He took part in the excavations at Olympia in 1878, became an assistant in the Berlin Museum in 1880, and professor at Berlin (1884) and later at Munich.
Numerous objects had been discovered in the course of excavations, but not one of them could be recognized as more than a few centuries old, while those that were not demonstrably foreign imports were of African type.
Excavations on the site of Ostia were only begun towards the close of the 18th century, and no systematic work was done until 1854, when under Pius IX.
This figure of speech refers, not to a basket or box in which things can be stored, but to the baskets, used in India in excavations, as a means of handing on the earth from one worker to another.
A large number of votive terra-cotta figures, vases and lamps were found in the course of the excavations.