Finding the Walls of Troy: Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik

by Susan Heuck Allen

The relentlessly self-promoting amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann took full credit for discovering Homer's Troy over one hundred years ago, and since then generations have thrilled to the tale of his ambitions and achievements. But Schliemann gained this status as an archaeological hero partly by deliberately eclipsing the man who had launched his career. Now, at long last, Susan Heuck Allen puts the record straight in this fascinating archaeological adventure that restores the British expatriate Frank Calvert to his rightful place in the story of the identification and excavation of Hisarlík, the site now thought to be Troy as described in the Iliad .

Frank Calvert had lived in the Troad―in the northwest corner of Asia Minor―excavating there for fifteen years before Schliemann arrived and learning the local topography well. He was the first archaeologist to test the hypothesis that Hisarlík was the Troy of Hector and Helen. So that he would have unrestricted access to the site, he purchased part of the mound and was the first archaeologist to conduct excavations there. Running out of funds, he later interested Schliemann in the site. The thankless Schliemann stole Calvert's ideas, exploited his knowledge and advice, and finally stole Calvert's glory, in part by slandering him and denigrating his work. Allen corrects the record and does justice to a man who was a victim of his own integrity while giving a balanced treatment of Schliemann's true accomplishments.

This meticulously researched book tells the story of Frank Calvert's development as an archaeologist, his adventures and discoveries. It focuses on the twists and turns of his turbulent relationship with the perfidious Schliemann, the resulting gains for archaeology, and the successful conclusion of their common quest. Allen has brought together a wide range of relevant published material as well as unpublished sources from archives, diaries, letters, and personal interviews to tell this gripping story.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Archaeology, Ancient History, Biography

428 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 1999

Reviews

[Anastasia Walker]

Allen's book is a very detailed and exhaustively documented history of the 19th century quest to exhume the site of ancient Troy, the setting of Homer's "Iliad." As the book's subtitle signposts, Allen focuses on the relationship between two men, a British expat living in what is now Turkey near Constantinople (modern Istanbul) named Frank Calvert, and the self-taught German archeologist and self-promoter Heinrich Schliemann. The thesis broadly guiding her account is that Calvert's role in the discovery of the site widely considered to be the historical Troy, and in the advance of archeological knowledge in Asia Minor more generally, has been underappreciated for a few reasons -- and that the machinations of Schliemann loom large among those reasons. Allen's allegiances skew aspects of her work. The gentlemanly code extolled by Britain's elite classes tends to be treated uncritically, for example. Moreover, while she does on occasion nod to the racism informing British and European interactions with the Ottoman Empire, which then controlled the region, one gets the pretty clear sense that she is sympathetic to the machinations employed by Calvert and others to subvert Ottoman laws about antiquities exhumed within the empire's borders and smuggle their finds out of the country. Bearing these caveats in mind, I nonetheless found the book a surprisingly compelling read for its detailed accounts of the daily life of British and European expats in this region, the infancy of archeology as an academic discipline, and the fraught, complex relationship between the book's central figures.

[Ozgur Senogul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good and interesting reading, not a deeply detailed academic writing but a showcase for depicting how those days’ prominent intellectual activity ‘archaeology’ medium worked. In fact, it does not seem to be a real scientific activity in terms of today’s approach, rather a race harnessed by passion for fame and wealth. Calvert seemed to be more wise and emotional about Troy whereas Schliemann were more cunning and ambitious, inevitably richer.
Under those days’ conditions, may be there was no other way to follow the dreams to search and pursuit Homeric Troy but it is too sad witnessing the widely dispersion of cultural heritages of this site around the world. They should be gathered their birth place somehow.

[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Parts of this book were fascinating. I was riveted at first by the story of Frank Calvert's early Trojan excavations and Schliemann's attempts to deny Calvert any credit for discovering the site. But the middle of the book, describing subsequent excavations and bureaucratic entanglements, was really boring and took me forever to get through. Things picked up again at the very end with the tangled later history of Priam's treasure. Overall, I learned some interesting things, but I would not like to have to read the whole thing again.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can be tedious, but it brings Frank Calvert's story to the front. Schliemann's aggrandizement and outride frauds are a putoff. It becomes more and more convincing that Homer's world was great poetry applied to real places, and maybe real people.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would recommend this book. I don't feel like writing a long review but if you are interested in the Iliad, archeology in general and the history of 19th and early 20th centuary scholarship of the material sciences...then I think you would enjoy it.

[Chavaleh · Rating 3 out of 5]

FINDING THE WALLS OF TROY: Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik by Susan Heuck Allen (1999)

[Jemera Rone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great tale but I had to abandon it when I moved

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bringing Frank Calvert to the forefront of Troy archaeology has been the authors main drive and this she has done admirably.

[Jaclyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting overall but a little dry in some stretches.