Heinrich Schliemann
Date of Birth :
January 6, 1822
Place of Birth :
Germany
Country :
Germany
Field of Expertise :
Archaeology and Law
Educational background :
Schliemann's interest in ancient Greece was conceived when he overheard a university student reciting the Odyssey of Homer in classical Greek; Heinrich was taken by the language's beauty. Schliemann later claimed that at the age of 8, he had declared he would one day excavate the city of Troy.
Acheivements / Contributions :
Based on the work of a British archaeologist, Frank Calvert, who had been excavating the site in Turkey for over 20 years, Schliemann decided that Hissarlik was, in fact, the site of Troy. In 1868 — a busy year for Schliemann — he visited sites in the Greek world, published Ithaka, der Peloponnesus und Troja in which he asserted that Hissarlik was the site of Troy, and submitted a dissertation in ancient Greek proposing the same thesis to the University of Rostock. He received a PhD in 1869 from the university of Rostock for that submission.
Bibliography :
Troy and its Remains: A Narrative of Researches and Discoveries Made on the Site of Ilium, and in the Trojan Plain (Cambridge Library Collection - Archaeology),Bericht Über die Ausgrabungen in Troja im Jahre 1890 (Cambridge Library Collection - Archaeology) (German Edition).