Pioneering archaeologist (1822–1890) best known for his excavations at the ancient sites of Troy and Mycenae. ALS in German, signed “H. Schliemann,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 5 x 7.75, January 27, 1872. An exceptionally early letter written shortly after Schliemann had finished his first season of digging at Troy, the most famous archeological excavation of all time. Schliemann here writes the amateur philologist George Petrus Heller, who had recently made a public statement (in a German newspaper) claiming that one of the inscriptions Schliemann found was in fact the Greek name for Troy—Ilion—written in Phoenician characters. Schliemann begins his letter by acknowledging Heller’s sensationalistic claim (translated): "Your translation of the inscription I found in Troy…pleased the whole educated world, and especially me." And though he immediately goes on to say that French scholars "could not decipher any letter of it [the inscription] and they firmly declared that there was no resemblance to Phoenician writing," Schliemann nonetheless affirms that he personally was convinced by some of Heller’s arguments.
After mentioning his discovery of “wonderful prehistoric vases and beakers with the face, breasts and navel of a woman,” Schliemann proceeds to give Heller details about the various signs and symbols that he discovered in the course of his digging, drawing Heller’s especial attention to two of them: “I do not fail to draw your attention to the fact that I found the cross, which was a religious symbol of great importance…Very often, I also found the sign of the swastika, which is a symbol of good wishes according to Burnouf’s Lexicon of the Sanskrit language.” In fine condition. Accompanied by Heller’s retained copies of a letter to Schliemann, his article from the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung about Schliemann’s work (January 17, 1872), and related clippings.
Schliemann’s 1871 discovery of the swastika symbol in the ruins of Troy was in fact an event of great historical consequence, directly linked to the Nazi appropriation of the symbol. Schliemann was himself personally fascinated with the swastika, and he believed it to have been a religious symbol of the ancient German people. Emile Burnouf, the scholar whom Schliemann here references, is considered 'the father of European Aryanism,' and it was Schliemann himself who convinced Burnouf that the discovery of the swastika at Troy proved the Aryan origins of the ancient Trojans and, most notably, their German descendants. Schliemann motivated Burnouf to academically study the swastika, and Burnouf’s treatises about the swastika and its Aryan connection directly influenced the Nazi choice of the swastika for their Party symbol.
Archeological letters of such outstanding content and resonance are of the greatest rarity in commerce. The discovery of Troy is deemed the greatest archeological achievement of all time, and Schliemann is now recognized as 'the father of pre-Hellenistic archeology.' The present letter is of exceptionally early date, and we do not find record of a comparable Schliemann letter being offered at auction.
Full of detail about Schliemann’s first season at Troy, this exceptional letter touches Schliemann’s very essence. Though it is now clearly understood that Heller misinterpreted the archeological record, it is nonetheless the fact that Heller’s sensationalistic claim made Schliemann a world-class celebrity. The present is the only letter Schliemann ever wrote to Heller, and the letter is accompanied by an important archive of contemporary documents relating to Heller’s newspaper statement about the Trojan inscription. Written three months before any public announcement Schliemann made about his discovery of the swastika, this letter places us at the very origin of the swastika’s rise to European prominence.
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