Priam's Gold

Troy: one of the most captivating and mysterious stories of antiquity… But was Troy an actual place or just a legend of Homer's epic? It took the most unlikely of people, Heinrich Schliemann―a grocer's-apprentice turned self-made archaeologist, courageous and driven―to solve one of the greatest puzzles in history. His extraordinary discovery of the ruins of fabled Troy and the magnificent treasure of King Priam anointed Schliemann as the 'father of pre-history', but was also beset by controversy that persists to this day. The fate of the treasure itself is no less troubled. In 1945 it was spirited out of Berlin by the Red Army, to be hidden for 50 years in the vaults of the Pushkin Museum until the breakup of the Soviet Union. In this fast-paced account, Caroline Moorehead describes one of the most remarkable adventures of the 20th century, tracing Schliemann's footsteps to Troy and the convoluted journey across Europe taken by the treasure itself.