– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

[Music]

[Music]

Homer's Iliad. It's the greatest epic

poem ever written. A tale of the

legendary heroes and battles of the

Trojan War when the Greeks fought to win

back Helen of Troy. What you have there

is this wonderful cast of characters,

this myth. But for one man, the Iliad's

tales were more than just myth. Homer

must be literally true, and it was going

to be his life's mission to prove it.

For Hinrich Schlean, the poem was a

treasure map which could trace a path to

untold

riches. Priceless jewels presented to

Helen of Troy by King Pryan. It was gold

and it was immensely valuable.

Schlean would pursue this obsession for

over 20 years. He had this incredible

self-confidence. He had one idea in

mind, which was to find the treasure.

And his story would become an epic in

its own right.

The tale of one man's hunt for the lost

jewels of Helen of

[Music]

Troy. In 1866, the man who would devote

his life to finding Homer's Troy arrived

in London.

Hinrich Schlean was a rich German

businessman with an appetite for travel

and an insatiable

curiosity. Schleman found London poised

at the edge of an intellectual

revolution. Charles Darwin had rewritten

human origins and his findings had

stirred a new wave of curiosity.

It was certainly true that the timing

for Schlean was perfect. Um, there was a

huge interest in

prehistory spreading around the

archaeological

world. Until now, European civilization

was thought to have begun with ancient

Greece. But there was a growing sense

that its origins might have been far

earlier, that an ancient human past was

just waiting to be found.

In Schllean's day, people had very

little idea that there was much

prehistory before classical

Greece. To Schllean, finding the first

great European civilization seemed a

worthy quest for a rich man wanting to

establish his reputation. And despite

his lack of expertise, he planned to

invest his large fortune in the booming

science of archaeology.

was probably the most exciting thing you

could think of doing when he turned to

archaeology. But I don't think Schlleman

was was going out to find

prehistory. His motives weren't so

intellectual. He was a successful

businessman, retired early, was looking

for something interesting to do.

Schllean was seduced by archaeologyy's

potential to unite his two great

passions, making money and the legendary

story of Troy.

Whoever could find it was sort of

insured a great and glorious future.

Schlleman claimed to have been obsessed

by Troy since boyhood when he first read

the

[Music]

Iliad. Written by the ancient Greek

author Homer, the Iliad tells the tale

of a great king named Priam who ruled

over the city of Troy at around 1250 BC.

The story of Troy in a way had

everything for

archaeologists because it had this this

very rich myth and it had these

[Music]

characters. King Pryam's son Paris

caused chaos by seducing the beautiful

Greek princess Helen, stealing her away

from her husband Menaaus and back to his

father's city.

Helen was reputed to be the most

beautiful woman in the world.

In response, Agamemnon, king of Myi, the

most powerful of all the Greek states,

launched a thousand ships to win Helen

back and camped a huge army near the

city walls.

The Greeks in a coalition under

Agamenon get together to take back Helen

by force. What makes it so fascinating

is is is the scale of it all.

After a dramatic 10-year siege, the

Greeks broke through, killing Troy's

remaining inhabitants and burning the

city to the ground.

So there you have it all. You have these

heroes, you have battles, you have

wealth, and you have beautiful women.

For Schllean, the most thrilling detail

of all was the promise of buried

riches. In the Iliad, Homer wrote of

Pryam's treasure, a priceless collection

of gold and jewels that the king had

bestowed upon

Helen. Schleman was transfixed by the

idea that this gold had been hidden away

in the dying city during Troy's final

destruction by fire.

This was the image he carried with him.

He was so obsessed by the Iliad that he

took the story of Pry's treasure as

literal fact.

Homer had had said there was gold. So

there was gold. Treasure does not in

fact play that big a part in the Iliad.

It played an enormous part in Schleman's

mentality.

Schlleman believed the Iliad was full of

clues for archaeologists to

discover and that by following them he

would be led to Pryam's

treasure. Most 19th century historians

disagreed. They thought Homer's Troy was

just a myth, not a real historical

event.

