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24-633: He was born in Barmen , Rhenish Prussia , the son of Christine and Friedrich Wilhelm Dörpfeld . His father, a convinced Evangelist Christian and a famous pedagogue , tried to bestow deep religious sentiment to his family so Dörpfeld attended religious schools, where he received basic education in Latin and Greek . He graduated from Barmer High School in 1872, the year after his mother died. In 1873, Dörpfeld enrolled in architectural studies in Berlin , into

48-676: A permanent source of income, as he prepared for the family life. In February 1883, he married Anne Adler, the daughter of his university professor Friedrich Adler. The couple had three children. Around the same time, he met Heinrich Schliemann , who persuaded him to join his archaeological expedition. In 1882, Dörpfeld together with a team of archeologists joined Schliemann, who was then excavating Troy . The two eventually became good friends and continued their collaboration on other projects as well. They excavated in Tiryns , from 1884 to 1885, and at Troy again from 1888 to 1890. Dörpfeld also excavated at

72-520: A plant found in Cuba, called Doerpfeldia cubensis in Symb. Antill. Vol.9 on page 218, its genus name honours Dörpfeld. (see also external links: Wikisource) Barmen Barmen is a former industrial metropolis of the region of Bergisches Land , Germany , which merged with four other towns in 1929 to form the city of Wuppertal . Barmen, together with the neighbouring town of Elberfeld founded

96-561: Is named in its honour, celebrating the 1934 Synod which issued the Barmen Declaration defining Protestant opposition to National-Socialist ideology. 51°16′N 7°12′E  /  51.267°N 7.200°E  / 51.267; 7.200 Homer%27s Ithaca Ithaca ( / ˈ ɪ θ ə k ə / ; Greek : Ιθάκη , Ithakē ) was, in Greek mythology , the island home of the hero Odysseus . The specific location of

120-484: Is the eastern part of Barmen, and Unterbarmen (Lower Barmen) the western part. One of its claims to fame is the fact that Friedrich Engels , co-author of The Communist Manifesto , was born in Barmen. Another of its claims is the fact that Bayer AG was founded there by Friedrich Bayer and master dyer Johann Friedrich Weskott with the express purpose to erect and operate a dyeworks . The asteroid 118173 Barmen

144-879: The Acropolis of Athens from 1885 to 1890, where he unearthed the Hekatompedon temple (the pre-Classical Parthenon ). He continued excavations at Pergamon (1900–1913, with Alexander Conze ) and in 1931 in the Agora of Athens . In 1886, Dörpfeld founded the German School of Athens , which was later named after him, as the Dörpfeld Gymnasium. From 1887 to 1912, he was the director of the German Archaeological Institute at Athens . He published, in 1896, Das griechische Theater ,

168-675: The University of Jena but was not satisfied with teaching as a profession and so returned to Greece . In 1913 Döperfield became a signatary of the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three , a manifesto in which 93 prominent academic figures in Germany endorsed the early German military action of World War 1 . It is to be noted that many of the signatories would later express regret in the signing of said document. Dörpfeld died in 1940 on

192-643: The King of Greece to excavate the area of Kardaki Temple , because it was part of the King's vacation home of Mon Repos . Dörpfeld published his results in two brief notes without illustrations in the Archäologischer Anzeiger . He also excavated the Temple of Hera in Corfu. He was one of the seminal figures in classical archaeology . His stratigraphic method of dating archaeological sites, based on

216-527: The bay of Nidri, on the eastern coast of Lefkada , was Ithaca, home of Odysseus . Dörpfeld compared several passages from the Odyssey to the actual geographical location of Lefkada, and he concluded that it must be the Homeric Ithaca. He was especially convinced by the passage: Lefkada is connected today to Mainland Greece by a causeway and floating bridge, but in ancient times, it was connected to

240-584: The excavations of Ancient Olympia , Greece , conducted under Richard Bohn , Friedrich Adler , and Ernst Curtius . He later became the technical manager of the project. The group uncovered, among other artifacts, an intact statue of Hermes by Praxiteles . The excavations revived the memory of the ancient Olympic Games and contributed toward the establishment of the modern Olympic Games , in 1896. After his return from Olympia, Dörpfeld intended to take his architectural exam and settle down in Berlin. He needed

264-463: The extremely detailed geographic descriptions in the epic itself, have invited investigation of the possibility that Homer's heroes might have existed and that the location of the sites described therein might be found. Heinrich Schliemann believed he tracked down several of the more famous traditions surrounding these heroes. Many locations around the Mediterranean were claimed to have been

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288-554: The famous Academy of Architecture ( Bauakademie ). At the same time, he started to work for the Bergisch-Maerki industrial company. His father could not finance his studies and so his sister, Anna, lent him money. During holiday breaks, Dörpfeld worked for the Rheine railway company, drawing sketches of buildings and different architectural objects. Dörpfeld graduated with honours in 1876. In 1877, Dörpfeld became an assistant at

