Priam's Treasure is a collection of gold and other items found by archaeologists Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlık, a location on the northwestern coast of modern-day Turkey. Most of these items are now displayed in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

Schliemann believed the site was the location of Homeric Troy, a city from ancient Greek stories, and he named the treasure after Priam, a king from those stories. However, this connection is now thought to be due to Schliemann's strong desire to find places and objects described in the Homeric epics, which are set in what is now northwestern Turkey. At the time, the layers of soil at the site had not yet been clearly understood, a task later completed by archaeologist Carl Blegen. The layer where Priam's Treasure was found was identified as Troy II, while Priam is believed to have ruled during Troy VI or VII, which occurred hundreds of years later.

Background

With the development of modern historical study, the story of Troy and the Trojan War were once thought to be only legends. However, as early as 1822, Charles Maclaren, a well-known Scottish journalist and geologist, suggested that a mound near the town of Çanakkale in north-western Anatolia, Turkey, might be the location of the ancient city of Troy mentioned in Greek stories.

Later, beginning in the 1840s, Frank Calvert, an English person living in Turkey who worked as a government official and was also interested in archaeology, started digging at the mound. Part of the mound was on a family farm, and he collected many items found at the site.

At the same time, Heinrich Schliemann, a rich businessman who earned a doctorate in ancient languages and literature in 1869, searched in Turkey for the real location of the city of Troy. He first looked at Pınarbaşı, a hill near the southern edge of the Trojan Plain. When he found nothing there, he was ready to stop searching until Calvert suggested digging at Hisarlık. With Calvert’s help, Schliemann began digging at Hisarlık between 1871–73 and 1878–79. He uncovered the remains of several ancient cities, from the Bronze Age to the Roman period. Schliemann claimed one of these cities—first called Troy I, later Troy II—was the city of Troy, and this idea was widely accepted at the time.

Calvert and Schliemann’s discoveries included thousands of items, such as gold diadems, rings, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, buttons, belts, and brooches. Schliemann called these items "Priam's treasure."

Schliemann often told a story about finding a valuable object on May 27, 1873. He described digging near the palace of King Priam and discovering a large copper object that appeared to hide gold. To keep the treasure safe from his workers, he called a lunch break and used a knife to remove the items. He claimed his wife, Sophie, helped carry the treasure in her shawl. However, Schliemann later admitted this story was not true. At the time of the discovery, Sophie was actually in Athens with her family, following the death of her father.

Art collection

Schliemann secretly removed Priam's Treasure from Anatolia. Officials learned about this when his wife, Sophia, wore golden jewelry believed to belong to Helen of Troy in public. Amin Effendi, the Ottoman official responsible for overseeing the excavation, was later sent to prison. The Ottoman government canceled Schliemann's right to dig and took legal action to claim part of the gold. Schliemann then traveled to Mycenae, where the Greek Archaeological Society sent a representative to watch his activities.

Later, Schliemann gave some of the treasure to the Ottoman government in exchange for permission to dig at Troy again. A portion of the treasure is now displayed in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. The remaining items were acquired by the Royal Museums of Berlin in 1881.

After the Red Army captured the Zoo Tower during the Battle of Berlin, Professor Wilhelm Unverzagt handed the treasure to the Soviet Art Committee, preventing it from being stolen or divided. The artifacts were then transported to Moscow. During the Cold War, the Soviet government claimed it had no knowledge of the treasure's location. Many stories spread, including claims that it was stored in a vault in Leningrad, owned by an American millionaire, or melted down to fund a Nazi pension fund. In 1994, the Pushkin Museum confirmed it held the Trojan gold.

Russia keeps the artifacts, which the West calls looted art, as compensation for the destruction of Russian cities and museums by Nazi Germany during World War II. A 1998 Russian law, the Federal Law on Cultural Valuables Displaced to the USSR as a Result of the Second World War and Located on the Territory of the Russian Federation, legally allows Russia to retain the items as payment and prevents efforts to return them.

Authenticity

Schliemann's methods and reasons for his work have been criticized, and questions about whether the treasure and its story are real have been raised for a long time. The quick way he named the treasure "Priam's Treasure" has been criticized, and the layer of earth where it was found is now believed to be older than the time when King Priam lived. The objects themselves are likely a mix of items found in different areas of the site, not a single group of items as Schliemann claimed. Schliemann is known to have made up parts of his story about how the treasure was found, made Sophia's role in the excavations seem more important than it was, and created a tale that the treasure was hidden in Sophia's shawl.