's archaeologists believe that Troy is a famous city with a long history and twists and turns. Not to prove the truth of literary legends. Kaufman, the German archaeologist in charge of the excavation project, explained: "Our site excavation project is not based on Heriat's epic; But as a historian who studies prehistoric civilization, starting from the fascinating cultural' crossroads'! " Nevertheless, Henry Sheriman will be glad to know that a legend about Troy still has such a strong vitality! A boy who was fascinated by the legendary pictures of Troy in children's books when he was a child grew up and found a city full of myths and legends-Troy!