Priam's Gold: Schliemann and the Lost Treasures of Troy

by Caroline Moorehead

Overview

Troy: one of the most captivating and mysterious stories of antiquity...But was Troy an actual place or just a legend of Homer's epic? It took the most unlikely of people, Heinrich Schliemann - a grocer's-apprentice turned self-made archaeologist, courageous and driven - to solve one of the greatest puzzles in history. His extraordinary discovery of the ruins of fabled Troy and the magnificent treasure of King Priam anointed Schliemann as the 'father of pre-history', but was also beset by controversy that persists to this day. The fate of the treasure itself is no less troubled. In 1945 it was spirited out of Berlin by the Red Army, to be hidden for 50 years in the vaults of the Pushkin Museum until the breakup of the Soviet Union. In this fast-paced account, Caroline Moorehead describes one of the most remarkable adventures of the 20th century, tracing Schliemann's footsteps to Troy and the convoluted journey across Europe taken by the treasure itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784534875
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/28/2016
Series:	Tauris Parke Paperbacks Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Caroline Moorehead's biographies Bertrand Russell: A Life and Iris Origo: Marchesa of Val D'Orcia were both New York Times Notable Books. She lives in London.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Preface to the New Edition ix

Acknowledgements xi

Foreword 1

Part I The Making of an Archaeologist

1 Pandora and Her Box 5

2 A Mecklenburg Childhood 12

3 A Man of Substance 26

4 Clever, Crafty and Competent 42

5 A Great Need to Know 52

Part II The Search for Troy

6 The Speechless Past 69

7 A Good and Loving Heart 87

8 Belonging to the Dark Night 107

9 Singing of the City 124

10 An Hour of Greet Need 138

11 Nothing but the Glory 157

12 A Fairly Heedless World 181

13 A Civilization at Play 200

14 Pallas Athene Intervenes 219

Part III Berlin and After

15 Dead and Wounded Art 245

16 In Temporary Keeping 266

Selected Bibliography 294

Index 299