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| Model of Ishtar Gate |
So today dawned rainy and cold just like yesterday but our plan was to be inside most of the day anyway. When you look at almost any book of culture and art treasures for the world usually there will be the Ishtar Gate from ancient Babylon. Our goal for the day was to visit the Pergamon Museum and see it. We had to figure out the transportation question and found that we could catch a bus about 5 minutes from here that would take us to within another 5 minute walk of the museum. When we arrived we bought a Berlin Welcome card that will give us access to all public transport and to a great number of museums and today was the day that we started eating into the money we spent.
We caught the bus and sure enough we got off very close to our museum, we got into the museum and showed them our cards and they motioned us right in and provided us with audio guides. As soon as we got up to the exhibition level I looked to the right and by god there it was! It's hard to explain just how impressive the Ishtar Gate really is, it is 46 feet tall and goes the full width of the room in which it resides. It's composed of primarily blue glazed bricks interspersed with a series of repeated animals, both real and imagined, that are made out of other bricks raised from the surface and covering the entire wall. It dates from 575 BC and was built by Nebuchadnezzar II at Babylon, and it's not even the biggest gate!
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| Marduk |
The gate behind it was almost twice as high and also covered with blue glazed bricks and animals, but because it was too big they couldn't get it into the building. Along the hallway outside this room are the part of the walls that led up to the gate and they have a less opulent decoration but still keep the blue tiles and animals in part of their decoration. It was originally 240 meters in length and over 30 meters in width. Holy Crap! One can only imagine what it must have looked like to people of that era, the Hanging Gardens were one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, and this was just the gate to let you in.
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| Miletus |
In the next room is the front facade from the main market in Miletus, an ancient roman city in what is now Turkey, also the home of the early philosopher Thales. It is reputed to be the single largest indoor archeological reconstruction in the world and I can believe it. It's a two level facade replete with columns and sculptures, amazing.
We spent another 4 hours in the museum seeing their collection of ancient mid-east cultural treasures and islamic treasures second to none. They have displays from almost every major dig site in the middle east and a room for each full of objects. We didn't even get our for lunch until after 3:00 so it became an early dinner.
And since it was the late opening day at the museums we headed over to the Neues Museum. Why go there you ask? Well it just happens to have couple little things itself, first the polychrome sculptured head of Nefertiti. Pics not allowed, so I copied this from wikipedia, and I have to say that it was breathtaking.
They have allotted it a room of it's own and there is nothing that could frankly compete. Both Deb and I were more impressed with it than with the Mona Lisa. It looks almost as if it could breath!
And as a bonus they have another little attraction called the "gold hat" a hat close to a meter high in gold. Created around 1000 BC it demonstrates that men were aware of the difference between calendar and lunar months a full 500 years earlier than was previously known. It along with Nefertiti are considered to be the treasures of the museum. All in all the newest thing we saw today were some of the objects from the Islamic displays and they were rugs from the 1600's, but the overwhelming majority were from before 500 AD.
They are having a festival of lights in Berlin right now and we saw several buildings that were being lighted up for the festivities on the way back to the hotel. The rain had abated and so the viewing was good. Tomorrow supposedly will relent a bit with maybe less rain.
We caught the bus and sure enough we got off very close to our museum, we got into the museum and showed them our cards and they motioned us right in and provided us with audio guides. As soon as we got up to the exhibition level I looked to the right and by god there it was! It's hard to explain just how impressive the Ishtar Gate really is, it is 46 feet tall and goes the full width of the room in which it resides. It's composed of primarily blue glazed bricks interspersed with a series of repeated animals, both real and imagined, that are made out of other bricks raised from the surface and covering the entire wall. It dates from 575 BC and was built by Nebuchadnezzar II at Babylon, and it's not even the biggest gate! 
The gate behind it was almost twice as high and also covered with blue glazed bricks and animals, but because it was too big they couldn't get it into the building. Along the hallway outside this room are the part of the walls that led up to the gate and they have a less opulent decoration but still keep the blue tiles and animals in part of their decoration. It was originally 240 meters in length and over 30 meters in width. Holy Crap! One can only imagine what it must have looked like to people of that era, the Hanging Gardens were one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, and this was just the gate to let you in.
We spent another 4 hours in the museum seeing their collection of ancient mid-east cultural treasures and islamic treasures second to none. They have displays from almost every major dig site in the middle east and a room for each full of objects. We didn't even get our for lunch until after 3:00 so it became an early dinner. 
And since it was the late opening day at the museums we headed over to the Neues Museum. Why go there you ask? Well it just happens to have couple little things itself, first the polychrome sculptured head of Nefertiti. Pics not allowed, so I copied this from wikipedia, and I have to say that it was breathtaking.
They are having a festival of lights in Berlin right now and we saw several buildings that were being lighted up for the festivities on the way back to the hotel. The rain had abated and so the viewing was good. Tomorrow supposedly will relent a bit with maybe less rain.
Wow!!
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