Heinrich Schliemann
Australian papers report on the discoveries of Heinrich Schliemann
The discoveries of Heinrich Schliemann, excavator of Troy and Mycenae, were enthusiastically reported in various Australian newspapers in 1877. As the following excerpt shows, the reports found a readership fascinated by the accounts of Schliemann’s dispatches:
Schliemann’s archaeological work was of interest to the non-scientific world as well. He kept the public informed of his discoveries through his books and through his dispatches to the London Times and Daily Telegraph, as well as a number of other newspapers, so that, as A. T. White wrote, “every person of culture and education lived through the drama of discovering Troy” (Lost Worlds, p. 27). His readers were excited by the romance of his undertaking and rejoiced in Schliemann’s incredible good luck in finding exactly what he had set out to find-the physical evidence of Homer’s Troy, and a buried hoard of golden treasure. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
THE ENTRANCE TO THE TOMB OF AGAMEMNON. See page 8.The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 – 1912) Saturday 21 April 1877.
Mr Schliemann’s Discoveries at Mycene: Mask, etc, from Agamemnon’s Tomb. Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 – 1907), 19 May 1877.
