Frank Calvert

Frank Calvert (* 1828 ; † 1908 ) was an English emigrant, diplomatic official in the Eastern Mediterranean and amateur archaeologist. In 1868 he drew Heinrich Schliemann's attention to the location of ancient Troy on the Hisarlık hill.

Life

Frank was the last born of the seven children of James Calvert (1778–1852) and Louisa Ann Lander (1792–1867), who were resident in Malta. As the youngest, Frank stood behind his older siblings and was drawn into the professional affairs of his more colorful brothers time and again.

Calvert remained unmarried, calm and undemanding, but showed a constant enthusiasm for Homeric myths and developed the view - unusual for the state of research at the time - that these were less about fictions than about historiography. However, this idiosyncratic point of view connected him with Schliemann, whom he only met by chance in 1868. In 1822, the Hisarlık hill in Asia Minor was identified as a possible location for Homer's Iliad by Charles Maclaren, editor of " The Scotsman " .

In 1847, Frank's brother Frederick bought an estate at Akca Köy, whose more than 800 hectare property included parts of the hill - as it turned out, a significant acquisition. In 1852 Frank was helping his brothers Frederick and James with their business affairs and handling about half of their English and French correspondence on their behalf. Frank continued to support his brothers in professional matters. When the Crimean War caught Frederick's attention in 1855, Frank conducted almost all of his diplomatic correspondence for him. In 1856 and 1858 Frank occasionally represented Frederick as the acting British Consul. After he had also represented his brother James, Frank finally succeeded him in 1874 as US ambassador, an honorary consulate that he held until the end of his life. Occasionally he did his service in regional, European-Turkish court hearings and temporarily took on the title of incumbent British consul.

In addition to his diplomatic duties, Frank carried out careful test excavations on his family's site, which included parts of the Hisarlık hill. He was convinced that this was where ancient Troy had been. Calvert did not condense his hypothesis into an assertion, however; Schliemann did so. After the Crimean War, he shared these views with Heinrich Schliemann . Calvert owned the eastern side of the hill, while the Turkish government owned the western half. During his excavations from 1873 to 1890, Schliemann unearthed an extensive collection of artefacts and was then celebrated as the rediscoverer of Troy.

Calvert died in 1908 and survived Schliemann. During his lifetime, however, he was never officially associated with the discovery of Troy, which led to differences during Schliemann's lifetime. Today, some of Calvert's descendants claim ownership of the excavated objects from Hisarlık.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Flügge 2001, p. 155 f.

literature

• Allen, Susan Heuck, Finding the Walls of Troy. Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlık . Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press 1999, XIII, 409 pp., Ill., Maps, ISBN 0-520-20868-4
• Flügge, Manfred, Heinrich Schliemann's Way to Troy - The Story of a Mythomaniac , Munich 2001.
• Zangger, Eberhard , A New Struggle for Troy. Archeology in Crisis. Munich: Knaur 1994, p. 83ff.

Web links

• The Consular Calverts