Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/275

 252 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. traces which these ruins have preserved, I was able to judge for myself on the spot. On looking at his notes and sketches of Tiryns, Mycenai, and Troy, I had been struck by certain peculiar details, none of which were forgotten in his plans, all having been set down and accounted for in the most natural manner by this scrupulously minute and sagacious observer. It will be easily understood that in such conditions as these, Schliemann and Dorpfeld should have been anxious to have their cause heard on the spot before a competent tribunal, whose members were recruited from the principal learned bodies of Europe, Schliemann offering to defray all travelling expenses. In order that his guests should suffer no inconvenience from the lateness of the season, he ran up a number of shanties on the eastern slope of Hissarlik, and to keep out damp and rain had the walls lined with paper prepared with bitumen. Pines from Mount Ida supplied the wood for the erection of Schliemann- opolis, as the small village was christened by us. Vienna and Berlin sent Niemann and von Steffen, than whom no more efficient judges could well be found. Notwithstanding wind and rain, several days were spent in visiting the works, in answering the questions put by the delegates, and in discussing Boetticher's assertions and objections. When required, a gang of workmen was immediately told off to clear such portions of the ruins as the commissioners wished to examine afresh. A daily report was drawn up of these transactions, in which, whilst unanimously acknowledging that the information furnished by the explorers, whether in their writings, their maps, plans, or drawings, was in perfect harmony with the evidences found on the ground, they pointed out that certain sides were still obscure and unaccounted for, of a nature too which further excavations could alone make clear. In the main, however, the delegates avowed themselves favourable to the views expounded by Schliemann and Dorpfeld.^ A second conference was held at Hissarlik in March 1890, in which MM. Babin, Humann, Hamdi Bey, Calvert, von ^ Reference has already been made more than once to this official report, of which a copy was forwarded to all the scholars who had shown an interest in the question. Niemann's recollections of his visit to Hissarlik, and of the conclusions which a survey of the ground led him to adopt, will be found in an interesting paper entitled, Kampf um Troja,