Further excavations on the North side--Very curious terra-cotta vessels--Perforated vases--A terra-cotta with hieroglyphics--Heads of oxen and horses; their probable significance--Idols of the Ilian Athena--Greek and Roman medals--Greek inscriptions--Final close of the excavations: thanksgiving for freedom from serious accidents--Commendations of Nicolaus Saphyros Jannakis, and other assistants, and of the artist Polychronios Tempesis and the engineer Adolphe Laurent.
Since my report of the 10th of last month I have been especially anxious to hasten the great excavation on the north-west side of the hill, and for this purpose I have made a deep cutting on the west side also, in which, unfortunately, I came obliquely upon the enclosing wall of Lysimachus, which is 13 feet high and 10 feet thick. I was therefore compelled to break out from this wall a double quantity of stones in order to gain an entrance; but I again came upon the ruins of colossal buildings of the Hellenic and pre-Hellenic periods, so that this excavation can only proceed slowly. Here, at a distance of 69 feet from the declivity of the hill, at a depth of 20 feet, I met with an ancient enclosure 5 feet high, and with a projecting battlement. It is not connected with the wall which runs out from the Scæan Gate in a north-westerly direction, and, on account of its very different structure and small height, it must belong to a post-Trojan period. In any case, however, it is much older than the Greek colony, because it is built of stones and earth, and because I found by the side of it several marble idols of the tutelar goddess of Ilium. I am, unfortunately, obliged to break down a portion of this wall to a length of 17½ feet, in order to proceed further, but I have left standing nearly 8 feet of the part I have excavated, so that the wall may be examined. Behind it I found a level place paved partly with large flags of stone, partly with stones more or less hewn, and after this a wall of fortification 20 feet high and 5 feet thick, built of large stones and earth; it runs below my wooden house, but 6½ feet above the Trojan city wall which proceeds from the Scæan Gate.
In the new large excavation on the north-west side, which is connected with the one I have just been describing, I have convinced myself that the splendid wall of large hewn stones, which I uncovered in April 1870, belongs to a tower, the lower projecting part of which must have been built during the first period of the Greek colony, whereas its upper portion seems to belong to the time of Lysimachus. (See Plate XIII.) To this tower also belongs the wall that I mentioned in my last report as 9 feet high and 6 feet broad, and as continuous with the surrounding wall of Lysimachus; and so does the wall of the same dimensions, situated 49 feet from it, which I have likewise broken through. Behind the latter, at a depth of from 26 to 30 feet, I uncovered the Trojan city wall which runs out from the Scæan Gate.