In 1884 he received his doctorate from the University of Rostock with the dissertation thesis, Quaestiones de re vestiaria Graecorum.
[1] This was followed by a study trip to Asia Minor and Greece (1885/86) that was made possible from a travel grant by the German Institute of Archaeology (DAI).
[2] From 1902 to 1928 he was director of the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel and was a primary catalyst towards construction of the Hessisches Landesmuseum.
[4][5] After his retirement, he returned to Larissa, where he performed excavatory work with Karl Schefold and Lennart Kjellberg.
[2][6] In addition to his work in classical archaeology, he also performed excavatory investigations in Germany — in 1894, with Felix von und zu Gilsa, he uncovered a Neolithic tomb (Züschen) near the town of Fritzlar, Hesse.