In the 1870s, Sophia Schliemann appeared at high-society gatherings wearing an ancient gold diadem and cascading necklaces she believed were the jewels of Helen of Troy. In doing so, she accidentally exposed an international smuggling operation. This episode separates the man from the myth in the life of Heinrich Schliemann, the wealthy businessman with a classics PhD from Rostock who set out to prove Homer's epics were history when scholars considered the search for Troy a fool's errand.

We give credit to Frank Calvert, the English diplomat and amateur archaeologist whose family owned the Hisarlik mound and who pointed Schliemann to the right spot after his failed dig at Pinarbasi. Then we dismantle the fabricated tale of Priam's Treasure, explain how Carl Blegen's stratigraphy proved Schliemann dug centuries too deep, and follow the gold  ...