2023.04 Amsterdam and Berlin (Part 5) Pergamon Museum

2023.04 Amsterdam and Berlin (Part 5)

The biggest attraction that my mom wanted to visit while in Berlin was to visit the Pergamon Museum. While she was recovering, we made time to visit. I won’t include the hundreds of pictures I took but tried to pare it down to a small sample.

Pergamon Museum

At the time of our visit, renovation work was starting at the museum. Since our visit, the museum has now fully closed to allow for a full renovation that will begin re-opening sections in the 2030s, and won’t be fully reopened until sometime in the 2040s!

Now knowing that it will be many years before visitors will be able to explore and see the many artifacts on display I’m happy to share several pictures.

The Pergamon is located on Berlin’s Museum island (Museumsinsel). We approached the museum from Friedrichstrasse station that is a short 5-10 minute walk away. During our visit, the entrance to the museum was connected via another museum. Initially I walked past the entrance before we realized the proper way into the museum.

The Pergamon museum houses many artifacts from the Middle East. Although the Pergamon Altar was already closed and in pieces for renovation, the introduction to the museum in the picture above does a better job than whatever I could write.

The collection is not just massive displays, but also models to provide a sense of scale to some of these former massive cities that existed thousands of years ago.

Now, to be fair, how impressive would this cityscape been entering it a few thousand years ago? The bright colours, towering walls. (Slideshow is below)

The colour of brickwork isn’t the only feature, but that the lions are a relief in the brickwork! Fortunately, the museum wasn’t busy so we were able to take our time. In the middle of the picture above, an example of the crate that was used to transport the artifacts to Berlin was on display. Little Miss joked “Now that would have been a really big Lego set to take it apart, record it, and then reassemble them!”

Seriously, at times it was a toss-up of which was more incredible — that these items were reconstructed in the museum, or these were the life-size structures taken apart, shipped and reconstructed:

Evidence of renovation work was easy to spot. I recall from an earlier visit, the details in the stonework (like the stones at the bottom of the picture below) were works of art in their own right.

Another space is the Aleppo room. As you can see below more renovation work was occurring during our visit.

The museum isn’t just buildings, but also of many artifacts.

There were several rooms filled with massive ancient tapestries.

The craftsmanship on each piece!

After our walk through we then walked south to pass by the Berlin Cathedral and headed back to our hotel.

Museum Island

As the welcome sign to the Pergamon states, there are five other museums. We didn’t visit them on this trip, however have visited both the New and Old Museum from prior visits. Ironically, the New Museum has a large collection of Egyptian artifacts.

From our walk, there is a scale model of the island, that certainly made our minifigures gigantic in proportion.

This cathedral, like much of Berlin was rebuilt after World War II. I visited years ago, and arrived as an organ performance began. The music was outstanding!

Again, the workmanship of the building on full display:

During our walk back to the hotel we passed this impressive building:

And near the temporary location of the Babelplatz Christmas market from November 2022 was this cool sculpture:

The square also had historical significance, being the site of the 1933 book burning. The monument, under the ground was modelled to be empty book shelves.