A lot of scholars thought that there was

no such place except in Homer's

imagination, that it was

mythological. But Schlleman's belief was

unshakable, and he set himself the task

of unraveling the Iliad's clues with the

same dedication that had made his

fortune in business. Well, he had

phenomenal energy. He was a man of huge

resolution and focus. And once he

decided to learn something, he set about

it as with a military

campaign. But he could get by in 22

languages. Schleman taught himself

ancient Greek in just a few months. He

spoke nothing else and filled notebooks

with translations until he could read

Homer fluently in the original.

The businessman was busy transforming

himself into a self-styled

archaeologist.

He set about acquiring a knowledge

of ancient literature and ancient

history. And he was a um very capable

man, a very intelligent man.

In late 1868, with Homer in his pocket,

Schleman set sail in search of Troy.

He had one idea in mind which was to

find the treasure.

His destination was the Troad, a plane

on the northwestern coast of

Turkey. Although Schllean was not the

first to seek Troy there, he was

convinced that with Homer's help, he

could succeed where others failed.

Since the 19th century, people have gone

to look for Troy in the northwestern

corner of what is now Turkey. But that's

a very big

area. Searching the Troad was never

going to be

easy. The area covered almost 100 square

miles, and Homer's Troy was a thousand

years older than ancient Rome. It would

inevitably be submerged below ground or

hidden beneath buildings that came

afterwards. Prehistory was not thought

to have any proper sights because they

were all buried under layers and layers

of later settlements.

Schlean was hopeful that a hilltop

village named Bernabashi might hold the

answer.

Bonabashi was surrounded by

archaeological remains and seemed the

perfect match for Homer's Troy.

Bunabashi had some of the attributes

that people were looking for, including

clearly prehistoric traces of

fortification. It was in a commanding

position. It had remains on the top. It

had burial mounds. It had rivers at the

bottom. It all fitted the description of

Homer's Troy very well.

Archaeologists had already excavated the

area in search of Troy, but had found

nothing. Schlean wasn't phased. He had

his own unique way to test whether

Bernabashi fitted the Iliad's bill.

[Music]

In a renowned episode of the Iliad, the

Greek hero Achilles chases the Trojan

warrior Hector around the walls of Troy

three times before finally slaying him

in single

combat. Schlean's idea was simply to

take Homer at his word by acting out

this famous scene.

If Schlean himself could run around the

hill three times, then Burabashi could

be

Troy. But Schleman saw a problem

straight

away. He realized that no one could

physically tackle the course Homer had

described here, not even the demigod

Achilles. He ended up practically

crawling on all fours.

The trouble was it was on a very steep

hill slope and anybody who is taking the

Iliad literally as Schleman was could

clearly see that that wouldn't do.

Schleman's mind was made up. Homer was

always right. So Bernabashi couldn't be

Troy.

He concluded that Troy wasn't there but

must be somewhere else.

Schlemer needed a new way

forward and his faith in Homer and the

Iliad was about to pay

off. It is an incredibly valuable

attribute to have to be simply lucky and

I think that Schlean

was. Schleman's next stop was a hill

called Hisalik 8 km northwest of

Bernabashi.

Standing in the shadow of Mount Ida,

Hisalic was no stranger to

suspicion. It was first alleged to be

Troy's location as far back as the 15th

century. But no one had ever found

evidence. When Schleman arrived, he

found the site already occupied by a

British archaeologist named Frank

Calbertt.

Calbertt too had dreams of finding Troy

and had purchased half of his Saleik's

land in order to conduct his own

excavations. The problem for Frank

Calvert was he just didn't have the

money to do anything on a large scale.

So when Schlean came along, uh I think

he saw an opportunity. Here was a man

with a lot of money and he could get him

interested in the site.

Excited by the prospect of a more

extensive dig, Calvert led Schlean into

the secret of

Hisalic, what looked like a hill was in

fact a man-made mound of earth.

What his excavations showed him was that

there were not only Greek and ro Roman

ruins on the top, which was quite

obvious from the

surface, but that underneath these ruins

there were deeper layers of earlier

periods.

No one, not even Calvin, knew for

certain just how old the hill

was. But he thought the site might date

all the way back to 1250 BC, the time of

the Iliad and Helen of

Troy. He believed there was a real

possibility that underneath these ruins

was the Troy talked about by Homer.

Schlean put the mound to his Achilles

test.

