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Schliemann's Letters to Max Müller in Oxford

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

E. Meyer
E. Meyer
Affiliation:
Berlin
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Extract

In 1938 Sir William Max Muller of London, son of the Oxford philologist Max Müller, lent me a volume containing some seventy letters by Schliemann to use in my publications of Schliemann's correspondence. In January 1945 I deposited these in one of two suitcases, full of original letters, copies, and photographs, in the official bunker at Schwerin, for safety from air-raids. In the next three years all my efforts, and those of the museum staff, to recover the suitcases were of no avail, and on March 5, 1948, the administration of Mecklenburg replied to my renewed queries that they had both been lost. In the summer of 1958 an agent from Schwerin discovered this collection, all that has survived from the two suitcases, in a book-shop in West Berlin. It was recovered and returned to the widow of its previous owner in London. Agamemnon Schliemann (the son) and Sir William Max Muller had at the time given me permission to use the letters as a supplement to my two books, Schliemann-Briefwechsel i (1953) and ii (1958) and a selection of them is published here.

Ten other letters from Schliemann to Müller of the years 1874–83 which were not in the collection have been found after renewed study of several volumes of Schliemann's letter-books.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 82 , November 1962 , pp. 75 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1962

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References

The following abbreviations are used:

Alt. = Schliemann, , Trojanische Alterthümer (1874).Google Scholar

Myk. = Schliemann, , Mykenae (1878).Google Scholar

Br. = Meyer, E., Briefe von Heinrich Schliemann (1936).Google Scholar

Bw. i, ii = Meyer, E., Schliemann-Briefwechsel i (1953), ii (1958).Google Scholar

The Introduction has been translated by the Editor.

1 Bw. i 230.

2 Hisarlik-Tagebuch 298.

3 Alt. 305.

4 Alt. xii.

5 Hisarlik-Tgb. 300.

6 Alt. 121 f.; cf. Ilios 318–51, 372–89; Bw. ii 34, 53 et saepe.

7 Alt. xxxv et sqq.; cf. Ilios 318–30, 817 fr. (H. Brugsch).

8 Schliemann, , Ithaka, der Peloponnes und Troja 142Google Scholar; Alt. 313.

9 Alt. 48 ff., 93, 111, 114 ff., 259; cf. Ilios 389–97; Troja 132 ff., 143 et saepe.

10 Alt. li et seq.; cf. Ilios 699–712, 766 ff. (Sayce), and on this, Bissing, von in Otto, , Handbuch i 147, 157 f.Google Scholar; Troja xxvii–xxx.

11 Alt. 289–303; cf. Ilios 505–65; Dö;rpfeld, Troja und Ilion 326 ff. (Götze, )Google Scholar; Schmidt, H., Schliemanns Sammlung trojanischer Altertümer 224–47.Google Scholar

12 Alt. xi.

13 Alt. 43; Bw. i 166, nn. 225, 266; cf. Ilios 26; Troja 19, 29.

14 Bw. i nn. 262–4.

15 Bw. i 40–66, 125, 287 fr., 367 f.; Bw. ii 11–31 with nn. 1–23 et saepe.

16 Bw. i nn. 261–6.

17 Virchow, R., Das Gräberfeld von Koban im Lande der Osseten (1883)Google Scholar; Schliemann, , Ilios 72 ff.Google Scholar, et saepe; Troja 318 f., et saepe; cf. Meyer, E., Rudolf Virchow (1956) 141, 171.Google Scholar

18 Maclaren, C., Dissertation on the topography of Troy (1822)Google Scholar; The Plain of Troy described (1863); cf. Ilios 24.

19 Gnomon 1954, 493 f.

20 Bw. i no. 172 of February 3, 1872.

21 Mitt. des Inst. für Auslandsbeziehungen viii (1958) 5–47. esp. 29.

22 Ibid. 46.

23 ‘Ausflug nach Kleinasien und Griechenland’, Preuss. Jb. xxix (1872) 52 ff.

24 Bw. i 198 ff.

25 Ilios 694 ff.; Bw. i no. 191 and n. 299.

26 In detail to Calvert, Bw. i no. 194.

27 Bülow, von, Denkwürdigkeiten iv (1931) 423 f.Google Scholar; cf. Bw. i 208.

28 See most recently Weickert, C. in AA 1953, 159 ff.Google Scholar; Br 293 n.; Bw. i n. 354.

29 From Saturday evening to Monday morning. Hisarlik-Tgb. 207 f.

30 Bw. ii no. 344 et saepe; cf. nn. 396, 397.

31 Essays i, vi et seq.; and in his address in Strasbourg University in 1872, ibid. iv 107. In publishing 82 letters from Bunsen of the years 1848–59 (Essays iii 334–513) he paid a warm tribute to his great patron.

