Hissarlik, November 18, 1871.  I have now reached a depth of 33 feet.  During these operations I was for a time deceived by the enormous mass of stone implements which were dug up, and by the absence of any trace of metal, and supposed that I had come upon the Stone Age.  But since the sixth of this month there have appeared many nails, knives, lances, and battle-axes of copper of such elegant workmanship that they can have been made only by a civilised people.  I cannot even admit that I have reached the Bronze Period, for the implements and weapons which I find are too well finished.

I must, however, observe that the deeper I dig the greater are the indications of a higher civilisation.  And as I thus find ever more and more traces of civilisation the deeper I dig, I am now perfectly convinced that I have not yet penetrated to the period of the Trojan war, and hence I am more hopeful than ever of finding the site of Troy by further excavations; for if ever there was a Troy—­and my belief in this is firm—­it can only have been here, on the site of Ilium.

II.—­Trojan Life and Civilisation

Hissarlik, April 5, 1872. On the first of this month I resumed the excavations which were discontinued at the end of November.

In the ruins of houses I find, amongst other things, a great number of small idols of very fine marble, with or without the symbols of the owl’s head and woman’s girdle.  Many Trojan articles found in the ruins have stamped on them crosses of various descriptions, which are of the highest importance to archaeology.  Such symbols were already regarded, thousands of years before Christ, as religious tokens of the very greatest importance.  The figure of the cross represents two pieces of wood which were laid crosswise upon one another before the sacrificial altars in order to produce holy fire.  The fire was produced by the friction of one piece of wood against another.

At all depths we find a number of flat idols of very fine marble; upon many of them is the owl’s face, and a female girdle with dots.  I am firmly convinced that all of the helmeted owls’ heads represent a goddess, and the important question now presents itself, what goddess is it who is here found so repeatedly, and is, moreover, the only one to be found upon the idols, drinking-cups, and vases?  The answer is, she must necessarily be the tutelary goddess of Troy; she must be the Ilian Athena, and this indeed perfectly agrees with the statement of Homer, who continually calls her thea glaukopis Athene, “the goddess with the owl’s face.”