Treasure and History: Heinrich Schliemann

by Paul A. Schons

Originally published by the Germanic-American Institute in January, 2000

A strange and controversial story began in Neubukow near Schwerin in a January 178 years ago. Heinrich Schliemann was born On January 6, 1822 to the family of a poor German pastor there. He would become a millionaire American, establish archeology as a science, rewrite the history of ancient Greece and involve Germany and Russia in a controversy which continues into the present.

Schliemann may have developed his lifelong interest in the Greek poet Homer and in Greek antiquity as a seven year old through a history book his father gave him for Christmas that year. In any case that interest developed and grew stronger throughout his life. The general wisdom of the times was that the Trojan War was a poetic invention by Homer. Schliemann was convinced early on that the War, the Homeric characters, and the city of Troy were real and could be found. But such an undertaking costs a great deal of money and Schliemann had none. His financial standing would change.

His first job was as a grocery clerk in his home town. Later he moved to Amsterdam and became a bookkeeper for a trading company there. In 1846 his company sent him to St. Petersburg as an agent. In Russia he founded his own company and amassed the beginnings of a fortune in the trade in indigo. During the Crimean War he increased his fortune as a military contractor. At about this time his brother, who had emigrated to California, died there. Schliemann thus traveled to California to see to his brother’s affairs and arrived at the time of the California gold boom. Through trade in California gold (and quite possibly not totally ethical business practices) he quickly gained a new and larger fortune. He found time to become an American citizen during this period of his life.

No longer in any need of money, Schliemann retired at age 36. He was now free to do that which his inner drives had impelled him from the time of his youth. In addition to earning money in the previous years he had continued to read deeply on Greek antiquity and had become a real expert, albeit not quite in agreement with the professional historians of his age.


In 1868 he began to use his fortune to undertake archeological expeditions to Greece and Turkey. Archeology in those days was little more than treasure hunting with little serious science involved. Schliemann too in the early days tended to simply dig with little concern for what might be destroyed on the way to the level in which he was interested. (As time went on, however, he applied more and more care and genuine science to his activities.) From his studies he also began to publish books on antiquity and his new science of archeology.

His studies had convinced him that the city of Troy was at the site of modern Hisarlk. He began digging there in 1871 and by 1874, in fact, found an ancient city which he was sure was Troy. In the ruins he discovered a large repository of ancient gold artifacts, the treasure, he was sure, of King Priam of Troy. In addition to his other talents, Schliemann had a strong flare for public relations and soon had enchanted the world with his treasure from ancient Troy. With, perhaps less than full respect for local law, Schliemann brought his treasure back to Germany.

Schliemann continued his work in the ancient world until his death in 1890, made a number of very significant archeological finds, wrote many books on the subject, and made serious contributions to establishing archeology as a science. The enchantment, however, and the continuing story remain with the treasure of Priam which he had found in 1873.

Schliemann donated the treasure to the Berlin Museum of Prehistory and Early History. The gold of Priam rested there until the chaotic days of 1945. At the end of the war, along with countless other art and historic treasures, the treasure of Troy was again lost. It was known that Russia had acquired a good deal of the art from German museums, but the Soviet Union denied any knowledge of the Schliemann treasure.

It was not until 1996 that the Puschkin Museum in Moscow suddenly exhibited the “Treasure of Priam”. The German government at that time attempted to regain the materials. The Russian government, however, countered that that art treasure and others taken at the end of the war were appropriate reparations for war damage to Russia. At the same time as Russia and Germany claim legitimate rights to the treasure, Turkey also makes a claim, in that Schliemann originally took the treasure without legal export permits. To make the matter even more complex, Greece too lays claim, for it was, after all, ancient Greek treasure.

As an historic end note, archeologists today think that the location Schliemann discovered was actually ancient Troy. In regard to the treasure, though, it is now thought that Schliemann dug too deep and, in fact, found artifacts from a period even older than Homer’s Troy.