32 Essays ii 134 ff.

33 Vorlesungen 25.

34 Essays i, xxxi.

35 Essays ii 98 ff.

36 Vorlesungen (1861) 10; Essays ii 147 ff.; cf. Einleitung in die Vergleichende Religionswissenschaft (1874) 304.

37 On the philosophy of Mythology in Einleitung 307 ff.Google Scholar

38 Bw. i 264; ii 63.

39 Cf. Bw. ii n. 237.

40 The article ‘The Treasure of Priam’ (65 lines, unsigned) does full justice to Schliemann but it ends with Miiller's observation: ‘The Trojan war, in its original form, is pure mythology, though the myth may afterwards have been connected with historical events and real localities.… The days of this mythological euhemerism are gone, and not even Dr Schliemann's treasures will bring them back.’ Lady Wanda Max Muller (London) kindly sentme a photo-copy of the article. For Müller's replies: Bw. i nos. 219, 228, 233, 241, 255; ii nos. 16, 31, 35, 39, 147, 224, 232.

41 Cf. Bw. i nos. 234, 237, 238; ii no. 7. He had applied to Evstratiadis and the Ministry for permission to excavate at Mycenae already on April 4, 1870. He declared himself ready to work for only half the finds, or even ‘faire les fouilles seulement pour la gloire’. He had made an appointment with Evstratiadis to visit Mycenae on the 13th/25th of April.

42 The case ended on April 13, 1875. Cf. Bw. i no. 263 and nn. 431, 432. Schliemann to Müller (April 5, 1874): ‘I find it so exceedingly awkward not to be able now to touch the Turkish territory.’

43 Cf. Bw. ii 45–52.

44 Supplement to Bw. ii no. 19; cf. Alt. 162, 183, 211 f., 220 ff.; Ilios 200 ff., 370 f., 680 ff.; Schuchhardt, , Schliemanns Ausgrabungen 105.Google Scholar

45 For the excavation and results see Myk. and Bw. ii nos. 26–30, 32, with nn. 56–68. On August 12th Schliemann thanked him warmly ‘for the marvellous manner in which you have re-modelled my article against the Pasha’.

46 An early mistake; cf. Myk. 386, and no. 19 of September 6, 1876. Schliemann was first clear about the number of graves in his letter of November 16, 1876 (no. 28).

47 Schliemann had cabled for an ‘additional painter’ (August 25, 1876). Both artists had left him in the lurch on September 25th.

48 Cf. Fr. Sommer, F., Sao Paolo, ‘Sprachlehrer am kaiserlichen Hofe von Metropolis’, Mitt. des Inst. für Auslandsbeziehungen viii (1958) 45–8, esp. 45 f.Google Scholar (on Schliemann), 46 ff. (on Müller); cf. Müller, , Alte Zeiten—Alte Freunde (1901) 214–17.Google Scholar

49 Cf. Bw. ii. 61.

49a The Librarian of The Times tells me he was then Thomas Chenery. Schliemann seems to have got his name wrong repeatedly.

50 Stamatakis; cf. nos. 34, 39, 48; Troja 282 f.; Bw. ii 267 n. 237.

51 Schliemann was in London from April to the end of July to prepare his Mycenae (1878). He was quite exhausted with the ‘daily banquets’ (June 19th), the last being in the Goldsmith's Hall and with the Greek colony. Greek colony.

52 Written at the end of the arrangements for the Troy Exhibition at the South Kensington Museum (November 20th–end of December).

53 Cf. Bw. ii 193, fig.

54 November/December, 1880, March/April, 1881. Cf. Orchomenos (1881); Br. 175 f.; Bw. ii 117 (1880), 245 fr. (1886), 266 f.; Troy (1884) 303 f.

55 H. Schmidt, loc. cit.; Br. 75, 177 ff.; Bw. ii 117.

56 George R. Rolleston (1829–81), Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Oxford. Practising as a doctor in the British Civil Hospital in Smyrna, 1855–7, and for a while at Sebastopol and travelling through Palestine (Dict. Nat. Biog.). Schliemann had intended to let him choose something for his collection, but he did not live to do so.

57 Schliemann and his wife had waited for Sayce in vain at the steamer in Piraeus on February 3, 1881.

58 ‘The annual commemoration of founders and benefactors at Oxford (1651).’

59 Müller was quite wrong in connecting the Oxus find of 1877 (gold coins, jewellery, etc., of the sixth to second centuries B.C.) with Mycenae, and Schliemann's answer is understandable. In a way Müller was anticipating F. C. Penrose's mis-dating of Tiryns; cf. Bw. ii 243 et saepe.

60 Müller's answer in Bw. ii no. 232. Cf. Haussollier, in BCH 1880, 124 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fabricius, E. in AM 1888, 135.Google Scholar

61 In 1881 Stillman, United States Consul in Canea, thought that Kalokairinos' excavations had revealed the Labyrinth; cf. Perrot-Chipiez, vi 298 f.