From his burial ground, nesting in a shaded corner of the verdant Vlychos cape, the German architect and archaeologist Wilhelm Dorpfeld eternally faces the landscape that during his life he ardently claimed to be the mythical Ithaca in Homer's epic poem Odyssey.
Dorpfeld’s tomb is located at the tip of the cape, on the island of Lefkada. Walking on the path from Geni village towards the chapel of St. Kyriaki, one can see it under the thick shade of dense trees. The German archaeologist had a house in Lefkada, and was buried there after his death in April 1940.
A pioneer of classical archeology, Wilhelm Dorpfeld devised new scientific methods (such as dating archaeological sites by the strata in which objects were found and the type of materials used for the buildings). He enjoyed the respect of the archaeological community, but his view that Homeric Ithaca was a real place was questioned by many, because Homer never gave clear evidence of it. However, the famous archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann agreed with Dorpfeld's view that the place must exist, sharing his firm belief that Homer's texts were based on historical facts.
In search of Homer’s Ithaca, Dorpfeld began excavations on the island now called Ithaca, south of Lefkada, in 1900. However, Homer's descriptions did not seem to fit the landscape of Ithaca - unlike the landscape he encountered as he was sailing near the coast of Lefkada.
Dorpfeld started comparing the geographical hints of Odyssey excerpts with similar sites, which he found scattered throughout coastal and mountainous Lefkada. His excavations on these sites started a year later, and lasted for the next 15 years.
According to the German archaeologist, in ancient times today's Lefkada was called Ithaca, and today's Ithaca was called Sami. However, when the island was conquered by the Dorians, in the 12th century AD, the inhabitants who migrated to Sami named it Ithaca in remembrance of their lost homeland.
Dorpfeld studied ancient Greek at a young age, before attending the Academy of Architecture in Berlin. His first excavating experience was in Ancient Olympia (Peloponnese) in 1877. After meeting Schliemann, six years later, he followed him to the excavations of the legendary Troy (in Hisarlik, Turkey) and then to Tiryns and Mycenae, Pergamon, and the Acropolis and Ancient Agora of Athens. Dropfeld also excavated the Kardaki Temple and the Temple of Hera in Corfu.
During Schliemann's lifetime, Dorpfeld protected many monuments from the former's often destructive methods. After Schliemann's death in 1890, and with the support of his widow, Dorpfeld corrected many of the conclusions that his earlier archaeologist had drawn at Mycenae, at Troy, and for Parthenon at Athens’ Acropolis.
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