The Forum

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Sorry

Why, now that I’m trying desperately to simplify my life, do you persist in covering all those fascinating subjects that have intrigued me over an entire (dare I say “lengthy”?) lifetime? Well, then, to heck with simplification!

When Did Vesuvius Blow?

In “Under the Volcano” (Past Perfect, AO 02:02), with its excerpt from Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain indicates that the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii occurred in November of the year 79 A.D. From my understanding, it was August 15.

A Pinch of Schliemann, a Dash of Akhenaten

We are a little disappointed in the July/August 1999 issue of Archaeology Odyssey, which is a rehash of the Heinrich Schliemann story (David A. Traill, “Priam’s Treasure: The 4,000-Year-Old Hoard of Trojan Gold,” and David A. Traill and Igor Bogdanov, “Heinrich Schliemann: Improbable Archaeologist,” AO 02:03) with a little ancient Egyptian matter (James P. Allen, “Monotheism—The Egyptian Roots,” AO 02:03) that anyone who has ever attended a lecture on it has heard.

We’ll go out on a limb: James Allen’s article is one of the most lucid and accessible discussions of Akhenaten’s monotheism ever published. Not only does Allen describe the development of Akhenaten’s religious beliefs during the Theban and Amarna periods, but he distinguishes Akhenaten’s monotheism from other (for instance, biblical) forms, as well as from the far more common polytheistic beliefs that preceded and succeeded the Amarna Period. All this is important for our readers to know.

The material on Schliemann and Priam’s Treasure needs no defense. So it’s a pleasure to give one.

(1) In “Priam’s Treasure,” AO 02:03, David Traill, one of the leading voices in the debunking of the Schliemann myth, argues persuasively that the Trojan hoard was not discovered in a single deposit but rather in several different findspots. This is new, and important. It means that Schliemann lied about his excavation and tampered with the evidence. And it means that the treasure must now be completely re-evaluated, since we don’t know where it came from or in what context it was found.

(2) Susan Heuck Allen (“Priam’s Treasure in Boston?” AO 02:03) recounts Schliemann’s discussions with American diplomats about how to dispose of the Trojan gold (several of them told him simply to hide the treasure!)—material that has not been widely published before.

(3) Readers of Archaeology Odyssey are the first to learn details of Schliemann’s 20 years in St. Petersburg. Igor Bogdanov was able to tell this story because he went to the only (and previously unstudied) source: Schliemann’s Russian letters in the Gennadius Library, Athens.

(4) In the Odyssey Debate (“Who Owns Priam’s Treasure?” AO 02:03), we present the claims of Germany, Turkey 013and Russia to the treasure. Although the Trojan gold sits in the Pushkin Museum, in Moscow, the issue of ownership remains unresolved. It is also breaking news: In late July 1999, after a Russian court ruled that museums were not obliged to return confiscated art to “aggressor nations,” the director of the Pushkin Museum, Irina Antonova, stated publicly that Russia will keep the gold.—Jack Meinhardt.

Monotheism

The Biblical God Is Just God

I couldn’t help but admire the well-researched and thought-through article about monotheism by James P. Allen (“Monotheism—The Egyptian Roots,” AO 02:03). But I would suggest that it contains a fundamental flaw. Biblical monotheism is radically different from what Allen could find in Egypt.

Biblical monotheism is clearly metasensate. That is the distinctive and exclusive feature of genuine biblical monotheism. God is incomparable. Nothing in “the heavens above and on the earth below and the waters below the earth” can be compared to the biblical God.

The only concession that scripture makes to any physical, sensory aspect in our relation to the deity is that of sound. We “hear” and are “spoken to.”

The Egyptian religious development is certainly stunning in itself, but it isn’t monotheism. It remains henotheism.

Akhenaten’s God-Experience

Akhenaten must have had a very strong god-experience—one that freed him to spend his life serving the divine will and empowered him to change the religious life of his whole nation.

The “Spirit of Aten”?

James P. Allen renders the meaning of Akhenaten’s name as “He who is effective for the Sun Disk.” Others have translated this name as “Glory of Aten” and “He who is serviceable to Aten.”

All of these translations are reasonable if one recognizes that the Egyptian word akh (often translated as “beneficial, advantageous, glorious”) can have a wide range of meanings. Yet there is another possible meaning that I’ve never seen applied to Akhenaten’s name. Akh can also refer to the spirit of a god—much as light, for example, can be imagined as the “spirit” of a star. So the name could mean “Spirit of Aten,” derived from akh (spirit), en (of) and aten (the Sun Disk). The association of the akh, a luminous spirit, with the Sun Disk of Aten seems a perfect match.

