Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The new nation
The Greek War of Independence (1821-28) and the establishment of a modern Greek
nation changed all this. As a result of the selection of Prince Otto of Bavaria as the first
king of modern Greece in 1832, the
Germans
, whose education system stressed
Classical learning, were in the forefront of archeological activity. One such figure was
Ludwig Ross
,
who in 1834 began supervising the excavation and restoration of the
Acropolis
, later dismantling its accretion of Byzantine, Frankish and Turkish
embellishments that obscured its Classical structure.
The Greeks themselves had begun to focus on their ancient past when the first
stirrings of the independence movement were felt. In 1813 the
Philomuse Society
was
formed, aiming to uncover and collect antiquities, publish books and assist students
and foreign philhellenes. In 1829 an orphanage on the island of Égina became the first
Greek archeological museum
.
In 1837 the
Greek Archeological Society
was founded by
Kyriakos Pittakis
, a
remarkable figure who during the War of Independence had used his knowledge of
ancient literature to discover the Klepsydra spring on the Acropolis - solving the
problem of lack of water during the Turkish siege. In the first four years of its existence,
the Archeological Society sponsored excavations in Athens at the
Theatre of Dionysos
,
the
Tower of the Winds
, the
Propylaia
and the
Erechtheion
.
The great Germans
Although King Otto was deposed in 1862 in favour of a Danish prince, Germans
remained in the forefront of Greek archeology in the 1870s. Two men dominated the
scene: Heinrich Schliemann and Ernst Curtius.
Ernst Curtius
was a traditional Classical scholar. He had come to Athens originally as
tutor to King Otto's family and in 1874 returned to Greece to secure permission to
conduct excavations at
Olympia
. He set up a
German Archeological Institute
in Athens
and negotiated the
Olympia Convention
, under the terms of which the Germans were
to pay for and have total control of the dig; all finds were to remain in Greece, though
the excavators could make copies and casts; and all finds were to be published
simultaneously in Greek and German.
This was an enormously important agreement, which almost certainly prevented the
treasures of Olympia and Mycenae following that of Troy to a German museum. But
other Europeans were still in acquisitive mode:
French consuls
, for example, had been
instructed to buy any “available” local antiquities in Greece and Asia Minor, and had
picked up the Louvre's great treasures, the
Venus de Milo
and
Winged Victory of
Samothrace
, in 1820 and 1863 respectively.
At
Olympia
, digging began in 1875 on a site buried beneath river mud, silt and sand.
Only one corner of the
Temple of Zeus
was initially visible, but within months the
excavators had turned up statues from the east pediment. Over forty magnificent
sculptures, as well as terracottas, statue bases and a rich collection of bronzes, were
uncovered, together with more than four hundred inscriptions. The laying bare of this
huge complex was a triumph for official German archeology.
While Curtius was digging at Olympia, another German was standing archeology on
its head.
Heinrich Schliemann
had amassed a private fortune through various Midas-
like enterprises and had embarked on the
search for Troy
and the vindication of his
lifelong belief in the truth of Homer's tales of prehistoric cities and heroes. Although
most of the archeological establishment, led by Curtius, was unremittingly hostile,
Schliemann achieved spectacular success in 1873 by unearthing the so-called
Treasure
of Priam
, a stash of gold and precious jewellery and vessels. To his mind this vindicated
his search for Homer's city of Priam and Hector.
Three years later Schliemann turned his attentions to
Mycenae
, again inspired by
Homer, and once more following a hunch. Alone among contemporary scholars, he
