International audience Heinrich Schliemann's legend is based on the autobiography he wrote and published, where he explains the birth of his vocation. Famous for having established the real site of the Homeric Troy, as self-educated archeologist, he instrumentalised the story of his life to legitimate his scientist position, and to impose himself to the public as a 'self-made scientist man'. However, the study of the four versions of his autobiography shows that a narratologic approach opens new perspectives to the role of narrative and to the history of science. Archeology being, at the time, a discipline in course of definition, the case of Schliemann contributes to prove the central role played by narrative in social sciences at the end of the XIXth Century.