Unlike Bernabashi, it passed with flying

colors. His fitted Schlean's mental

image of Troy in every

way. There was a ruined temple, rivers

on the plane below, and a mountain range

in the

distance. The whole landscape was

straight from the pages of the Iliad.

[Music]

Schlean was ready to dig for Troy and he

wanted to get started straight

away. But Calbertt said he'd need

permission from the Turkish government.

Calbertt was a cautious man. The exact

opposite of Schlean.

But Schllean hadn't made his fortune

being cautious.

Ignoring Calbertt, he employed workers

to begin the dig regardless. Permission

could wait. He was a man of influence.

He had a lot of money. Uh what he didn't

have was diplomacy,

um which is a useful asset if you're

going to dig in a foreign country.

The Turks were outraged when they

learned Schlean was already digging.

They demanded he left

his but Schllean wasn't about to give

up.

He established many, many connections

with the powerful and highly regarded.

He was firing off letters left, right,

and center.

Schlean bombarded the Turks with a

mixture of apologies and threats.

Schleman's letters reveal a bullying

attitude towards the weak and a very

graveling sickopantic attitude towards

the strong. He knew how to pull strings.

He knew which strings to pull. Um he

knew where maybe to grease a palm. And I

think that helped him to persuade the

Turkish authorities to let him do what

he wanted.

After 3 years, Schlean struck a

deal. He would have to pay for all

excavations at Hisleik and then spit any

findings 50/50 with the Turkish

government. But at last, he had his

official go-ahad to dig for

Troy. So he set to work. But Schlleman

soon learned that Hisalic was a highly

complex

site. There were many different eras of

human history buried in the mound. The

way the mound had built up over time,

was that one layer had formed on top of

another, one after another, like a

series of upside down pudding

basins. Over the centuries, successive

inhabitants of Hisalic had added new

layers, each one built up over hundreds

of years.

Schllean naturally assumed that if

Homer's Troy dated from 1250 BC, 3,000

years ago, then it had to be at the

bottom. In Schlleman's mind, the fact

that Homer is at the beginning of Greek

literature meant that Homer's Troy must

be at the beginning of the succession of

tries. Schleman developed a plan that

was simple and brutal.

He would cut a massive trench,

bulldozing right through the middle of

the mound. To do that was an incredibly

drastic measure, even by the lights of

the 1870s. Schlean wasn't like that. He

just wanted to sort of cut straight

through, find the treasure, build up the

picture of Troy, and be the man who

discovered Troy.

Frank Calvert was horrified. As a

professional archaeologist, he urged

Schleman to take a less reckless

approach, peeling away thin layers of

soil and sifting evidence carefully. We

can see from his own excavations how

Frank Calvert went about things. He

would have wanted Schlean to excavate

sort of gently and slowly,

but Schllean could practically smell

Pryam's treasure. He wanted to press on

full steam ahead. Schllean vitally

ignored the advice that Calvat gave him

that this was going to be a complicated

site and should be treated with caution.

The reaction to this is the beginning of

the falling out between Calvert and

Schlemer. Schleman brought in huge

resources of equipment and men. His

fortune meant that he could buy all the

machinery of open cast

mining. His object was to pull down

great chunks of earth to get down to the

bottom as quickly as possible. There

were winches, levers, even battering

rams. And perhaps most shockingly of

all, dynamite.

Well, his methods do read slightly,

alarmingly.

He was a thoughtless and clumsy

archaeologist. He did not respect sites.

He did not pinpoint things properly. It

did mean that uh a lot of detail was

lost to him if he was moving such large

amounts of

spoil. Schleman was often joined on site

by his wife Sophia, a young Greek woman,

30 years his

[Music]

junior. Sophia reminded Schlean of Helen

of Troy, and he was desperate to involve

her in the quest for Pry's treasure.

He's a little strange, I have to say.

But so far his finds were disappointing.

[Music]

He kept on having in mind that somewhere

in this mound there was going to be

gold.

Instead of gold, Schleman was finding

only pottery, and it seemed strangely

primitive.

It was nothing like the splendor of

Homer's Troy that he'd imagined. He

wasn't terribly interesting in finding

shards and little bits of pottery,

particularly as they didn't sort of seem

to belong to what his idea of Troy

was. His dream of Troy seemed to be

fading. This was a treasure hunt with no

treasure.

