the walls of the Acropolis at Mycenae,
and not without it. In both these opinions he ran counter to the
prevailing views of his time. It was generally believed that, if
Troy had ever any real existence at all, its site was to be looked
for not at Hissarlik, but far inland near Bunarbashi; while the
authority of Pausanias as to the graves of the Atreidae was held
to be quite unreliable.

Schliemann resolved to put his convictions to the test of actual
excavation. In April, 1870, he cut the first sod of his excavation
at Hissarlik. The work went on with varying, but never brilliant,
fortune, until the year 1873, when his faith and constancy began
at last to meet with their reward. On the south-west of the site
a great city gate was uncovered, lines of wall, already partly
disclosed, began to show themselves more plainly, and quite close
to the gate there was discovered the famous 'Treasure of Priam,'
so called, a considerable mass of vessels and ornaments in gold
and silver, with a number of spearheads, axes, daggers, and cups,
wrought in copper. As the excavations progressed, it became evident
that not one city, but many cities, had stood upon this ancient
site. The First City, reached, of course, at the lowest level of the
excavation, immediately above the virgin soil, belonged to a very
early stage of human development. Its remains yielded such objects
as stone axes and flint knives, together with the black, hand-made,
polished pottery, known as 'bucchero,' which is characteristic of
Neolithic sites in the AEgean, ornamented frequently with incised
patterns which are filled in with a white chalky substance. The
stratum of debris belonging to the First City averages about 8
feet in depth.

Above this lay a layer of soil about 1 foot 9 inches in depth,
and then, on the top of a great layer of debris, by which the site
had been levelled and extended, came the walls of the Second City.
Here were the remains of a fortified gate with a ramp, paved with
stone, leading up to it (Plate II. 1), and a strong wall of sun-dried
brick resting upon a scarped stone substructure. This, with its
projecting towers, had evidently once formed the enclosure of an
Acropolis; and within the wall lay the remains of a large building
which appeared to have been a house or palace. The separate finds
included the great treasure already mentioned, and numerous other
articles of use and adornment, golden hair-pins, bracelets,
ear-pendants, a ver