Thursday, May 29, 2008

Day 3: Berlin, Morning at the Pergamon Museum

The Pergamon Museum

A big accomplishment of mine when visiting the Pergamon was figuring out how to use my camera without the flash on. After crouching in the corner and taking pictures of some heating vent I was able to accomplish this feat.







This museum was definitely one of the most fascinating museums I've ever been to. Everyone was given a headset which explained number coded exhibits. You could request headsets in your native tongue, provided that you don't speak Swahili.

The exhibits were awe inspiring in their size. I've seen antiquities at the Smithsonian, and at the NYC Museum of Natural History, but up until the Pergamon, I never saw anything of this magnitude. The museum is named for its central exhibit, the Pergamon altar. The altar depicts Roman mythology and dates from the 2nd century BC... far out, right?
The large blue archway pictured here is a reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate. It was one of the 8 gates of the city of Babylon. One can only imagine how mind-boggling it must have been for nomads and people of the countryside to have laid eyes upon something like this. I suspect it would be even more awe inspiring than today's high rises can be to a child from the country side.


The ornate wall above is called the Mushatta Wall and was taken from a palace in Jordan dating to 800 AD.
The building in the last photo was hidden away in a courtyard (to give an idea of the size of the other building's and museums) It is the national Art Gallery of Germany. You can see cranes behind the building. There was a lot of renovation and construction going on around "Museum Island" where the Pergamon is located. The Pergamon itself is getting a large expansion.

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