Wilhelm Dörpfeld (26 December 1853 – 25 April 1940) was a German architect and archaeologist, a pioneer of stratigraphic excavation and precise graphical documentation of archaeological projects.

While the details of his claims regarding locations mentioned in Homer's writings are not considered accurate by later archaeologists, his fundamental idea that they correspond to real places is accepted.

Thus, his work greatly contributed to not only scientific techniques and study of these historically significant sites but also a renewed public interest in the culture and the mythology of Ancient Greece.

During holiday breaks, Dörpfeld worked for the Rheine railway company, drawing sketches of buildings and different architectural objects.

In 1877, Dörpfeld became an assistant at the excavations of Ancient Olympia, Greece, conducted under Richard Bohn, Friedrich Adler, and Ernst Curtius.

For example, in the mid-1930s, he took part in a celebrated debate with American archaeologist William Bell Dinsmoor on the nature of configuration of the three phases of the Parthenon.

He developed a method of dating archaeological sites by the strata in which objects were found and the type of materials used for the buildings.

During the excavations of Panagiotis Kavvadias on the Acropolis of Athens, Dörpfeld was instrumental in correcting the previous belief that the temple of Athena, destroyed by the Persians in 480 BCE, was not beneath the Parthenon but to the north of it.

Dörpfeld spent a lot of time and energy trying to prove that Homer's epics were based on historical facts.

Dörpfeld compared several passages from the Odyssey to the actual geographical location of Lefkada, and he concluded that it must be the Homeric Ithaca.

Dörpfeld may have believed that Lefkada was a freestanding island (or was regarded as such) at the time of Homer's descriptions, in accordance with the above passage.

Dörpfeld may also have felt that the difficulty of crossing the narrow causeway was referred to in Homer's enigmatic and repeated jest, "For nowise, methinks, didst thou come hither on foot".Homer, Odyssey 14.190,[5] 16.224.

His fellow archaeologists remarked that he overemphasised the importance of buildings in the dating of sites and often neglected less visible artifacts, such as pottery.