Agora (E ́tienne & E ́tienne 1992: 107). It is important to note, however, that
the number of excavations in Italy and Greece were less frequent, partly
because potential sponsors—mainly the state and oYcial institutions—were
not easy to convince of the value of excavating merely for the sake of widening
the knowledge about the period. Professor Ernst Curtius (1814–96), for
example, had to argue for twenty years before he succeeded in obtaining
state funding from Prussia for his project to excavate the Greek site of
Olympia. He had originally proposed to excavate the site in 1853. In his
memorandum to the Prussian Foreign Ministry and the Education Ministry
he explained that the Greeks had ‘neither the interest nor the means’ to do
major excavations and that the task was too big for the French, who had
already started to dig elsewhere. Germany had ‘herself inwardly appropriated
Greek culture’ and ‘we [Germans] recognise as a vital objective of our own
Bildung that we grasp Greek art in its entire, organic continuity’ (Curtius in
Marchand 1996a: 81). The outbreak of a war between Russia and the Ottoman
Empire, the Crimean War (1853–6), however, delayed his project. In 1872
Curtius tried again. He argued that in order to avoid decadence, Germany
should ‘accept the disinterested pursuit of the arts and sciences as an essential
aspect of national identity and a permanent category in the state’s budgets’ (in
Marchand 1996a: 84). He failed again in his plea: to the instability in Greece,
he had to add the opposition by the Prussian chancellor Bismarck, who saw
the endeavour as fruitless given the ban on bringing back antiquities for
German museums (Marchand 1996a: 82, see also 86).
Finally, Curtius could countermand Bismarck’s opposition with the support
received from the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich. The prince appreciated
the symbolic importance of excavating a major Greek site. As he explained in
1873, ‘when through such an international co-operative venture a treasure
troveofpureGreekartworks...isgradually acquired, both states [Greece and
Prussia] will receive the proWts, but Prussia alone will receive the glory’ (in
Marchand 1996a: 82). The prince’s negotiations resulted in the excavation
treaty signed by the Greek King George in 1874 (Marchand 1996a: 84).
Curtius’ archaeological campaign started the following year and continued
until 1881. Unfortunately, no great discoveries were made, in contrast to the
large quantity ofWnds resulting from the German excavations in the Greek
city of Pergamon in Turkey in the same years (see below). Curtius’ eVorts,
accordingly, received little public recognition (ibid. 87–91). Unlike the discov-
eries yielded by the excavations at Pergamon, those from Olympia were
not suYciently useful for the imperial aspirations of Germany. Curtius
would later bitterly remark that the bureaucrats ‘revel in this accidental mass
of originals [coming from Pergamon] and feel they have equalled London’
(in Marchand 1996a: 96n).
108 Archaeology of Informal Imperialism