Page:Mycenaean Troy.djvu/40

 the "Treasure of Priam" (Schatz des Priamos). In the Museum für Völkerkunde, at Berlin, where most of the discoveries are preserved, we used to read a label as significant as the following: "Skull of a Trojan Warrior" (Schädel eines trojanischen Kriegers). We cannot condemn such enthusiasm when we realize that the all-controlling ambition of Schliemann's life—a life which reads like romance—was to find the Homeric Pergamos. It is pathetic to remember that he died just as "Mycenaean Troy" was brought to light. However much his statements may be modified or his theories changed, the name of Heinrich Schliemann will be spoken reverently as long as history, literature, and art have place among men.

We are now able to assign the date of Stratum II to about the period of Cretan dominion (2500–2000 B.C.), and in so doing we recall the tradition that Teucer, founder of the most ancient Trojan city, came from Crete. Surely the archaic pottery of this stratum is inferior to that found at Thera (dated circa 2000 B.C.).

In the excavations which Schliemann and Dörpfeld carried on conjointly in 1890 nine layers of settlements were distinguished instead of seven. In the sixth stratum (in the megaron of VI A) was found the lustrous class of pottery characteristic of the best Mycenaean period. Ruins of city buildings were also discovered. The neglect in former excavations to appreciate the importance of this settlement is partly due to the fact