Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/258

Troy. 235 adoption of a more regular mode of building. Besides, accord- ing to Virchow and Sayce, the stones look as if they had been cut with an iron implement^ Now iron was not so used in Homeric times, and much less in the more distant age when Troy was built. More significant still is the thinness of the wall, which is only one stone deep ; whether it served as substructure to crude brick or not is of no consequence, and cannot for a moment compare with the massive rampart of Hissarlik; and it is paying the Olympians a poor compliment to imagine that they had a hand in constructing so indifferent and flimsy an enclosure. That the establishment was unimportant and of short duration is further proved by the fact that, both within the stronghold and what may be termed the lower town, the rock was struck at one metre, and rarely though never above, one metre and a half below the surface. Out of the potsherds lying on the top of the layer of rubbish were bits of pottery of about the fifth century b.c. ; below this were collected fragments of ill-baked, grey earthenware, cast on the wheel, and akin to that which at Hissarlik, Schliemann sup- posed to be synchronous with the last Lydian dynasty.* Stone implements, rude idols, and whorls of terra-cotta, found in such profusion amidst the ruins of old sites, are conspicuously absent here ; whilst the virgin soil lying on the surface shows no trace of houses having stood between Bunarbashi and the ' Sayce, Noia from Journeys in the Troad, &'c., pp. 76, 77 {Hellenic Journal, 1880). The article opens with a lucid exposition as to the claims of Hissarlik to be considered as the site of Troy. ^ Iliad. ^ Strabo.