Homer speaks of Troy as having been destroyed by Hercules previous to the Trojan war,[46] and it will ever remain an enigma to us whether this information, which had been preserved by traditions down to his time, really refers to the Ilium of Priam, or to the very ancient town of the first settlers.
As to the chronology of Troy, we have only the general supposition of antiquity that the Trojan War occurred about B.C. 1200, and Homer’s statement (_Iliad_, XX. 215-237) that Dardanus, the first Trojan King, founded Dardania, which town I agree with Virgil and Euripides in considering identical with Ilium, and that after him it was governed by his son Erichthonius, and then by his grandson Tros, by his great-grandson Ilus, and then by his son Laomedon, and by his grandson Priam. Even if we allow every one of these six kings a long reign of 33 years, we nevertheless scarcely carry the foundation of the town beyond 1400 B.C., that is 700 years before the Greek colony.
The site of Troy, which at the time of its foundation was 10 meters (about 33 feet) below the present surface, was only 7 meters (23 feet) below it after its destruction, when Ilium was again rebuilt by another people of Aryan origin; for, in the _débris_ of this people, which extends to a depth of from 7 to 4 meters (23 to 13 feet) below the present surface, I find the same objects of terra-cotta with religious symbols.
[Illustration: No. 9. Ornamented Piece of Ivory belonging to a Trojan Seven-Stringed Lyre (7 M.).]
On the photographic plates of the Atlas I have carefully stated the depth at which every object was found, so that it is very easy to find out which of them belong to this people.[47] Their pottery resembles that of the Trojans, but it is worse and coarser, and we meet with many new types. Almost all their vases have a tube on either side for hanging them up by cords. I here found, at a depth of 16½ feet, part of a lyre made of stone, with six strings; and at a depth of 13 feet the beautifully ornamented ivory piece of another lyre, with seven strings, here shown.
The architecture of this people, as may be seen from the many house-walls which I have uncovered, was always of small stones joined with earth. Yet in two places in the depths of the temple of Athena there is a wall of sun-dried bricks, which appears to belong to this nation. Their houses were smaller, and less wood was employed in their construction than in those of the Trojans; for, although the ruins of houses lying one upon another show that several great convulsions have taken place, still we find here far fewer charred ruins than among those of the preceding people; nay, these layers of _débris_ have in the majority of cases a grey or black appearance, and they contain millions of small mussel-shells, bones, fish-bones, and so forth. It is curious that in these strata certain types of terra-cottas are only found exactly at the same depth, and that, for instance, the splendid _black_ cups in the form of an hourglass, and with two large handles, are confined to a depth of 6 meters (nearly 20 feet).