Berlin Part 2

     Our next stop was the Pergamon Museum. It is so named for its most famous exhibit, the Pergamon Altar. This altar was built around 170 BC in the ancient Greek city of Pergamon (now located in Turkey). Experts are unsure if the altar was to honor Zeus or Athena or both.

They just brought the whole thing here!

    The altar is wrapped in a frieze depicting the battle of the gods against the giants - being led by Zeus and Athena. It is called the Gigantomachy. This was, of course, in ruins when it was uncovered by a German engineer between 1878 and 1886. The Turkish government agreed to let any frieze fragments found at the time become property of the Berlin museums. Then Italian restorers set to work reassembling the thousands of pieces. (Sounds like a fun job - I love puzzles!) There are missing pieces but it is still amazing.

The giants have snake legs.

Taking a break on the altar steps, listening to the audio guide.

Almost like being there.

     At the top of the steps was the room with the frieze that used to adorn the walls of the inner altar/temple area. It showed the life of Telephus, the son of Hercules and founder of the city of Pergamon. It is thought that this was partly made to show the superiority of Pergamon over Rome - the founder of Rome, Romulus was nursed as a baby by a she-wolf while Telephus was nursed by a she-lion. Obviously superior.

    Next we visited the Market Gate of Miletus, an ancient Greek city also now located in Turkey. The gate was built in the 2nd century AD while the city was under Roman rule. Most likely Emperor Hadrian was in power when it was built. It was the northern entrance to the southern market in Miletus. It was later made part of the city's walls but it was destroyed in an earthquake in the 10th or 11th century. Then it just lay there on the ground until 1903 when it was excavated by a German archaeologist and the whole thing was carted back to Berlin. There they spent 4 years putting the over 750 tons of fragments back together. Unfortunately, the fragments didn't quite make up the whole gate so they had to fill in pieces here and there.

Market Gate of Miletus

Originally, the niches on the second floor had statues of Roman emperors.

The light colored parts are fill in pieces.

The Roman Emperor Trajan

Frieze of Eros, god of love. (Cupid to the Greeks.)

    We passed through the Market Gate and found ourselves looking at the Ishtar Gate. This was the eight gate to the inner city of Babylon. It was built on the orders of King Nebuchadnezzar II in 575 BC. It is made of glazed tiles. On the tiles are bas-reliefs (that means only slightly raised) of bulls, lions, and chimeras - the sacred animals of the gods Ishtar, Marduk, and another one that I can't remember. The gate we saw was actually the smaller front gate (47 feet tall and 100 feet wide) - there was another much larger one that stood behind it, but it is too large for display so they have the pieces in storage. It was excavated between 1902 and 1914 but it took until 1930 to finish assembling it. Also excavated were the walls of the Processional Way that was made of glazed tiles as well but this time with lions on it. Statues of the gods were paraded through the gate and down the Processional Way every New Years' Day.

Center

Right side 

Left side

      At the end of the Processional Way was a statue of Gilgamesh - at least it is a statue that is commonly thought to be of Gilgamesh, a semi-mythical king of the city of Uruk. Uruk was one of the first cities . . . ever. It was located in ancient Sumer that later became Babylon and is now modern day Iraq. Along with the statue of Gilgamesh we saw other artifacts from Uruk.

This a lamassu - a protective deity

     It was 3:30 pm by this time and all the museums closed at 6:00 pm. We had one more on the agenda for the day so we left the Pergamon Museum and walked a block or so to the German History Museum. This museum covered German history from Roman times through the fall of the Berlin Wall. And we had just over 2 hours to see it all.

Charlamagne - First Holy Roman Emperor
Ruled area from 758 - 814

Piper's knight in shining armor

Very old book

Martin Luther and his wife

Boys and weapons

Oldest surviving globe from 1492 - no Americas,

Medieval math book = )

Another knight in case the other doesn't work out. 

Andrew just about shoots Piper with a medieval cannon!

A plague mask

Boys and weapons again.

Taran's impression of Leopold I

Piper's impression of . . . that lady. Can't remember her name now . . . 

Piper finds an old piano but the glass prevents her from playing it. = (

A printing press!

Spiky German helmets

Bust of Otto von Bismarck

Cool old car

Old bike with giant front wheel

An old camera - and a new one. = )

     Then we entered into the darker part of German history - following World War I, things were very hard for the German people. The country was so poor and so damaged from the war that many people had no jobs, no money, and no food. No wonder they were willing to listen to Hitler who promised to make Germany strong again. 

Different stars of David from countries controlled by Germany

Picture of Hitler in front of the Eiffel Tower

Poster from the end of the war

Newspaper reporting Hitler's death

    Then we came to Germany divided. It was now 10 minutes to closing time so we only had time for a quick look around. Most of the exhibits in that area were film clips - can't take good pictures of those. But they did have a section of the Berlin Wall there - with original graffiti too!

Berlin Wall

     It was so amazing to see these things that we've only read about before. History becomes so real, not just stories, when you can see the things that the stories are all about.

     Well, I am out of time again. I hope that I can at least finish Berlin Day 1 tomorrow. I also have to get researching this weekend's adventure. . . .