January 6 – Happy Birthday, Heinrich Schliemann

nPostednon January 6, 2014

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“I’mngoing to excavate Troy when I grow up!”

nAsnan adult, Heinrich Schliemann says that he made this declaration (ornsomething like it, and in the German language) when he was just 8nyears old. His father had given him an illustrated book called LudwignJerrer’s IllustratednHistory of the Worldnfor Christmas, and he had also filled his son’s ears with Homer’snepics, the Iliadnand the Odyssey.nThesengrandntales were accepted as fiction by scholars during Schliemann’s time,nso when he grew up it was going to be very hard to fulfill thatnpromise. After all, Troy was a myth, right?

nBornnon this date in 1822, Schliemann’s family was too poor to pay for anuniversity education. He left school at age 14 and did a variety ofnjobs, including working as a grocer, cabin boy on a steamer ship,nmessenger, office attendant, bookkeeper, and more.

nOnenthing that Schliemann was really good at was learning languages. Henworked in Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, and California just asnit was joining the United States. And he learned other languages asnhe worked in the import/export business. He once said that it took him only six weeks to learn a language, and whatever country he was in, henwrote his diary in that nation’s language! He eventually could talknto people in English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish,nPolish, Italian, Greek, Latin, Russian, Arabic, Turkish, and ofncourse German. n

Schliemann made his first
million before he was 30.

nItnturned out that Schliemann was also good at making money! Aside fromnthe money he made as an importer, he made a fortune starting andnrunning a bank during California’s Gold Rush, he made another one byncornering the market on indigo dye, and he made yet another fortunencornering the market in the materials needed to make ammunition,nduring the Crimean War. Eventually, the now-rich Schliemann was ablento travel to Turkey and fulfill that early promise, digging upnartifacts and excavating walls in a place that he claimed—and mostnscholars now agree—was once Troy. n

This is Schliemann’s second
wife wearing the jewels he claimed
to be Priam’s treasure.

nFromnwhat I’ve read about him, it looks like Schliemann couldn’t bentrusted—he sometimes lied and cheated. (I guess we cannot reallyntrust his statements about what he said when he was 8 years old, and how long it took him to learn a language!)

Despitenhis flaws, Schliemann did do us a service by directing the generalnpublic’s interest to the possibility that ancient stories could havensome historical reality. As a pioneer in archeology, he did somenreally bad things (such as using dynamite in his desire to quicklynget to the layer of dirt he was interested in, thereby destroyingnsome artifacts and walls), but he did win interest from both scholarsnand the general public for the new field.

nLearnnmore about Schliemann and Troy with this three-part video.

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