Priam's Treasure

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Priam's Treasure

Priam's Treasure is a cache of gold and other artifacts discovered by classical archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann at Hissarlik in modern Turkey. The majority of the artifacts are currently in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

Schliemann claimed the site to be that of Homeric Troy, and assigned the artifacts to the Homeric king Priam. This assignment is now thought to be a result of Schliemann's zeal to find sites and objects mentioned in the Homeric epics which take place in what is now northwestern Turkey. At the time the stratigraphy at Troy had not been solidified, which was done subsequently by the archaeologist Carl Blegen. The layer in which Priam's Treasure was alleged to have been found was assigned to Troy II, whereas Priam would have been king of Troy VI or VII, occupied hundreds of years later.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

A partial catalogue of the treasure is approximately as follows:

a copper shield
a copper cauldron with handles
an unknown copper artifact, perhaps the hasp of a chest
a silver vase containing two gold diadems (the "Jewels of Helen"), 8750 gold rings, buttons and other small objects, six gold bracelets, two gold goblets
a copper vase
a wrought gold bottle
two gold cups, one wrought, one cast
a number of red terracotta goblets
an electrum cup (mixture of gold, silver, and copper)
six wrought silver knife blades (which Schliemann put forward as money)
three silver vases with fused copper parts
more silver goblets and vases
thirteen copper lance heads
fourteen copper axes
seven copper daggers
other copper artifacts with the key to a chest

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Apparently, Schliemann smuggled Priam's Treasure out of Anatolia. The officials were informed when his wife, Sophia, wore the jewels for the public. The Ottoman official assigned to watch the excavation, Amin Effendi, received a prison sentence. The Ottoman government revoked Schliemann's permission to dig and sued him for its share of the gold. Schliemann went on to Mycenae. There, however, the Greek Archaeological Society sent an agent to monitor him.

Later Schliemann traded some treasure to the government of the Ottoman Empire in exchange for permission to dig at Troy again. It is located in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. The rest was acquired in 1881 by the Royal Museums of Berlin (Königliche Museen zu Berlin).[2][3]

After the capture of the Zoo Tower by the Red Army during the Battle in Berlin, Professor Wilhelm Unverzagt turned the treasure over to the Soviet Art Committee, saving it from plunder and division. The artefacts were then flown to Moscow. During the Cold War, the Soviet government denied any knowledge of the fate of Priam's Treasure. However, in 1994 the Pushkin Museum admitted it possessed the Trojan gold.[4][5][6]

Russia keeps what the West terms the looted art as compensation for the destruction of Russian cities and looting of Russian museums by Nazi Germany in World War II. A 1998 Russian law, the Federal Law on Cultural Valuables Displaced to the USSR as a Result of the Second World War and Located on the Territory of the Russian Federation, legalizes the looting in Germany as compensation and prevents Russian authorities from proceeding to restitutions.

Sophia Schliemann (née Engastromenos) wearing the "Jewels of Helen" excavated by her husband, Heinrich Schliemann, in Hisarlik (photograph taken ca. 1874)