Mecklenburg of the 1800 gave birth to this extraordinary man. The legends of the village of Ankershagen stimulated his imagination and the desire for research. Ancient books, especially Homer, and his ability to learn languages, led him to discover unimaginable things for the scientists of those times.
His method was based on reading aloud, practicing translation, writing thoughts about things of interest, and taking a lesson a day. In the evening he studied the lesson for the next day by heart. In this way he learned Dutch, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese ... and over time many others!
Schliemann embarked, became a merchant and with the traffic of indigo he became rich. But his fame is linked to his discoveries.
He traveled all over the world, Europe, America, Asia, and then settled in what he believed to be his homeland, Greece. Now rich he abandoned the trade and devoted himself to the study of the Greek classics, Homer and Plato ... and just as intuition had quickly enriched him, intuition led him in the footsteps of Homer. Schliemann used Homer's texts such as those of Strabo and Pausanias as his guides through the unknown world of the past and, by chance or skill, discovered as much gold as he had accumulated through trade.
His first real treasure was known as the treasure of Priam, found at the foot of a wall during the excavations of Troy. The treasure consisted of two gold tiaras, 90 little chains, 12271 rings, 4066 heart-shaped lamellae and 16 idols and countless other objects goblets and cups of gold, amber and silver!
But it was only the first step!
While he continued to dig Schliemann wrote, studied, lived, corresponded with many people and quarreled with professors. He, a passionate archaeologist had in fact discovered things that others could not even imagine, despite being a simple amateur. And in the words of Ludwig, "he rose and still remained, despite all the quirks of these controversies, at a much higher level than the titled professors, his opponents, before the court of history".
The second treasure found was that of Mycenae, following the directions of Pausanias five regal tombs were brought to light and with them the sumptuous gold that Schliemann attributed to Agamemnon. Among the treasures found a gold mask, which today It is known as the mask of Agamemnon.
Schliemann also had time to start a family, or rather two. He married twice and had children from both marriages. One day one of his daughters, Andromache, asked him what eternity was. He replied: "Imagine, Andromache, a block of marble, long from here to Piraeus, on which every thousand years, a piece of silk is made to slide along its entire length. Eternity is the time necessary to thus consume that. immense block of marble. "
Schliemann had perhaps so many things to discover and was thinking about a trip to Mexico, looking for Atlantis ... maybe we missed an opportunity, unfortunately the death from an ear infection took him away sooner! The 26 December 1890 while walking through Naples still convalescing after an operation to the ear Schliemann fell to the ground, "so died Henry Schliemann: in a foreign land, caught by evil on the road of an unknown city, halfway through the journey between his first ( Germany) and his second homeland (Greece), traveling unknown, dressed miserably, with a bag of gold on his heart ".
I hope these few lines will inspire you to read his biography.
I read that beautifully written by Emil Ludwig, the choice is yours ...
Alessandro Rugolo
