In the strata of the pre-Hellenic period I find an immense number of these πίθοι, but I have as yet only succeeded in getting two of them out uninjured, from a depth of 26 feet; these are about 3½ feet high and 26¾ inches in diameter; they have only unimportant decorations.
In my last communication, I was able to speak of a lesser number of the blocks of stone obstructing the works upon the great platform; to-day, however, I have again unfortunately to report a considerable increase of them.
At a distance of scarcely 328 yards from my house, on the south side, and at the part of the plateau of Ilium in a direct perpendicular line below the ruined city wall, which seems to have been built by Lysimachus, I have now discovered the stone quarry, whence all those colossal masses of shelly limestone (_Muschelkalk_) were obtained, which the Trojans and their successors, down to a time after the Christian era, employed in building their houses and walls, and which have given my workmen and me such inexpressible anxiety, trouble, and labour. The entrance to the quarry, which is called by the native Greeks and Turks “lagum” ("mine” or “tunnel,” from the Arabic word لغم, which has passed over into Turkish), is filled with rubbish, but, as I am assured by all the people about here, it was still open only 20 years ago, and, as my excavations have proved, it was very large. The town, as seems to be indicated by a continuous elevation extending below the quarry, had a double surrounding wall at this point, and this was in fact necessary, for otherwise the enemy would have been able, with no further difficulty, to force his way into the quarry below the town-wall, as the entrance to the quarry was outside of the wall.