The Greek Treasure by Irving Stone

This is a book that I have had for a long time. I did start reading it years ago, but never finished it. Time to start again, since this was the book for the Book Challenge by Erin: 5 points - read a book that is at least 200 pages. My pocket version is 579 pages.

Irving Stone is mostly known for his biographical novels, or which A Lust for Life about Vincent van Gogh, and The Agony and the Ecstasy about Michelangelo are his most famous. The Greek Treasure is about Heinrich Schliemann and his Greek wife Sophia and their quest to find the city of Troy and Priam's treasure. It is a fascinating book in many ways. The characters, their goals in life and the pride in their achievements.

Heinrich Schliemann was born in Germany, but had the world as his home. He was a self-made man and made three fortunes in different countries. He spoke many languages and said he could learn a language in six weeks. He was interested in the classics and learned Greek just to be able to read Homer in the original language. Archeology was another interest and he had a dream of finding Troy, and he had his own idea of where it was located.

"'To the questions: "How much time in a Collegiate course of study should be given to the study of languages?" I answer as Charles V justly observed to Francis I: "With every new language one acquires a new life"; for by the knowledge of the language of a foreign country we are able to get acquainted with its literature its manners and customs...'"

In order to pursue his dream he needed a Greek wife. He announced in the papers for a wife with similar interests as his. His friend, the Archbishop of Athens, suggested a relative of his, 17-year-old Sophia Engastromenos. In spite of the age different, Schliemann was 47 at the time, they got along and married. It turned out to be a very successful and happy one. As is seen from a letter extract below (from Henry Schliemann to Sophia on September 6, 1869) Schliemann approaches all parts of his life in quite a practical way.

"... Could you please ask your excellent parents and write to me if it is possible to see you without all those people around, but alone with you, and not once but more often, because I think we are seeing each other to get acquainted, and to see whether our characters can get along together. This is quite impossible in the presence of so many persons. Marriage is the most magnificent of all establishments if it is based on respect, love and virtue. Marriage is the heaviest bondage if it is based on material interests or sexual attraction.
Thank God I am not so crazy that I should go blindly into a second marriage; so if the fashion in Athens does not allow me to see you often alone with your parents, to know you well, then I beg you not to think any longer of me. ..."

Irving Stone tells this extraordinary, fantastic saga as historical fiction. The dedication, the patience, the endurance of digging under very hard conditions, it all shows a tremendous zeal to pursue a dream. His dream became hers. Their life together aimed at finding the Greek ancient, buried treasures and they did. On the Hissarlik hill in Turkey they found what they thought was Priam's treasure. A treasure of gold and jewellery of a kind never seen before. From there they continued to Mycenae and more golden treasures. Life was not always easy. Schliemann, being a self-made man, did not go well with the archeological or cultural establishment. Maybe because he was an outside man, relied on his copy of Homer, he could approach the facts and fiction in another way.

Sophia Schliemann dressed in part
of 'Priam's' treasure

His archeological diggings have received heavy criticism from scholars. He did not have a formal education in archeology and therefore did not conduct the diggings in a proper manner. The mapping of finds was lacking and there are few descriptions of discoveries. Many of the criticism is seen in a later light, when the scientific way to approach an ancient site had developed, but still, some finds might have been destroyed on the way to find the treasure. He did accept, later in his career, that the gold he found could not have been Priam's treasure. It turned out to be the wrong age.

The history of finding ancient Troy is a fantastic story of a man and a woman who pursued a dream. Although they did not reach down to the level of what could be Troy, one has to admire both of them for their energy and will power, also in time of obstacles, both private and official. As Henry says in the book: "'We are both romantics,' replied Henry softly. 'It's the romantics who shape the world. The realists are content to fill their bellies.'"

In the Author's notes Stone says: "Those readers hoping to see the treasure of Priam in Berlin will be disappointed. It has disappeared. When the Russian army was approaching Berling toward the end of World War II the curators of the Berlin Museum for Early History bundled up the gold, some say in four separate packets, and hid it or buried it. To this day not a single gold bead has surfaced. There are numerous conjectures as to what happened: its hiding place was lost; it was bombed, melted down, confiscated ... stolen. There is still a faint hope that it will reappear one day, unharmed and intact." The book is from 1975 so maybe something has happened since then?  A quick look at google tells us that the treasure was turned over to the Soviet commander in 1945, who promised to guarantee the safety. Nothing was heard of it until it turned up at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow in 1993.

Treasure hunting has always interested and inspired people. How they come and go, and turn up again. The Greek Treasure is one such fascinating piece of history.