The 1871 dig drew a

blank. But Schlleman wasn't yet ready to

give

up. It was just a question of going deep

enough and digging enough and the gold

would be

there. In 1872, Schlean returned for a

second season.

[Music]

And at last, he got some real

encouragement and some genuine

treasure. His workers unearthed a huge

marble

freeze. It showed the god Apollo in his

chariot driving four horses.

Schlleman realized it came from a Greek

temple that occupied the mound in around

300

BC. So it was a thousand years too late

to be from Homer's

Troy. But he had at least found

something. It was a very significant

piece and it must

have must have had quite high value.

But there was a big problem with the

find. Schleman had found the marble on

Frank Calvert's land. And his deal with

Calvert was that they'd split the

proceeds. The deal was between him and

Frank Calbertt that fines were to be

halved. You couldn't have a thing like

this. One of them, one or other of them

had to have it. Schllean haggled with

Calvert as if they were rivals rather

than partners. He was ruthless with

people. if things didn't go his way, uh,

he could be hard and difficult. Schlean

offered to buy his share of the marble

at what he claimed was its market price.

Of course, the real value was much

higher. It shouldn't have been a

surprise to Calvert that Schlleman was a

cutthroat businessman. But I think he

was shocked by this all the same.

It was the last straw for Calvert. He

walked off the excavation.

For many, losing their archaeological

mentor would have been a major setback,

but it didn't deter Schlean. Though

inexperienced, he carried on and started

to use what Calvert had taught him. As

time went on, he did improve. He did

have this training in

bookkeeping and this must have ingrained

in him a habit of accurate

recording. Schleman began to note the

precise position of each find and

variations in the soil from layer to

layer. He brought photographers in to

record every detail.

Schlean introduced photography

um eventually beautiful

photography. I think they surpass

anything done on the site

[Music]

since. Schlean was gradually building up

a detailed picture of the

mound. And by the third dig season in

1873, Schlean's efforts paid off. Deep

in the mound, he uncovered signs of what

looked like a prehistoric

city. There was a paved ramp, a

magnificent tower, and an imposing

gate. For Schlean, it was everything

that Homer had described as

Troy. He was convinced he'd found the

gateway to the palace of the great king

Prior.

and there was a gate and there was

behind it a building which he thought

might be Pryam's

palace. So he

was definitely of the view that this

this fitted with Homer. By the close of

that season, Schleman had uncovered

another vital clue. He had found what he

thought was very important was that

which was that the period he was

investigating had been heavily

burnt. This charring and ash was on the

layer Schllean called Troy 2, just above

the bottom of the mound. Here, it seemed

was the proof he had been searching

for. For Schlean, these were clear signs

of Troy's infamous destruction by fire.

Once the Greeks had laid siege to the

city, Schlean was convinced this layer

was Homer's Troy and trumpeted his

discovery to the

world. But when the news reached his

hometown of Berlin, Schlean was stunned

to find himself the object of ridicule.

The attacks on Schlean were

astonishingly strong and and hard. His

whole manner of publicizing them just

invited academic scorn.

He was caricatured in the press as a

gold digger with a trophy

wife. His methods were mercilessly

lampuned.

The Berlin intelligencia thought he was

vulgar and provincial. This mania for

gold meant that he was a treasure

seeker. He was not a serious inquirer

after the truth. And Schleman found this

very hard.

Worst of all, his key findings about

Pryam's palace and Homer's Troy were

dismissed. His methods lacked precision,

and his one find lacked a

date. Schlean accused his enemies of

liel and

lies. But privately, even he was racked

with doubts.

In Schllean's mind, there were two

particularly serious problems with the

site of Troy

[Music]

2. It did by 1873 realize that the site

was really too small by comparison with

what you'd expect from Homer. According

to Homer, Troy was a well-popled city of

approximately a 100,000 inhabitants at

the time of the Trojan War. But the site

Schlean had found was only the length of

a football pitch along the side. If Troy

2 was really Homer's magnificent city,

it should be bigger.

This is too small obviously for the

great city that Homer talks about. And

then there was the second problem. Homer

spoke of Troy as a city rich in gold,

but all Schlean had found was primitive

pottery.

