A merchant’s assistant, gold prospector, castaway, war profiteer, looter, and “discoverer of Troy” following in the footsteps of Homer – the incredible life and difficult legacy of Heinrich Schliemann.
He remains fascinating to this day, just as his legacy remains highly controversial. His most important finds, “Priam’s Treasure” and “Agamemnon’s Treasure” are amazing but they have nothing to do with Priam or Agamemnon. His Gold of Troy, “Priam’s Treasure”, still is the source of controversy and even national-political entanglements – because first Schliemann illegally took the precious golden objects and then they disappeared from Berlin at the end of World War II. It wasn’t until 1994 that a Russian museum director revealed that Soviet soldiers had taken them to Moscow. To this day archeologists argue about whether Heinrich Schliemann really did find Troy, or whether the ruins where he was digging for treasure with brute methods were something else entirely.
Schliemann’s entire life reads like an incredible rags-to-riches story and one thing is certain: virtually no other German has stirred people’s imaginations as much as Heinrich Schliemann. Which is why reading about him is as exciting as reading a thriller.
