 The documentary evidence associating the work with Praxiteles is based on a passing mention by the 2nd-century AD traveller Pausanias.The Olympia site was hit by an earthquake during the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian in the final years of the third century C.E, collapsing the roof of the Temple of Hera and burying the statue in rubble.In 1874, the Greek state signed an agreement with Germany for an archaeological exploration of the Olympia site, which was first dug in the French Morea expedition of 1829.