Priam's Gold: the Full Story

Abstract

“I have seen Priam's Treasure … I have held these vessels in my own hands.” This claim by Yevgenii Sidorov, the Russian Minister of Culture, in an interview in Literaturnaya Gazeta on 25th August 1993, was the first official admission that Priam's Treasure, thought lost since 1945, is now in Russia. It helps us to complete the story of this famous find, from the day of its discovery to the present. Research by David Traill, Reinhard Witte, and myself has clarified the earliest parts. Correspondence published by Joachim Herrmann, Gustav Mahr and Leslie Fitton helps illuminate the late 1870s and the 1880s. For the turbulent years of World War II we have an important publication by Mechthilde Unverzagt and intensive research by Klaus Goldmann. And finally from Russia comes documentation unearthed by Konstantin Akinsha and Grigorii Kozlov. The full story can now be told, and that is what I should like to attempt in this paper. There remains, however, the question, to whom does the Treasure properly belong?—to which I hope the outline of an answer will emerge.