The archive comprises business files, correspondence, reports, newspaper articles, as well as administrative and scientific documents reaching back to 1895. Owing to its eventful history, the collection is incomplete whilst also spread over two locations, DAI Cairo and DAI Berlin.
The archive at the Cairo Department composes of three category groups: the files of the institute itself, the legacies, and the excavation records from completed and ongoing projects. In addition, comes a collection of photographs kept in the department's photo library.

The history of the Cairo archive is as diverse as its documents. Most of the latter are kept at the department's Cairo premises, although some institute files, certain excavation documents, and the estate of Werner Kaiser are being held at the depository in Berlin's Hohenzollerndamm. Many areas and collections yet remain only sparsely archived. Nonetheless, since 2019 the archiving work at DAI Cairo has been gaining momentum. This comprises both the ongoing work on the institute's files and legacies and also the structuring and recording of the excavation archives. Next to the establishment of various digitisation projects, outdated search aids have been improved and corresponding databases implemented. The aim is to integrate scanned documents including their accessibilityvia the archive portal iDAI.archives and, depending on the object category, via iDAI.objects.
The archives of the DAI Cairo are foreseen to become available not only online, but moreover in exchanges with other specialist archives in Egypt during conferences, workshops, etc. In this respect, a workshop under the heading Pioneers in Egyptology: Archives and Writings, organised by M. Tolba in January 2020 represented a first milestone. It was his work on Fakhry's legacy that led him to do so.
The work on reports, memos, and diaries, but above all, on the legacy of Ludwig Keimer led to the launching of the publication series Menschen – Reisen – Forschungen in 2011, of which already five volumes have been printed. The archived material also extensively served in the investigationson the department's history by S. Voss which began in 2006 within the framework of the DAI research cluster 5.