Archeology: Heinrich Schliemann

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Archeology, which is the study of human activity in the past, has many significant names that discovered important sites to the history of art. One of these names is Heinrich Schliemann. Heinrich Schliemann was born on 6th of January, 1822, and died on December 26th, 1890. Schliemann was a businessman who could speak 15 languages, and he was a world traveler. His father used to read for him Homer’s Iliad when he was eight years old, which made his biggest dream is to become archeological and find about the places that Homer talked about. Schliemann, as a businessman, made a fortune, which was enough for him to retire; then, in 1871, he started to follow his dream and worked on Troy. Heinrich Schliemann work is very important and added a significant value to the history of art. His discoveries in Troy, Mycenae and Tiryns made him a pioneer in archeology.
One of the most important Schliemann’s works was his discovery for Troy. Schliemann started excavation in Hissarlik, which is the modern name of Troy, before archeology became a developed professional field. In May 1873, he found gold and other objects in the site of excavation and named it “Priam’s Treasure”. Later, Sophia Schliemann, which is his wife, wore the jewels Schliemann found in Troy excavation site to the public. The Turkish government then cancelled the permission Schliemann had to excavate and sued him to share the gold he found. However, Schliemann claimed that he smuggled the treasure he found out of Turkey in order to protect it. So, the conclusion of the excavation in Troy was the gold and treasure Schliemann found.
“Mask of Agamemnon” and shaft graves are other important discoveries for Heinrich Schliemann. After leaving Turkey, Schliemann started digging in M...

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... one can deny this. His important discoveries in Troy, Mycenae and Tiryns have a significant impact on art history for many reasons as mentioned in the previous paragraphs. In addition, his most significant discoveries are the gold jewels he found in Troy, “Mask of Agamemnon” and shaft graves that he discovered in Mycenae. He wanted to be an archeologist since he was young after knowing Homer’s Iliad poems that his father used to tell him about. In the other hand, Schliemann received many criticizes about his methods in excavation. I think that even though he used wrong methods in excavation, his discoveries was so important; so people can’t forget about his discoveries and keep criticizing his methods. Therefore, I think it is more important now to search and excavate, in order to find additional discoveries that would help us to know more about people in the past.

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