312-593: The first electric suspended monorail tramway system, the Schwebebahn floating tram . Barmen was a pioneering centre for both the early Industrial Revolution on the European mainland, and for the socialist movement and its theory. It was the location of one of the first concentration camps in Nazi Germany , KZ Wuppertal-Barmen , later better known as Kemna concentration camp. Oberbarmen (Upper Barmen)

336-465: The first study of Greek theatre construction. After his retirement in 1912, Dörpfeld engaged in numerous academic debates on different archaeological topics. For example, in the mid-1930s, he took part in a celebrated debate with American archaeologist William Bell Dinsmoor on the nature of configuration of the three phases of the Parthenon. At the beginning of the 1920s, he started to lecture at

360-416: The heroes' "homes", such as the ruins at Mycenae and the little hill near the western Turkish town of Hissarlik . Schliemann's work and excavations proposed, to a very sceptical world, that Homer's Agamemnon had lived at Mycenae , and that "Troy" itself indeed had existed at Hisarlik. Much work has been done to identify other Homeric sites such as the palace of Nestor at Pylos . These attempts have been

384-460: The island of Lefkada , Greece, where he had a house, believing that the bay of Nidri on the eastern coast of Lefkada was the historical Ithaca , home of Odysseus in Homer 's Odyssey . He developed a method of dating archaeological sites by the strata in which objects were found and the type of materials used for the buildings. He corrected many of Schliemann's previous conclusions, including

408-519: The island, as it was described in Homer 's Odyssey , is a matter for debate. There have been various theories about its location. Modern Ithaca has traditionally been accepted to be Homer's island. The central characters of the epic, such as Odysseus , Achilles , Agamemnon and Hector , are traditionally considered fictional figures from folklore, but aspects of the Homeric story may have some basis in actual historical events or people. This, and

432-511: The mainland by a narrow strip of land, making it a peninsula rather than an island. The strip of land was cut through by the Corinthians in the 7th century BCE. Modern geographers and hydrographers, however, have claimed that ancient Lefkada was an island . They noted that the causeway that connects it to the mainland today is a recent product of silting in the channel and so Lefkada may have experienced varying degrees of connection with

456-541: The mainland over the last few thousand years. Dörpfeld may have believed that Lefkada was a freestanding island (or was regarded as such) at the time of Homer's descriptions, in accordance with the above passage. Dörpfeld may also have felt that the difficulty of crossing the narrow causeway was referred to in Homer's enigmatic and repeated jest, "For nowise, methinks, didst thou come hither on foot". Homer, Odyssey 14.190 , 16.224 . In 1912–1914, Dörpfeld obtained permission from

480-603: The other, at the Hisarlik site. He argued that the sixth was the legendary Troy because it was larger than the first five cities and had high limestone walls, surrounding the city. Dörpfeld also found evidence for his claims in Mycenaean pottery , which he found in the same strata. Modern archaeologists, however, think that Homer wrote about Troy VII instead. Dörpfeld spent a lot of time and energy trying to prove that Homer's epics were based on historical facts. He proposed that

504-532: The shaft burial sites at Mycenae . Dörpfeld realized that the site was a "tholos" tomb, not the "Treasury of Atreus", as Schliemann claimed. During the excavations of Panagiotis Kavvadias on the Acropolis of Athens , Dörpfeld was instrumental in correcting the previous belief that the temple of Athena , destroyed by the Persians in 480 BCE, was not beneath the Parthenon but to the north of it. He suggested

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528-684: The strata in which objects were found and the type of building materials, remains at the core in archaeological site analyses. His excavations, however, had many flaws, and his seeking to prove that Homer based his Odyssey on real places was rather romantic. His fellow archaeologists remarked that he overemphasised the importance of buildings in the dating of sites and often neglected less visible artifacts, such as pottery . Dörpfeld, however, remains known as one who brought much order and integrity into archaeology, and one who saved many archaeological sites from Schliemann's reckless excavations. In 1924, botanists ( Britton ) Urb. first published and described

552-477: The subject of much scholarly research, archaeological work, and controversy. Some of the first theories on the location of "Homer's 'Ithaca'" were formulated as early as the 2nd century BC. Each approach to identifying a location has been different, varying in degrees of scientific procedure, empirical investigation, informed hypothesis, wishful thinking, fervent belief, and sheer fantasy. Each investigator and each investigation merits interest, as an indicator both of

576-499: The three different structures were built in the same place and spoke thus of Parthenon I, Parthenon II, and Parthenon III, applying the last term to the temple which is now there. Besides suggesting the existence of the two previous proto-Parthenons, he was able to reconstruct the dimensions of their ground plans. After Schliemann's death in 1890, his widow hired Dörpfeld to continue from where Schliemann had stopped in his excavations of Troy . Dörpfeld found nine separate cities, one atop

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