CHAPTER XII - THE CONICAL MOUNDS IN THE TROAD CALLED THE HEROIC TUMULI

Summary

The traveller who goes by sea from Constantinople to the town of the Dardanelles, sees on both sides of the Sea of Marmora and the Hellespont a number of conical hills, on the origin of which tradition is silent, and which are universally called by the name of “Tepeh,” a Turkish word signifying merely a low and small hill, but which in the imagination of men has obtained, like the word “tumulus” in the West, the additional signification of a sepulchral mound, covering the remains of a deceased person, or of more than one.

The first of these Tepehs which tradition has assigned to a particular person, is the tumulus on the Thracian Chersonesus, obliquely opposite the town of the Dardanelles, attributed to Hecuba, of which Strabo says: “Between the two (Dardanus and Abydus) the Rhodius falls into the Hellespont, and directly opposite its mouth the Cynossema (κυνὸς σῆμα, or Κυνόσσημα, i.e. Dog's monument), said to be the tomb of Hecuba, stands on the Chersonesus.”

Proceeding from the Dardanelles by land to the Plain of Troy, the traveller passes another tumulus to his left, near the site of Dardanus; immediately afterwards, a third to his right, and a fourth again to his left, above the village of Ren Kioi.