The excavations made this year (1873) have sufficiently proved that the second nation which built a town on this hill, upon the _débris_ of the first settlers (which is from 13 to 20 feet deep), are the Trojans of whom Homer sings. Their _débris_ lies from 7 to 10 meters, or 23 to 33 feet, below the surface. This Trojan stratum, which, without exception, bears marks of great heat, consists mainly of red ashes of wood, which rise from 5 to 10 feet above the Great Tower of Ilium, the double Scæan Gate, and the great enclosing Wall, the construction of which Homer ascribes to Poseidon and Apollo; and they show that the town was destroyed by a fearful conflagration. How great the heat must have been is clear also from the large slabs of stone upon the road leading from the double Scæan Gate down to the Plain: for when I laid this road open a few months ago, all the slabs appeared as uninjured as if they had been put down quite recently; but after they had been exposed to the air for a few days, the slabs of the upper part of the road, to the extent of some 10 feet, which had been exposed to the heat, began to crumble away, and they have now almost disappeared, while those of the lower portion of the road, which had not been touched by the fire, have remained uninjured, and seem to be indestructible. A further proof of the terrible catastrophe is furnished by a stratum of scoriæ of melted lead and copper, from 1/5 to 1-1/5 of an inch thick, which extends nearly through the whole hill at a depth of from 28 to 29½ feet. That Troy was destroyed by enemies after a bloody war is further attested by the many human bones which I found in these heaps of _débris_, and above all by the skeletons with helmets, found in the depths of the temple of Athena;[36] for, as we know from Homer, all corpses were burnt and the ashes were preserved in urns. Of such urns I have found an immense number in all the pre-Hellenic strata on the hill. Lastly, the Treasure, which some member of the royal family had probably endeavoured to save during the destruction of the city, but was forced to abandon, leaves no doubt that the city was destroyed by the hands of enemies. I found this Treasure on the large enclosing wall by the side of the royal palace, at a depth of 27½ feet, and covered with red Trojan ashes from 5 to 6½ feet in depth, above which was a post-Trojan wall of fortification 19½ feet high.