Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1911-08-08
HOMER AND
MYCENbEAh AGE
Famous Classicist Tells of
Schliemann and Redis-
covery of Troy
GLORY OF GREEK CULTURE
1t Was Manifest as Early as
Twelve Hundred Years
Before Christ.

The first of the series of lectures
TO be given by DR.. Carroll, general
secretary of the American Institute of
Archaeology, and who is a classicist
/ OF renown, proved a delight last even.
ing to large audience in the lecture
| room in the Palace of the Governors.
The lecture was Illustrated with Ian
| tern slides, some of them Pachman's
pictures from Homer, but most of
| them photographs, maps and restora-.
tions of the region about Troy or
llium in Asia Minor, Mycenae, Ithaca.
Pylos, and other classic spots in
| Greece
DR.. Carroll opened his course at
/ the Summer School of Archaeology,
by congratulating the people of Santa
Fe upon their achievements in the
past two years since he last visited
Santa Fe from his home at Washing.
ton, D. c. The praise of Santa Fe's
singleness or purpose, enterprise. en-
ergy.. was graciously put and impress
ed the auditors as being prompted
| by sincere admiration He spoke of
visit to the Historical Museum and
the unexpected treasures he found
there, insisting hat history and arch.
aeology dovetail into each other.
DR.. Carroll at times reached heights
of eloquence and enlivened his address
| with bursts of humor, especially when
GD A. Il.
/ a legend by telling what an archaeol-
ogist four thousand years hence might
Fdeduce from finding the big Stick,
a Rough Rider" hat, Teddy Bear"
and other insignia of deity which
was known to the present age as
| Theodore" the Gift Of Cod" and
who was worshipped in Africa as
'Bwana Tumbo." But, the humorous
recital brought home the truth that
underlying many legends there is
a basis of truth
1t was this fact that led Schliemann,
the great archaeologist and explorer,
to excavate the site of Troy. He be-
lieved, contrary to the scientists, phil
ologists and literary students of his
time, that Homer was not a mere le-
gendary person, that Troy was not
merely Legendary spot, that even
Agamemmon was not only a legen.
dairy hero, and with great industry and
persistence, set out to prove his view
points, resulting in the discovery and
| the excavation of the real Troy; the
discovery that nine successive cities
sood uupOn that spot After this had
been accomplished, Schliemann un-
covered the site of Mycenae and found
the very tomb of Agamemmon and
the very remains of the hero of the
Had. Something like $4,000 worth
of finely wrought ornaments were TAX
en- from that site and deposited in the
Museum at Athens.
The Iliad therefore is based on
fact. The speaker described Homer
as historical novelist" While the
ODYSSEY gives way to great flights of
imagination, 1t too is based on fact,
in that it depicts the customs. the civi.
lization, the topography of the Greek
world as much as 1,50O to 1,20O B. C.
DR.. Carroll reviewed briefly the two
great Homeric poems and called the
ODYSSEY, the greatest literary work
of all ages, equally delightful to young
and to old.
In fact, the lecturer, at the onset,
made it his point to insist, that all of
our present day culture, civilization,
so-called advancement in every direc-
|; ton, can be traced back to the Greeks.
that the Greek culture is the broad
foundation upon which the present.
day intellectual structure Is reared.
The Greeks, pre-eminently, sought the
aesthetic, the beautiful, and fortu.
nately, left mass of literature that
illumines the superb archaeological
monuments.
The lecturer held the interest of his
hearers from start to finish; impress.
ed them with the fact that after all
the span of three thousand years has
not taken us very far from Greek
ideals, or as he put it, that man of
the age of Pericles, would be much
more at home in an assembly like that
OF last evening, than our own neigh
bors of the present day, the Pueblo In.
dian would be.