With just two weeks remaining in the dig

season, Schllean knew he had to do

something to salvage his reputation. He

had to find hard evidence of Homer's

Troy. Everybody was very skeptical about

what he was doing. And he found any form

of criticism extremely hard to bear. And

then just before the season ended,

something happened.

[Music]

Schlean claimed that as the excavations

continued, he suddenly spotted something

in a wall of Troy

2. He used a pretext to send the workers

for an early break, leaving Schllean and

Sophia alone on

site. She was, he said, the only witness

to the discovery of a lifetime.

[Music]

There it is. There is this

astonishing cache of brightly shining

gold. And it's everything he always

dreamt it might be.

There were bracelets and

necklaces, gold rings,

goblets, and so much

more. It was uh gold and silver vessels

and a lot of bronze

objects all apparently packed up into

one tight little collection. It was gold

and it was immensely valuable.

So on every score at that one moment he

must have thought I've done it. I've

done what I really wanted to

do. For Schlean there was only one way

the gold could have got

there. It was Pry's treasure abandoned

in the wall as the Trojans fled the

burning city.

He had in his hands the proof of

everything that he had maintained and

the people had not believed. And this

all helped to prove that this really was

Troy and that the Trojan War had

happened. Schleman called his find the

jewels of

Helen. As a final flourish, Schleman

claimed that Sophia carried some of the

treasure home in her red shore. You can

sense this unbelievable excitement about

what was going on. Once again, Schllean

shouted his discovery to the world, but

this time he chose an ingenious way to

go about it. He summoned his

photographer and in the process created

one of the most famous archaeological

photographs ever seen. He got Sophia to

dress up and wear this jewelry and be

photographed in it. The photograph went

worldwide.

[Music]

It was a brilliant piece of public

relations. Schleman was now famous. That

in a sense was almost his finest eye to

say to all his opponents, look, I got

the jewelry. And what's more, here it is

on my wife.

But back in Berlin, Schlean's critics

were enraged.

For them, the photograph was proof once

more that Schlean was a treasure seeker,

not a serious archaeologist.

The photograph must have been almost

most calculated to drive his his

opponents completely mad. The

establishment ramped up their

attack. And Schllean's version of events

gave his enemies the perfect ammunition.

He was caught out by two unfortunate

facts. He said that his wife Sophie was

there at the time and helped him dig it

out. It's totally untrue. She had left

earlier in the season to go home to

Athens. Despite Schleman's account, it

seemed that he had invented a witness to

a discovery that had never

happened. Schleman's response was that

he simply wanted to involve Sophia in

his life's work. Sophie didn't like

archaeology at all and she hated being

on site and Schlean wanted her to be

involved. He he would do such a crass

thing. Secondly, Schllean was shifty

about where exactly he had found the

treasure in Troy 2.

Sometimes he says it he found it outside

the citadel wall of Troy 2. Sometimes he

says he found it on the citadel wall of

Troy 2 and this is supposed to

be an indication that the whole treasure

was or or part of it was made up. The

allegations implied that Schleman had

the treasure faked by a jeweler and even

today most experts agree that his

accounts can't be trusted.

The discovery of the treasure of Pry had

been embroidered, manipulated, and was

in part totally

false. But despite all of the

accusations, the public wanted to

believe Schlean, and crucially, the

jewels themselves seemed to back him

up. Schlean had all his finds

photographed or drawn by artists for

publication. And when experts studied

it, the treasure matched closely in

style, as it would if it was all from

the same find. For all of the

allegations, Helen's jewels seem to be

what Schleman said they were. I think

Pryime's treasure was substantially or

wholly genuine, and Schlean found it

more or less as he says. There may be a

little bit of confusion over some of the

objects.

Soon critics were the least of

Schllean's

problems. The government wanted their

half of the spoils and to keep the

treasure in

Turkey. There was an outcry from the

Turks who quite rightly said that the

treasure was theirs.

But in Schlean's mind, he had found it

so he owned it.

Schlean certainly believed that

everything he found was his.

He hastily packed the treasure up and

smuggled it to

Greece, where it is said Sophia's family

hid it in the Athenian

countryside. His prize was safe overseas

and successfully out of the government's

clutches. But although Schllean had kept

his gold, now he needed more. The

trouble for Schlean was that finding the

gold was not enough.

