ABSTRACT
The obsession with ancient Greek culture widespread in nineteenth century Europe was nourished by texts and monuments even though some of these artefacts and monuments had disappeared from the earth and were yet to be rediscovered. In fact, it was the texts that led to the monuments. Heinrich Schliemann claimed, for instance, that it was Pausanius who guided him to the Mycenaean tombs, and Homer who directed him to Troy. The excavations, thus, appear to be a consequence of purely textual study. This was also the case with Olympia. At the end of the eighteenth century, texts which deal with the agones olympikoi were much discussed among advocates of a bourgeois physical education. Still earlier than this, Winckelmann had planned an archaeological expedition to Olympia. His untimely death in 1768 thwarted the project. In about 1800, British and French archaeologists started the first excavations in Olympia. In 1820, Lord Stanhope mapped its topography and in 1828/29 Albert Blouet excavated parts of the Temple of Zeus and transferred fragments of the Heracles metopes to the Louvre. In 1875, Ernst Curtius systematically began to unearth Olympia1 and bring it into the awareness of a broader public. Between 1875 and 1881, the German government contributed to the popularization of Olympia by publishing annual reports on the progress of the excavations and, in particular, on the various finds by Curtius and his team. This meant that Curtius’ own reports were eagerly awaited when they finally appeared between 1890 and 1897.
