they discovered myths could verify archaeological findings. Heinrich Schliemann was a prominent archaeologist of the 19th century who argued myths had embedded historical truths. Schliemann was an advocate of the historical reality of places and characters mentioned in the works of Homer. He excavated Troy and claimed to have discovered artifacts associated with various figures from Greek mythology, including the Mask of Agamemnon and Priam's Treasure. Herbert Spencer embraced some euhemeristic arguments in attempt to explain the anthropocentric origin of religion, through ancestor worship. Rationalizing methods of interpretation that treat some myths as traditional accounts based upon historical events are a continuous feature of some modern readings of mythology. The twentieth century poet and mythographer Robert Graves offered many such "euhemerist" interpretations in his telling of The White Goddess (1948) and The Greek Myths (1955). His suggestions that such myths record and justify the political and religious overthrow of earlier cult systems have been widely criticized and are rejected by most scholars. Euhemerization Author Richard Carrier defines "euhemerization" as "the taking of a cosmic god and placing him at a definite point in history as an actual person who was later deified." In this framing, rather than being presumed to have originated from real historical events or personages, the mythological accounts are claimed to have had such origins, and historical accounts invented accordingly - such that, counter to the usual sense of "Euhemerism", in "euhemerization" a mythological figure is in fact transformed into a (pseudo)historical one. See also Demythologization References Greek mythology studies Mythology Philosophy of history Religious studies Historicity of religious figures