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 ancient city of Troy described in the Homeric epics and named the artifacts after Priam, a king from those stories. However, this connection is now considered to have been influenced by Schliemann's strong desire to locate places and objects mentioned in the Homeric epics. At the time, the layers of earth at the site had not yet been clearly identified, a task later completed by archaeologist Carl Blegen. The layer where Priam's Treasure was said to have been discovered was dated to Troy II, while Priam is believed to have ruled during the later periods of Troy VI or VII, which occurred hundreds of years later.

Background

With the development of modern historical research, the story of Troy and the Trojan War were thought of as legends. In 1822, a well-known Scottish journalist and geologist named Charles Maclaren suggested that Hisarlık, a mound near the town of Çanakkale in north-western Anatolia, Turkey, might be the location of Homeric Troy.

Later, beginning in the 1840s, Frank Calvert, an English person living abroad who worked as a government official in the eastern Mediterranean and was also an amateur archaeologist, started exploring the mound. Part of the mound was on a farm owned by his family, and he collected many items from the site.

At the same time, Heinrich Schliemann, a rich businessman who worked in many countries and earned a doctorate in classical studies from the University of Rostock in 1869, searched for the real location of Troy in Turkey. He began his search at Pınarbaşı, a hill at the southern end of the Trojan Plain. When he found no evidence there, he nearly stopped his work. However, Calvert suggested digging at Hisarlık instead. With Calvert’s help, Schliemann excavated the mound from 1871–73 and again in 1878–79. He uncovered the ruins of several ancient cities, dating from the Bronze Age to the Roman period. Schliemann said one of these cities—first called Troy I, later Troy II—was the real Troy, and this idea was widely accepted at the time.

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

Schliemann often told a story about finding the treasure, claiming his wife, Sophie, carried it in her shawl. However, this story was not true. Later, Schliemann admitted he made it up, explaining that Sophie was actually with her family in Athens at the time, following her father’s death.

Treasure

A partial list of the treasure includes the following items:

• a copper shield
• a copper cauldron with handles
• a copper object of unknown purpose, possibly a part of a chest lock
• a silver vase containing two gold headbands (called the "Jewels of Helen"), 8,750 gold rings, buttons, small objects, six gold bracelets, and two gold drinking cups
• a copper vase
• a gold bottle made by hand
• two gold cups, one handmade and one molded
• several red clay drinking cups
• a cup made of a mixture of gold, silver, and copper
• six handmade silver knife blades (Schliemann suggested these were used as money)
• three silver vases with copper parts that are fused together
• additional silver drinking cups and vases
• thirteen copper spear tips
• fourteen copper axes
• seven copper daggers
• other copper objects, including a key to a chest

Art collection

Schliemann took Priam's Treasure out of Anatolia without permission. Officials learned about this when his wife, Sophia, wore Helen of Troy's golden crown and necklaces in public. Amin Effendi, the Ottoman official who watched the excavation, was sent to prison. The Ottoman government canceled Schliemann's right to dig and demanded a share of the gold. Schliemann then went to Mycenae, but the Greek Archaeological Society sent someone to watch him there.

Later, Schliemann gave some of the treasure to the Ottoman Empire in exchange for permission to dig at Troy again. This treasure is now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. The rest was taken by the Royal Museums of Berlin in 1881.

After the Red Army captured the Zoo Tower during the Battle of Berlin, Professor Wilhelm Unverzagt gave the treasure to the Soviet Art Committee. This action protected the artifacts from being stolen or divided. The items were then sent to Moscow. During the Cold War, the Soviet government said it had no knowledge of where Priam's Treasure was. People guessed 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 said it had the Trojan gold.

Russia keeps what the West calls looted art as compensation for the damage done to 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, allows Russia to keep the items and stops authorities from returning them.

Authenticity

Schliemann's methods and reasons for his work have been criticized, and many people have questioned whether the treasure and its story are real. His quick decision to call the treasure "Priam's Treasure" has been widely criticized. Experts now agree that the layer of soil where the treasure was found is older than the time when King Priam lived. The items in the treasure are probably a mix of objects found in different areas of the site, not a single group as Schliemann claimed. Schliemann is also known to have made up details about how the treasure was discovered, including exaggerating Sophia's role in the excavation and creating a story that the treasure was hidden in Sophia's shawl and later smuggled away.