To Schlean, it was now about more than

treasure. He had critics to silence and

truths he was desperate to prove. He

really wanted to be a

scholar and he wanted to be accepted. He

was almost pathetically grateful to be

accepted by scholars as a scholar.

Schlean needed to prove he really had

found Pryam's treasure by confirming it

was made in 1250 BC, the time of the

Iliad. There clearly remained this

question about whether he had really

found Troy or not.

But in the early days of archaeology,

dating finds wasn't simple. The only

reliable method was to compare the

pottery Schlean had found near Helen's

jewels to a sample from the correct

era. So Schllean resolved to dig at the

one place he was certain he could

accurately date.

Myi was the palace of King Pryam's great

nemesis, the Greek king Agamemnon.

So it should have dated from the Iliad's

era. And crucially, structures from that

period had already been excavated there.

If Schlean could find pottery in Myi, he

could use it to put a date on Homer's

Troy and silence his critics.

[Music]

I think that Schlean was

so determined to prove that what he'd

found was right. It was a sort of

desperation in a way. With his

reputation at stake, Schllean set about

his dig in

Greece. Once again, he decided to

excavate according to the clues in his

favorite type of guide, the writings of

an ancient author.

The Greek writer Porcenius had said that

five graves of King Agamemnon and his

closest companions could be found at

Myi. Experts thought Porcenius was

highly

unreliable. But Schleman followed his

descriptions like a guide

book. What he read in Porcenas was that

Agamemnon had been buried within the

wall.

So, Schleman, ignoring the very fine

built tombs outside the walls, went and

dug within the

[Music]

wall. Within days, he had found

something. Tombstones marking out a

circle of graves, each lined with

treasure, exactly as Posanius predicted.

Sleman was led by this reading of a very

questionable source to dig in a place

that proved quite literally a gold

mine. And one particular find was

greater than all of the others.

It was a funeral mask found on the face

of a 35-year-old

warrior. A famous story says Schlean

cabled the king of Greece with the

words, "I have gazed upon the face of

Agamemnon." Schlean's literal-minded

approach shouldn't have worked, but it

had. The same thing happened as had

happened at Troy that through a series

of

blunders. He stumbled

upon a discovery of of

tremendous fame and

appeal. But chiefly for Schllean, above

all of these new riches, he had found

sufficient proof to authenticate

Troy. The layout of the palace and the

style of the pottery told him what a

power center of the 13th century BC

would actually look like. He found there

what the buildings looked like, what the

pottery looked like, what the small

fines looked like. With his newfound

archaeological confidence, Schleman

believed that if he could return to

Hisalic just one last time, he could

finally prove that he had found Homer's

Troy. Bit by bit, he was beginning to

assemble proof for what he was trying to

establish, which was the the legend of

Troy and the the siege of

Troy. By 1890, Schlean had repaired his

relations with the Turkish government,

and he was granted permission to tackle

Troy one last time. His plan to use

Mysai's pottery and buildings to confirm

once and for all that the mound at his

dated to 1250 BC and that he really had

found the treasure of King

Pryam. By now Schleman had recruited

brilliant technical help in the form of

the ingenious architect Wilhelm Dupfeld.

He had a very good understanding of

architecture and how to record it and he

had a very good understanding of how to

put on paper the complexities of the

site. Under Dupeld's influence, Schleman

was persuaded to turn his attention from

Troy 2 to a layer called Troy 6 almost

40 ft near the

surface. At just 6 and 1/2 ft below

ground, Schlean had previously ignored

this level. Passing straight through it

in his search for Troy 2, Derpfeld

suggested that they try digging for Troy

6 further a field away from Schleman's

previous excavations at the center of

the

mound. Sure enough, their broader

excavation soon produced results.

Troy 6 was a much bigger city with

buildings and pottery matching those

that Schlean had found at

Myi. Finally, Schlean believed he'd

found the object of his obsession,

Homer's

Troy. But with triumph came devastating

realizations.

If Troy 6 was Homer's Troy, then Troy 2,

where Schllean had found Pry's treasure,

couldn't be. I think it must be

shattering for anybody to have their

own discoveries and their own thesis so

conclusively

disproved without really any scope for

argument.

