Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/230

 Troy. 207 that objects formerly landed on the floor of some hut of the third period may now be lodged in the embankment supporting the esplanades of the second city ; we should go wrong, however, in classifying the objects found in it with those unearthed on the platforms, in that the embankment was built out of the ruins of the first village. From the fact that the foot of the houses erected after the fire is not always on the same level, there is great difficulty in rightly dating pieces said to have come from one or other of these two superimposed strata, which in places get hopelessly entangled the one with the other. We attach little importance to the belief which would place the knowledge of writing in the dim past to which the buildings of the burnt city certainly belong. The anomaly would indeed be great, were it proved that this part of the Troad, which in every respect was less advanced than Tiryns and Mycenae, was in possession of a script as yet unknown to the cities of continental Greece. It will be time enough to give in our adhesion when the field of our observations, being much enlarged, can be brought to bear on a greater number of objects bearing upon them these alphabetical signs ; objects which from the position they were found to occupy at the time of their discovery, might unhesitatingly be ascribed to the inhabitants of the burnt city. Pending the proof to the contrary, we shall hold to our opinion that if the Asianic alphabet was employed at Hissarlik, it cer- tainly was not until after the catastrophe ; perhaps only when the desire arose among the dwellers of the JEgeam coasts to possess an instrument that greatly facilitated communications, and was a powerful aid to memory. The event may be placed about a hundred years before the spread and triumph of Phoenician letters. From the burnt city up to the mounds surface, MM. Schlie- mann and Dorpfeld ultimately made out seven distinct layers of superimposed habitations.^ I went with them over the works, and on the spot listened to their explanations ; but I confess to a feeling of surprise at the precision of the figures. It is quite possible that on this or that point, the eye, running from the bottom of the trench to its upper rim, may detect, in the vertical plane, seven grades of erections ; but remembering the irregu- ^ Bcrichty 1891.