The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1877-02-07
THE TOMB or AGAMgMNON.
letter from mr.. schI iemann--Ths Grounds
Tor Identifying the Exsasatcd
senulrhres discussed 10y
ssr SrhFIgsB,nnu,

Tor identifying the Exeavatcd
sepulrhres discussed by
Or. schEiemnnn.
DR., Henry Schliemann. the distin.
guished American citizen. writes to the
London times, under date MycenB,
December 5. as follows:
"The Trojan war has for long time
past. by many eminent scholars, been
regarded rs myth, Of which, however,
they yainly underworld to find the orr
gin In the Rigveda But in all antiquity
the siege and conquest Of Ilium by the
Greek army under Agamemnon has
been considered as an undoubted his
torical fact, and as such it il also ao-
copied by the great authority Of Thuoy-
dides. e., 800 The tradition has
even retained the memory OF many de-
tails OF that war which have been omit
ted by Homer. For my part, ! have
always firmly believed In the Trojan
war; my firm faith in Homer and IN
the tradition has never been shaken by
modern criticism, and to this my faith
I am indebted for the discovery OF Troy
and its treasure. However, the want OF
Communication on the Trojan jewels the
handmade. uncolored pottery, with pm
pressed or engraved ornamention and H.
natly. the want of iron and glass convince
me that the ruins of Troy belong to such
n remote antiquity rs to pTeoede by ages
the ruins Of Mycentp, the date OF which
I thought could fix by the result OF the
thirty four shafts which | sank In the
Acropols In February, 1874. therefore
believed that Homer had only known
by an ancient tradition. commemorat sd
BY preceding poets, the siege and de-.
struction Of Troy. and that for favors
received he put in his contemporaries
as actors in his great tragedy. But |
| never doubted that king Of Mycenae.
by name Agamemnon, his charioteer,
Eurymedon, q Princess Cassandra, and
| their followers had been treacherously
murdered either ut dinner by Bgisthus.
as Homer odyssey w.. $50, and Il. 400,
411.) says, or In the bath by Clytemnes-
ira, "a the latter tragic poets (Esch
| Aganiemnon, 1888; Euripid., Crest. 20. J
pretend, and firmly believed in the
statement Of Fausanias,. (ti., 147.) that
in the Aoropolis, differing in this re-
spect from w. NJ. Leake. Travels In the
Morea,' I'll, page 1861; W. Mure,, Jour.
nal OF q Tour Ia Greece Edward
Dodwell, Tour In Greece d.,
page 2s6;) Otfried Muller,lDorier; Err.
nest Curtius, 'Pelopennes, H., All, Alb }
W, Cell, 'Argolis;' Prokesch, 'Denk-
| wurdigkeiten ind Erinnerungep,' OL,
| 276,) who all misunderstood tho state
| ment Of Pausanias, and thought that
he meant the murdered persons had
been buried in the lower town.
"My firm faith in the traditions made
me undertake my late excavations In
the Aeropolis, and led to the discovery
of the five tombs, with their immense
treasures. Although [ found in these
tomps. In a technical point OF view, a
very high civilization, yet, as In Hum,
[ found there only handmade pottery,
and no trace Of glass or or iron. Fur.
Their, writing was known In Troy. for /
found there q number of short Greek
inscriptions in very ancient Cypriote
characters (see my Troy and Its Re.
maina,' PIP. 363.372), whereas we have
the certainty now that the alphabet
was unknown in Mycenm. Had 1t been
known the Myeenman goldsmths, who
were always endeavoring to invent some
new characterization. would joyfully
have awaited themselves Of the nov
city to Intervene the strange char
acters In their decoration; besides,
Ia that remote antiquity to which
the Homeric rhapsodies and the
tradition Of the Mycenran tombs
refer, there was as yet no commercial
intercourse. Nobody travelled except
on warlike or piratical expeditions.
Thus there may have been a very high
civilization at MycenT, while at the
very same time the arts were only in
their first dawn in Troy, and writing
with Cypriote characters may have been
in use in Troy more than one thousand
years before any alphabet was known
In Greece. | have not tho slightest
objection to admit that the tradition
which assigns the tombs in the Acropo-
lis to Agamemnon and his companions,
who, on their return from Ilium, were
treacherously murdered by Clytemncs-
ira, or her paramount, Hgisthus, may
be perfectly correct aud faithful. | am
bound to admit this SO much the more
as we have the certainty that, to say the
least, all the bodies Of each tomb had
been burned simultaneously. The cal
cined pebbles below each Of them, the
marks of the fire to the right and LEFT
on the internal walls Of the tomb, the
undisturbed state Of the ashes and
the charred wood on and around the
bodies, give us the most uCmistakable
proofs in this respect. Owing to the
enormous depth of these sepulchers,
and the close proximity Of the bodies to
each other, 1t Is quite impossible that
three, or even five funeral piles could
have been dressed at different intervals
OF time In the same tomb The identity
of the mode of burial, the perfect simf
larity Of all the tombs, their very close
proximity, the impossibility of admit
ting that three or five royal personages
OF immeasurable wealth, who had died
q natural death at long intervals OF
time, should have been huddled to-
gether In the same tomb; and, finally,
the great resemblance OF all the orna
ments, which show exactly the same
style Of art and the same epoch-all
these facts are SO many proofs that all
the twelve men and three women had
been murdered simultaneously and
burned at the same time. The veracity
Of the tradition seems further to
be confirmed by the deep venera-
ton which the MyceDans and, in
fact, the inhabitants OF the whole Argo-
liza, have always shown for these fine
mausoleums. The funeral pyres were
NOT vet extinguished when they were