James P. Allen replies:

The root meaning of akh is “effectiveness.” The idiom akh en is very common in Egyptian and means “effective for [or on behalf of]” a superior. Akhenaten’s name is therefore meant to imply that he was the god’s primary agent. An akh is an “effective” mode of being and refers to the form in which people live on after death; “spirit” is only a very loose approximation of its meaning. This mode of being is not used of the living or the gods, so neither Akhenaten nor his god could be described as an akh. The association of the root akh with light is only secondary, from a confusion with the root iakh, meaning “flood” (used of both water and light).

Priam’s Treasure

The Victor’s Spoils

Who owns Priam’s Treasure? (See “An Odyssey Debate,” AO 02:03) I say, Let the Russians have it; they are entitled. In World War II, the Germans, without provocation, invaded what was then the Soviet Union, devastated the country and killed millions of civilians and soldiers. I think the figure of 20,000,000 is usually accepted. Legalisms about world cultural property, cited by the Germans who want the gold back, won’t bring those slain back to life. Let Moscow keep whatever it seized. “To the victors belong the spoils” is not yet, especially regarding such a war, an outdated maxim.

What about the Siloam Inscription?

Özgen Acar demands of Priam’s Treasure, “Send It Home—to Turkey: That’s where it was found, and that’s where it belongs.”

As an unenlightened non-scholar, may I ask whether this plea applies only to Priam’s gold? During one of my trips to Jerusalem, I had the pleasure of walking through Hezekiah’s tunnel, hip deep in cold water, for the pleasure of reliving the moment when the late-eighth-century B.C. engineers, digging from opposite ends, managed to connect the tunnels they had excavated out of the sheer rock. To 014celebrate the event, the diggers marked the spot with an Old Hebrew inscription—called the Siloam Inscription—on the rock wall. Today, there is such an inscription at the site, but it is merely a replica: The original was moved during the Ottoman period to Istanbul.

This artifact is not a gold treasure but merely a hunk of rock with negligible relevance to Turkish history. Israel has requested its return; Turkey refuses.

If Mr. Acar’s argument about Priam’s Treasure is valid, what should be done about the Siloam Inscription? Send It Home—to Israel: That’s where it was found, and that’s where it belongs.

Özgen Acar replies:

I agree with Mr. Amato: The limestone slab from Hezekiah’s tunnel, known as the Siloam Inscription, must be returned to Jerusalem, where it was found. That’s where it belongs.

But there is a difference between the Siloam Inscription and the Trojan treasures, which were illegally smuggled out of Turkey by Heinrich Schliemann. The Siloam Inscription was discovered in 1880 in Jerusalem; the Ottoman authorities confiscated the slab from an antiquities dealer and sent it to the Imperial Museum in Istanbul for protection. All of this was above-board and legal. Moreover, if the Ottomans had not procured the Siloam Inscription, it might have disappeared forever.

Let’s hope that, in the 21st century, we all come to value everyone else’s historical and cultural heritage. Then it will be easier to return the Siloam Inscription to Jerusalem—and to return the Pergamum Zeus Altar (in the Berlin Museum) and the Halicarnassos Mausoleum artifacts (in the British Museum) to Turkey.

And Then There Was One

The Odyssey Debate over the ownership of Priam’s Treasure presents the claims of Germany, Turkey and Russia (See “An Odyssey Debate,” AO 02:03). There are, in fact, four claims to the treasure (five if you count Chicago insurance salesman Preston Olston, who says he is a direct descendant of the Trojan king Priam). Greece has also made a claim to the treasure—based on the argument that the 1874–1875 case in the Greek Supreme Court over Schliemann’s ownership of the 060gold still remains unresolved. But the Greek claim can be discounted easily, which leaves us with Russia, Germany and Turkey.

Two years after Schliemann removed the treasure from Turkey, he agreed to pay the Ottoman government a cash settlement in return for the gold. This amounts to a contract that invalidates Turkey’s claim: Not only did Turkey relinquish its rights to the treasure upon accepting the cash settlement, but Turkish officials also allowed Schliemann to continue his excavations afterwards. This leaves Germany and Russia.

The Russians argue that they should keep Priam’s gold, as well as other German treasures stolen during and after World War II, as retribution for German atrocities. But states cannot decide on reparation measures by themselves, and no widely respected international court has made such a ruling. This discounts the Russian claim.

Schliemann owned the treasure by virtue of his “contract” with the Turks. He presented it to the Berlin Ethnographic Museum, where it was kept safely and put on display from 1881 to 1939. Germany has the strongest claim.