DR. SCHLIEMANN’S RELICS OF TROY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5284, 2 March 1878, Page 2 (Supplement)

DR. SCHLIEMANN’S RELICS OF TROY.

On December 20th, in the South Court of the South Kensington Museum, the interesting relics of Trojan antiquity which Dr. Schliemann has so indefatigably exhumed from the mound at Hirsailik were opened to public exhibition. '

Dr. Schliemann hasdug and delved, in spite of ridicule and abuse, and,' ns the public will unanimously own after a visit to the court in the South Kensington' Museum wherein the relics of Troy are ranged in clearly intelligible order, he has something to show as the harvest ■of his patient, enthusiastic husbandry. There is at present no catalogue to assist the spectator, and to guide his eye from object to object in the astonishing collection. Indeed, . the number and. variety of the articles found on the four several periodic strata would have puzzled a powerful corps of catalogue makers, and might even have taxed the experience and resources of South Kensington and its admir-ably-picked and organised staff. But, on entering the court, ire may first observe, on our rigbt haud, advantageously displayed in a large glass case by itself, the most important vase in the large collection of similar vessels. So important, truly, did this wonderful piece of form, triumphing by its hold defiance of ordinary proportion,: seem in the sight of Dr. Schliemanu, that he has had it placed outside his book, under the title on the back of the cover. - It is a splendid vessel of terra-cotta, an indescribably brilliant brown in hue, with a throat thrice the circumference of its base, the; upward spring from which is noble, and consummately" adapted to the poise of a majestic top-weight. Without a single feature directly borrowed from animal life, the tutelar goddess of Troy, with owl-face, a women’s breast, a necklace, and a regal belt or scarf, stands unmistakeable and authentic in poetical force of suggestion. It may be called barbaric and grotesque; but it is, withal, solemnly calm and beautiful. If the prodigal ingenuity flung upon the fashioning of these many marvellous forms be indeed barbaric, it is barbarism of that pure instinctive, excellence which is untainted by the vulgarity of civilisation. • There is an inexhaustible study of fictile shape in the ,curious pottery hero assembled ; and, after the Minerva vase just described, perhaps the most striking of the terra-cotta vases from the palace of Priam is the largest of another and a commoner type frequent In the ruins, with two small ears or handles, and, equidistant between them, two great upright wings of an aspiring character. Some of the vessels are pure gold, as, for example, a small and beautiful two-handled drinking cup of elongated form, the ends being fashioned for drinking as well for pouring the libation. Such a goblet, we read in Homer, was used by Achilles. This fine specimen weighs about 18ozs, and is perfect. A round bottle and a striped or paneled cup are likewise of beaten gold ; and there are cups of electrum—that is to say, four parts of gold to one of silver. 1 Then there are silver jugs and vases, one of which has part of another silver vase fused and welded into it by fire. Upon and beside the gold and silver articles were, found thirteen copper lances, with a hole in the lower end of each, and actually with the nail or peg which fastened the lance to its wooden ' handle still fixed there. The pin-hole is clearly visible in a lance-head which the conflagration has fused into companionship with a battle-axe. Doubleedged < copper, daggers and other weapons of the same material are here, and also a copper key, which, with no undue stretch of the imagination, may he supposed to have locked up some of the gold and silver treasures. Among these, the most graceful of what wo should now call “ art jewellery," will be seen. All jewellery and adornment of every kind, personal, domestic, or religious, seems to have been unaffected and possibly unconscious art in those primeval recesses of history. The exquisite golden diadems, formed of innumerable links or scales, and depending like a short veil from a thinly wrought band or fillet, till the lower end of the fringe would nearly reach the, eyebrows, are central objects of the treasury, . Jewels of every form, bracelets, earrings, jstuds, pins, beads, small idols, and forms, the precise character of which it is difficult or impossible to determine, are also among the wonders of Trojan archeology unearthed by Dr. Schliemann, and exhibited in this most captivating and instructive gathering. ~ ■