The discovery of Troy was the triumph of Schliemann’s faith and genius. CHAPTER XIV Science, which began by doubting, finished by honouring Schliemann for his remarkable discoveries. Multitudes had gazed on the desolate Hill of Hissarlik, the Turks had long quarried it for stones for new buildings, but none except Schliemann suspected the wonders that lay concealed beneath the great mound. Even he was puzzled at first to read all the records aright, but gradually the evidence was sifted out and the story was made plainer. In all, Schliemann recovered from the site a hundred thousand relics, every one of which was photographed, drawn and catalogued with the depth at which it was found. The peculiar thing was that Schliemann learned, as those who have worked in Egypt have also discovered, that the deeper he dug and the farther he went back, the more artistic did the pottery become; that the potter’s art decayed through the later ages until it was quite crude. Some of the wonderful golden cups he found, weighing upwards of a pound, were beaten into shape by the goldsmith, others were actually cast gold. He was pleasantly surprised one day when, knocking down a great thick piece of what he imagined to be fused copper wire, the wire broke apart and the silver and golden bracelets of which it was composed fell on the floor, some of them melted together by the heat of a mighty fire. He found weights made of burnt clay, with seals of similar material, and quaint objects of pottery on which were inscriptions in an unknown writing. There were Egyptian and Assyrian relics, with relics of Crete, and a fine sculpture of Apollo driving the horses of the Sun, which pointed to the remarkable uprising of art in Greece, when Greek sculptors produced the most beautiful statues the world has ever seen, works which modern sculptors acknowledge as the masterpieces of all time. The building of the Parthenon at Athens in the time of Phidias, two thousand four hundred years ago, saw Greek art at the height of its glory, with artists doing finer work than has ever been done before or since. The glory of Greece faded, but the Parthenon still lifted its noble columns to the skies and withstood the ravages of time. Loving hands designed it, skilled fingers shaped the stones, modelled the exquisite statues that decorated it. That which man had builded so wonderfully, those who were blind to beauty wantonly destroyed. Time and weather caressed the marbles, but the hand of man sought their destruction.