Smuggled Out: The Unexpected Journey of the “Jewels of Helen”
Apr 19, 2026
A fresh look at Heinrich Schliemann’s famous discovery
Figure 1. Photograph of “Priam’s Treasure,” from Troy II level, Hisarlik, Türkiye.
Excavating Homer
The world of Homer’s epic poems, The Odyssey and The Iliad fascinated Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890). The nineteenth-century millionaire invested large sums of money to secure the rights to excavate in the Ottoman Empire and Greece to uncover the most famous sites mentioned in these ancient texts. In 1870, at the suggestion of the English archaeologist Frank Calvert (1828-1908), Schliemann broke ground on the hilltop of Hisarlik in modern-day Türkiye in the hopes of finding the ruins of Troy.
Find it he did, but not in the way he thought. The layer Schliemann associated with Homer’s Troy was in fact over a millennium older, a conclusion that would not be proven until later. But when gold glittered from the trenches on June 17, 1873, revealing countless pieces of intricate jewelry, along with vessels, votive figurines, and axe heads, Schliemann had no doubt that he had discovered a treasure worthy of Priam, Homer’s famed king of Troy (Figures 1-3).
Figure 2. Gold pin with filigree swirls topped with six vessel-shaped ornaments. From Troy II level, Hisarlik, Türkiye. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.
Figure 3. Gold rings discovered at Troy II level, Hisarlik, Türkiye. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.
In his published notes on the excavations, Schliemann describes the collection as follows:
“That the Treasure was packed together at terrible risk of life, and in the greatest anxiety, is proved among other things also by the contents of the largest silver vase, at the bottom of which I found two splendid gold diadems (κρήδεμνα)[292]; a fillet, and four beautiful gold ear-rings of most exquisite workmanship: upon these lay 56 gold ear-rings of exceedingly curious form and 8,750 small gold rings, perforated prisms and dice, gold buttons, and similar jewels, which obviously belonged to other ornaments; then followed six gold bracelets, and on the top of all the two small gold goblets.” [1]
If the objects in question belonged, as Schliemann believed, to King Priam’s palace, who else, then who else could the jewelry of the palace belong to other than the woman whose face “launched a thousand ships,” Helen of Troy? So it was that the two diadems, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and other adornments came to be known as the “Jewels of Helen.”
The “Jewels of Helen”
The “Jewels of Helen” quickly came to be associated with another face, Sophia Schliemann (1852-1932), Heinrich’s wife. Allegedly, Sophia was with Schliemann on the day of the excavation and stored the items in her shawl as her husband extracted them from the earth with “the very greatest exertion and the most fearful risk” to his life. The famous photograph of Sophia wearing many of the splendid items (Figure 4) would prove essential for publicizing Schliemann's discoveries and, for interested antiquarians and scholars, both then and now, to gain an understanding of how these items might have been worn in the Early Bronze Age. Schliemann also included a drawing of both diadems and their mode of wear in the excavation publication (Figure 5).
Figure 4. Photograph of Sophia Schliemann wearing the “Jewels of Helen”
The most prominent objects among the jewelry discovered were two gold diadems. Sophia wears what is known as the “Large Diadem” in the photograph. Over five dozen linked chains are arranged vertically along the top, each link interspersed with leaf-shaped gold pieces (Figures 4-6). Seven longer vertical chains extend further on each side, terminating in flat, embossed ornaments.
Figure 5. Drawing of Large Diadem (bottom) and Small Diadem (top) from “Priam’s Treasure.”
Figure 6. Large Diadem from “Priam’s Treasure.” From Troy II level, Hisarlik, Türkiye. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.
The Small Diadem (Figure 7) is similarly constructed: it has vertical chains suspended between horizontal bands, adorned with lozenge-shaped gold leaf ornaments. The vertical chains, including the two longer groups on either side, end in flat, embossed ornaments of gold leaf. Schliemann posited that the terminating shapes on both diadems as symbols of the “tutelary goddess of Ilium.”
Figure 7. Small diadem with earrings from “Priam’s Treasure.” From Troy II level, Hisarlik, Türkiye. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
The accompanying earrings are rendered in similar fashion to the diadems, with an emphasis on vertical composition: thin beads hang down in half a dozen rows side-by-side, terminating in embossed plates of gold leaf.
