After we finished up our program for this summer on Thursday evening, August 11, my sister, Tina, and I did a little Euro-touristing before my return to Texas on August 24. We spent the weekend in Berlin, as I've said many times this summer, my lieblings Stadt in Germany. We trooped out to Museum Insel and visited the magnificent Pergamom Museum, the Jewel in the Crown of Berlin museums and home of the fairly incredible Pergamon Altar. Looted (well excavated) by German archaeologists during the Golden Age of imperialist archeology, the Pergamon Altar is an enormous marble structure with a huge, marble frieze depicting the epic struggle between the Olympian Gods and the Giants. Breathtaking really.
Just down the corridor from the Pergamom Altar is breathtaking artifact #2, the Ishtar Gate. Discovered and excavated in what is now Iraq, this Babylonian structure is an enormous gateway made of blur-glazed brick that once formed an end of a huge processional thoroughfare. The gate is decorated with images of lions and other animals also of glazed brick. As is typical for German museums, there was an overdose of information available describing the Gate and providing details of its restoration. Apparently the original installation of the Gate in the early part of the 20th century involved some dodgy decisions and there is now a risk of pieces plummeting off the top and squashing visitors!
I had been in the Pergamon twice before back in the early 1990s but it was as awesome for me this time as the first time--just an incredible place and incredible artifacts.
Monday morning saw Tina and I off to Bahnhof Zoo to catch our train to Copenhagen. I'll continue this account in Road Trip post #2!
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