And worse still, in his rush to reach

the bottom of the mound, Schleman had

blasted right through the very city he

had spent 20 years searching for. In the

process, he had destroyed vast amounts

of the real Troy and ruined vital

archaeological evidence. He must have

had to face up to the fact that he had

destroyed a great deal of evidence by

the way that he had dug earlier.

When the truth dawned on him, Schleman

was overcome by shock.

Schllean went off into his tent and

didn't come out for 3

days. And then eventually when he did

come out, he quietly said, "I think

you're right."

[Music]

It was the first and only time that

Schlean ever admitted his mistake.

That one story of him talking to Doc

Dogfeld in is in a sense his

acknowledgement of what he'd done.

In 1890, Schlleman went to his grave,

publicly maintaining his belief in Troy

2 and the amazing jewels of Helen of

Troy, avoiding confrontation of the

awful truth.

But the mystery of Pryam's treasure was

far from

over. Schlean bequeethed Helen's jewels

to the Museum of Berlin, and there they

lay safe until the 20th century when

they disappeared, becoming the lost

jewels all over again.

It was rather a parallel to the whole

story of the Troy treasure, which had

always been a mystery.

In April

1945, Berlin, like Troy, faced total

destruction at the hands of enemy

invaders. The Nazi Third Reich entered

its final death throws in the Battle of

Berlin as the Soviet Union's Red Army

surrounded the

city. But when Hitler was dead and the

war was over, the treasure had vanished.

Nobody knew where it was. It seemed to

have disappeared.

The Russians denied taking it, leaving

Helen of Troy's treasure missing once

more. Then suddenly, after almost 50

years, Hinrich Schlean and his finds hit

the headlines yet again.

One of the world's most famous

archaeological finds, the Trojan gold,

goes on show in Moscow tomorrow.

In 1994, after the fall of the Soviet

Union, the Russians finally admitted to

possession of the treasure. They felt

they were entitled to it as war

reparations for all the huge damage done

by the Germans in Russia.

The treasure was in Moscow and was put

on display at the Pushkin

Museum. Donald Eastston was one of the

few Western archaeologists invited to

view the collection.

There was absolutely no doubt that these

were the objects which had been in

Berlin. Eastston became convinced that

the treasure had not been faked by

Schlean himself. It had clearly been in

a Trojan soil for centuries. What was

also clear was that these were objects

which had come out of the

ground. There's no question of there

having been manufactured to order in the

19th century.

But with this recognition came a twist.

Eastston confirmed what Schleman

probably knew but could never admit.

What we call Pry's treasure wasn't

actually Pry's treasure. It was a

thousand years earlier than any Trojan

war which may have taken place.

Troy 2, where Schlean had found the

treasure, had been built in around 2,300

BC, a thousand years earlier than

Homer's Troy. So Schleman's find could

not have been Helen of Troy's jewels.

But what he had found was evidence of

one of the first European

civilizations, earlier than anything

unearthed before.

Today, Schllean lies in a spectacular

morale in

Athens. On its walls, scenes from the

Iliad meet stories from Schlean's own

excavations, forever uniting their two

tales. For many, Schlean doesn't deserve

it. Some people were very dismissive.

They thought he was a charlatan. is one

of the most intensely dislikable and

certainly disliked figures in the whole

history of the 19th

[Music]

century. Yet despite his detractors,

Schlean's legacy is ultimately one of

archaeological success.

He had discovered an entire period of

human history even older than Troy known

as the early Bronze

Age. It was uh and still is a very

important thing in its own right. It's

a very important piece of documentation

for what society was like in the early

Bronze Age. And it was found by Schlean.

He found something very wonderful and it

makes him an extraordinary character.