Smuggling, Lies, and War
Schliemann was determined to leave the Ottoman Empire with the treasure en route to Greece. His method of transport has been a topic of considerable interest, as the amateur archaeologist was known to embellish accounts of his life, leading one scholar to label him a "pathological liar”.[2] In the most famous telling of the smuggling, Sophia hid the “Jewels of Helen” in her shawl. Schliemann later admitted that this version was false, as Sophia was in Athens at the time, attending her father’s funeral.[3] In either case, the theft was not received well by the Ottoman government, which temporarily banned him from further excavation.
While Schliemann later returned to Hisarlik to excavate (after paying a hefty fine for the stolen items and returning some of them), most of the objects from “Priam’s Treasure,” including the “Jewels of Helen,” were not returned. In a way, their journey was only beginning.
In 1881, Schliemann handed over most of the items to the Royal Museums of Berlin (Königliche Museen zu Berlin). They remained in the museum collections until 1939 when, during World War II, they were transported at least twice to save them from destruction. In 1945, Soviet troops transported many of the museum crates stored in the Zoo Garden for safekeeping during the war, which included the Jewels of Helen and other precious items from Hisarlik. Subsequently, all physical traces of the items from Schliemann’s excavations were considered lost. Numerous theories circulated as to what happened to the items, several of which were published by The New York Times in an article from 1983. [4]
In 1994, Russia issued a press release admitting to having over two-hundred items from Schliemann’s excavations, many constructed from precious metals and stones. The items were, indeed, “Priam’s Treasure”- including the “Jewels of Helen” - and have been installed in a permanent exhibition at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.
Enduring Controversy
While Schliemann himself was a controversial figure enough in his lifetime (and, arguably, today), the enduring controversy for the objects today has been Russia’s decision to keep the “Jewels of Helen” and other items from “Priam’s Treasure” as spoils of the Second World War, justified through a 1998 law declaring them to be possessions of the Russian state. [5] Meanwhile, Germany has also laid claim to the objects, citing Schliemann’s desire for their permanent housing in Germany. Replicas of the “Jewels of Helen” hang in the display cases at the Neues Museum in Berlin; though in 2022, Berlin held a special exhibition at the museum with over 700 loaned items - including many from Moscow - in celebration of the bicentennial of Schliemann’s life.
Ultimately, the journey of these artifacts represents a cultural loss to Türkiye. This loss is expressed in a descriptive display case at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum that traces the history of the excavation and smuggling of these items out of Turkey, with no repatriation efforts on the horizon (Figure 8).
Figure 8. Display case from Istanbul Archaeology Museum, documenting the discovery and transport of “Priam’s Treasure.”
Figures & References
Figure 1. 19th century photo of “Priam’s Treasure,” from Troy II Level, Hisarlik, Türkiye. Photographer unknown. Public Domain.
Figure 2. Gold pin with filigree swirls and topped with six vessel-shaped ornaments. From Troy II level, Hisarlik, Türkiye. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Photo by sailko; image modified. Shareable through CC BY-SA 3.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en.
Figure 3. Gold rings discovered from Troy II level, Hisarlik, Türkiye. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Shareable through CC BY-SA 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
Figure 4. Photograph of Sophia Schliemann wearing the “Jewels of Helen.” American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Archives, Carl Blegen Papers.
Figure 5. Drawing of Large Diadem and Small Diadem from “Priam’s Treasure.” Plate XIX in Schliemann (1879).
Figure 6. Large Diadem from “Priam’s Treasure.” From Troy II level, Hisarlik, Türkiye. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Photo by NearEMPTiness. Shareable through CC BY-SA 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
Figure 7. Small diadem with earrings from “Priam’s Treasure.” From Troy II level, Hisarlik, Türkiye. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. Shareable through PD-US.
Figure 8. Photograph of display case with framed information on “Priam’s Treasure” at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.
https://anamed.ku.edu.tr/reconstructing-the-past-and-present-at-the-istanbul-archaeology-museum/
[1] Schliemann, Heinrich (1879). Troy and Its Remains: A Narrative of Researches and Discoveries Made on the Site of Ilium and in the Trojan Plain.
[2] Traill, David A. (1995). Schliemann of Troy: Treasure and Deceit. St. Martin’s Press, New York.
[3] Moorehead, Caroline (1994). The Lost Treasures of Troy, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, page 133.
[4] Brenson, Michael (1983). “Jewelry Inspired by Treasure of Troy.” New York Times (November 14, 1983). https://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/14/arts/jewelry-inspired-by-treasure-of-troy.html
[5] Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy (May 2010). "Legalizing "Compensation" and the Spoils of War: The Russian Law on Displaced Cultural Valuables and the Manipulation of Historical Memory". International Journal of Cultural Property. 17 (2): 217–255.
