Priam’s Treasure

In 1873 Heinrich Schliemann, digging at Hisarlik in Turkey, found a hoard of gold diadems, cups and jewellery and announced it as the treasure of King Priam of Troy. He was wrong by a thousand years, the gold is far older than Homer’s war, and he smuggled it out of the Ottoman Empire; it was later looted from Berlin in 1945 and is now in Moscow, still disputed. But Troy itself turned out to be real, nine cities stacked on one mound, and you can walk it. A cautionary tale about treasure hunting done badly.