I have met with many very curious vases in the shape of animals with three feet.  The mouth of the vessel is in the tail, which is upright and very thick, and is connected with the back by a handle.  In these strata we also meet with an immense number of those round terra-cottas—­the whorls—­embellished with beautiful and ingenious symbolical signs, amongst which the sun-god always occupies the most prominent position.  But the fire-machine of our primeval ancestors, the holy sacrificial altar with blazing flames, the holy soma-tree, or tree of life, and the rosa mystica, are also very frequently met with here.

This mystic rose, which occurs very often in the Byzantine sculptures, and the name of which, as is well known, is employed to designate the Holy Virgin in the Roman Catholic liturgies, is a very ancient Aryan symbol, as yet, unfortunately, unexplained.  It is very ancient, because I find it at a depth of from 23 to 33 feet, in the strata of the successors to the Trojans, which must belong to a period about 1,200 years before Christ.

At a depth of 30-1/2 feet, among the yellow ashes of a house destroyed by fire, I found silver-ware ornaments and also a very pretty gold ear-ring, which has three lows of stars on both sides; then two bunches of earrings of various forms, most of which are of silver and terminate in five leaves.

I now come to the strata of debris at a depth of from 23 to 13 feet, which are evidently also the remains of a people of the Aryan race, who took possession of the town built on the ruins of Troy, and who destroyed it and extirpated the inhabitants; for in these strata of ten feet thick I find no trace of metal, and the structure of the houses is entirely different.  All the house-walls consist of small stones joined with clay.  In these strata—­at a depth of from 23 to 13 feet—­not only are all the stone implements much rougher, but all the terra-cottas are of a coarser quality.  Still, they possess a certain elegance.

A new epoch in the history of Ilium commenced when the accumulation of debris on this hill had reached a height of 13 feet below its present surface; for the town was again destroyed, and the inhabitants killed or driven out by a wretched tribe, which certainly must likewise have belonged to the Aryan race, for upon the round terra-cottas I still very frequently find the tree of life, and the simple cross and double cross with the four nails.  In these depths, however, the forms of the whorls degenerate.  Of pottery, however, much less is found, and all of it is considerably less artistic than that which I have found in the preceding strata.  With the people to whom these strata belonged—­from 13 to 6-1/2 feet below the surface—­the pre-Hellenic ages end, for henceforth we see many ruined walls of Greek buildings, of beautifully hewn stones laid together without cement, and the painted and unpainted terra-cottas leave no doubt that a Greek colony took possession of Ilium when the surface of this hill was much lower than it is now.