Our second last day in Berlin – it both seems like we’ve been here ages and also that time has flown! Strange. We all set out for Museum Island but Clare left something at home and so returned intending to catch us at the Pergamon later but by the time she got back there were big queues so went our separate ways for the day. Joe and I had been luck, early enough to just walk straight in. It’s a very modern building. This is a new entrance which disguises the fact the museum has been here since 1910-30. Presumably this was done to cope with the crowds who now all enter through the door here and then through what is called the James-Simon-Galerie.
It’s incredibly hard to take a photo that accurately captures the impact of this museum when you first enter. This is what you see at the end of The Procession Street of Babylon, which served the northern entrance to the city and ran through the Ishtar Gate. These portions of the whole were excavated by the German archaelogical mission 1899-1917.
These coloured reliefs of lions decorate both sides as you walk towards that end point. Lions were the sacred animal of the goddess Ishtar.
It’s incredible when you realise the reconstruction of these items comes from stones like this. Incredible painstaking work to put it together.
At the beginning of the excavations in 1899 pieces of blue glazed bricks were found and so excavation focusses on the areas where they were most frequent. They subsequently discovered this was the remains of the Ishtar Gate of Nebuchadnezzar II (604 -562 BC). After negotiations with the Ottoman Empire the first fragments of glazed bricks came to Berlin in 1903, over 500 crates followed in 1927. Missing bricks were substituted with modern ones made in Berlin. It’s phenomenal.
Here is a model of what it would have looked like. Hard to photograph because behind perspex. But you get the picture.
In addition to lions these animals decorate the gate.
In the next section we have reconstructed Roman ruins. This belongs to the tradition of Roman façades on theatre stage buildings, fountains and libraries. It’s from Miletus where it decorated one of the most important squares in the city centre – the Agora, which is where public discussion took place. It was uncovered in the course of the Berlin excavations of Miletus and elements brought to Berlin in 1907-08. It was damaged in WWII but restored in 1952-54 with a second restoration in 2005 & 2008.
Fragments of of the original sculptural decoration have been preserved.
This is the Orpheus Mosaic, a floor from a dining room in a Roman private house from around 200 AD
In the museum it is being overlooked by this structure which may or may not be (I was confused by the plethora of explanatory notes) the Temple of Zeus Philios (115-130 AD)
Here’s a close up of Joe looking down.
And here is a portrait of a priestess of Athena (117-138 n. Chr.) brought to the Pergamon in 1884.
And this is a close up of I don’t know what – but something to do with the temple.
In another gallery we found items from the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE) in Nimrud. These are plaster casts of two human-headed hybrid creatures known in Akkadian as lamassu. The originals are in the British Museum. Here’s the one on the left. It bears a standardised cuneiform inscription of Ashurnasirpal II boasting of his deeds.
And the one on the right. Lamassu have the body of a lion or bull and wings and wear a horned crown that indicates they are supernatural beings. On this one you can see one foreleg is shown twice – that is so that seen from the side it looks as though it is walking but from the front it looks stationary.
This is a detail from a Palace relief with soldiers and musicians (7th century BCE). Purchased by the Pergamon in 1855, making it one of the first acquisitions by Berlin of Assyrian monumental art. These are the musicians who are carrying their instruments. It comes from the palace of the Assyrian king Sennacherib in Nineveh. This is the earliest pictorial evidence of the rectangular frame drum, an instrument still played today in Iraq and north Africa.
Here’s another relief; their main purpose was to exemplify the power of the respective rulers, they also fulfilled a decorative function. There were three main themes – king performing ritual acts, king as victorious commander, king as hunter of wild animals. This one is of the king’s warriors.
There was much, much more of this type of thing but these fragments give you the general idea. I was very taken with the objects in the many glass cases in the different galleries. Like the tablets in cuneiform. This is one from a royal archive at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt; the so-called Amarna letters are early examples of diplomatic correspondence, written in cuneiform and sent by Near Eastern princes to the Pharoah in the 14th c. BC. They include parcels of land, maps of fields and documents relating to wages, contracts, tables of weights and measures. The earliest known writing in the world.
I liked the tiny figurines, there are a couple of naughty pictures here and a man with a long beard.
Quite a few naked ladies, like these with their very pert breasts.
And I wondered why these female figures were holding their breasts in this manner – there were quite a few of these.
And quite a few of the man with the long beard.
These two figures are from the oldest civilisation represented in the museum – and hence the very earliest representations of human figures.
There was jewellery – Joe thought our designs hadn’t advanced much!
And these. Beautifully preserved and presented.
There were games, including ones which, like the ones we played as kids, involved knuckle bones. These ones are assumed to be for the lower classes.
While these, which I think look like a cribbage boards, as well as dice are assumed to be for richer folk.
And again there was much, much more. After viewing these objects from such ancient civilisations I was feeling a sort of existential angst – how sophisticated people can just vanish from the earth. Civilisations come and go and ours will be one of them one day. A discombobulating thought! However there was still more to see here. Upstairs was a Museum of Islamic Art with galleries featuring decorative arts from Islamic cities. This included material from the first systematic excavation of an Islamic city undertaken by Ernst Herzfeld who led the Samarra Excavations of 1911-13. Herzfeld was forced to leave Germany in 1935 because of his Jewish origin and he emigrated to the USA. Here, from the excavations he led is a dado from a private house in Samarra.
And a window frame. I’m not sure of the date of these objects.
Most of the other objects on display in these galleries were from a later period than those downstairs, but very beautiful. Made of glass.
Made of ivory.
And pottery. This is actually a bottle – presumable, based on the decoration, a mild bottle for feeding babies.
I was flagging by this time – we were in the museum for over two hours. You could really spend days here. This is part of the Aleppo Room, which contains painted wooden panelling from the reception room of a private Christian house in the city of Aleppo in what is now Syria. It bears inscriptions that date it back to 1600-01 although most of it dates from the 18th and early 19th centuries. So intricate and detailed it looks like material covering the walls.
Also up here we learned that this Museum of Islamic Art boasts one of the highest quality carpet collections in the world and is a center for international research and scientific conservation. Beautiful carpets adorned a number of rooms.
There were lots and lots of them.
Physically and emotionally drained we at last staggered out into the daylight. Incredible experience.
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