To most such a find would have been

glory

enough. But for Schlean there had only

ever been one

prize. And although his discovery

remains one of the world's greatest

treasures, it wasn't Helen's jewels. But

then Schllean himself would never have

admitted that

[Music]

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
Troy /trɔɪ/ B1	noun - a city in ancient Asia Minor famous for the Trojan War in mythology
treasure /ˈtrɛʒər/ B1	noun - a collection of valuable objects, especially precious metals and jewels verb - to value something highly
archaeology /ˌɑːrkiˈɒlədʒi/ B2	noun - the study of human history through the excavation of sites and artifacts
excavate /ˈɛkskəveɪt/ B2	verb - to dig up or uncover artifacts or structures from the ground
Homer /ˈhoʊmər/ B1	noun - an ancient Greek poet known for the Iliad and Odyssey
Iliad /ˈɪliəd/ B2	noun - an ancient Greek epic poem about the Trojan War
gold /ɡoʊld/ A2	noun - a precious yellow metal adjective - made of gold or gold-colored
burn /bɜːrn/ A2	verb - to destroy or be destroyed by fire
city /ˈsɪti/ A1	noun - a large town or area where people live and work
mound /maʊnd/ B2	noun - a pile of earth or rubble forming a small hill
layer /ˈleɪər/ B1	noun - a level or stratum of something
primitive /ˈprɪmɪtɪv/ B2	adjective - relating to an early stage of human development
battle /ˈbætl/ A2	noun - a fight between armed forces
legend /ˈlɛdʒənd/ B1	noun - a traditional story from the past, often about heroic deeds
obsession /əbˈsɛʃən/ B2	noun - an idea or feeling that completely dominates someone's mind
prove /pruːv/ B1	verb - to show that something is true or correct
discovery /dɪˈskʌvəri/ B1	noun - the act of finding or learning something new
scholar /ˈskɒlər/ B2	noun - a person who studies a subject in great detail
myth /mɪθ/ B1	noun - a traditional story explaining natural or social phenomena
palace /ˈpælɪs/ B1	noun - a large, impressive house or building where a ruler lives

Key Grammar Structures

• For Hinrich Schlean, the poem was a treasure map which could trace a path to untold riches.

  ➔ Relative clause with 'which'

  ➔ The relative clause 'which could trace a path to untold riches' modifies 'treasure map', providing additional information on its function.

• He believed there was a real possibility that underneath these ruins was the Troy talked about by Homer.

  ➔ Inverted sentence in that-clause

  ➔ In the embedded clause 'underneath these ruins was the Troy talked about by Homer', the subject 'the Troy' is inverted after 'was' for emphasis, a formal or literary construction following 'that' without an inverting trigger.

• By the close of that season, Schleman had uncovered another vital clue.

  ➔ Past perfect tense with prepositional phrase

  ➔ The past perfect 'had uncovered' indicates an action completed before 'the close of that season', using 'by' to specify the time frame when the result is achieved.

• If Troy 6 was Homer's Troy, then Troy 2, where Schllean had found Pry's treasure, couldn't be.

  ➔ Second conditional with restrictive clause

  ➔ This hypothetical ''if'' clause discusses impossible conditions, with the''''then'''' result negated by ''couldn't be'', and the relative clause ''where Schllean had found Pry's treasure'' restricts ''Troy 2''.

• It was Schllean's literal-minded approach that had led him to this discovery.

  ➔ Cleft sentence for emphasis

  ➔ The cleft structure ''It was ''...'' that'' emphasizes ''Schllean's literal-minded approach'' as the subject, with ''had led'' indicating a past action causing the discovery.

• Schleman was overcome by shock.

  ➔ Passive voice with preposition

  ➔ The passive ''was overcome'' uses ''by'' to introduce the agent ''shock'', indicating someone experiencing an emotion without specifying the subject actively.

• He had been buried within the wall.

  ➔ Past perfect passive

  ➔ The past perfect passive ''had been buried'' describes an action completed before another past event, using ''within the wall'' as a prepositional phrase for location.

• Nobody knew where it was.

  ➔ Reported question in indirect speech

  ➔ This is an indirect question ''where it was'', embedded in a statement starting with ''Nobody knew'', without inversion, as in reported speech.

• I think you're right.

  ➔ Sentence with reporting verb

  ➔ The verb ''think'' reports an opinion, introducing the subordinate clause ''you're right'', common in conversational indirect speech.

• He was almost pathetically grateful to be accepted by scholars as a scholar.

  ➔ Infinitive of purpose with adverbial modifier

  ➔ The infinitive ''to be accepted'' indicates purpose, modified by ''as a scholar'', with ''pathetically'' adverbially intensifying ''grateful''.