Schleimann’s amazing claims were quickly followed by criticisms of his showmanship, his amateurism and his destructive methods. It didn’t deter him from pushing forward his vision and making more stunning discoveries in Greece. But Schliemann had also fired the starting gun in a race between archaeologists from Europe and
America that resulted in a cascade of headline-grabbing discoveries of lost civilisations all across the region – from Mycenaean Greece to Minoan Crete and the Hittite Empire of central Turkey.
In exploring Schliemann’s legacy, we set out on the trail of the pioneers of archaeology who went into the field inspired by legendary tales to see if there was any hard truth behind them. On one hand it may seem like a massive exercise in confirmation bias and wishful thinking, with eager explorers rather conveniently finding what they set out to find. But on the other – these pioneers rediscovered an entire lost world. In some sense what they
went in search of was there to be found.
