The Athens department, inaugurated in 1874, was the first in a series of departments & commissions that were founded and they still shape the DAI’s global operations today. And with the DAI Athens the era of great excavations also begins, for instance at Olympia…
Since the beginning of German excavations at Olympia in the year 1875 the greater part of the sanctuary of Zeus, the Altis and its immediately vicinity, have been excavated. Most of the buildings were severely damaged by earthquakes, flooding and by structural alterations in post-antiquity. The excavations exposed a jumbled mass of stone building blocks; the ground plans of the buildings were barely recognizable. To find out what the buildings looked like and how the temple was laid out, archaeologists over the decades have analysed all the architectural members and determined what buildings they belonged to. They have been partly re-erected on the foundations in cases where enough original members survive, giving visitors an idea of their original form. At the stadium, the entire sports area has been reconstructed. Visitor paths, grassy banks and trees have made the site of the most important Panhellenic festival in antiquity into an attractive park, enhancing the visitor experience.
The Philippeion in the foreground and the temple of Hera in the background, directly after the excavation campaign of 1877/1878 (Photo: D-DAI-ATH-2003/10: Rhomaidis) 
The Philippeion viewed from the south-east following partial reconstruction in 2006 (Photo: D-DAI-ATH-2006/501F: M. Krumme) 
After excavation, several columns of the temple of Hera were re-erected in the 1970s using timber scaffolding (Photo: D-DAI-ATH-1980/939: K. Herrmann, 1972) 
The re-erected columns of the votive monument for Ptolemy and Arsinoë in front of the Echo Stoa (Photo: D-DAI-ATH-2018-16850: S. Zipprich, 2017) 
When the stadium was excavated, a field railway helped shift the huge quantities of spoil (Photo: D-DAI-ATH-Olympia 1932: H. Wagner, 1940)