Sir Arthur Evans and Heinrich Schliemann were each famous for major archeological discoveries—Evans for the “Minoan palace” at Knossos in Crete (Eller 75), and Schliemann for “discovering” Homer’s city of Troy (Korfmann). However, many questions surround both discoveries, and when examining the lives of these adventurers, it becomes apparent that they weren’t always the most scrupulous. Indeed, they often “tweaked” their discoveries as they went along, in order to either obtain more funding for their projects or just for better publicity
For example, after the excavations that made him famous, Sir Arthur Evans wrote an entire book on the Minoan culture he had discovered. The only problem is that it’s possible some of the photos he took to support his theories actually came from other excavations, which means the artifacts in the pictures may not be from the same time period (Eller 87). Evans may have also “planted” a gold ring found in the ruins that he had actually purchased years earlier (Eller 88), doing so in order to strengthen the case he was making for the ruins being those of a major palace and thereby boosting Evans’ claim that it was Minoan.
Use your promo and get a custom paper on
"Evans and Schliemann: Scholars or Shysters?".
Schliemann played similar mind games while looking for Troy. He did find a city—in fact, he found several cities built on top of each other (Korfmann). Schliemann also found a great deal of gold jewelry and other items, many of which he stole and took out of Turkey without the government’s knowledge (Legge). However, while the pieces are beautiful, there’s no way to be certain that they are from Homer’s Troy. Only Schliemann insisted that they had “belonged” to Trojan kings (Korfmann).
In both cases, it seems that Evans and Schliemann were terrific at self-promotion. I’m simply not sure if their scientific abilities were as great as their PR skills.
- Eller, Cynthia. “Two Knights and a Goddess: Sir Arthur Evans, Sir James George Frazer, and The Invention Of Minoan Religion.” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 25.1 (2012): 75-98. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Sept. 2014.
- Korfmann, Michael. “Was There a Trojan War?” Archeology Archive: 57.3 (2004). http://archive.archaeology.org
- Legge, Charles. “Plundering Troy’s gems.” Daily Mail 23 Jan. 2013: 42. Newspaper Source Plus. Web. 6 Sept. 2014.
