Pergamon Museum

Last night we went to the Pergamon Museum at the museum Island in Mitte, which we'd pretty much been meaning to do since we stepped off the plane. Thursday nights are a good time for museum going here in Berlin, as all of the museums of antiquity are free four hours before closing time; the "Donnerstag Angebot". The Pergamon is extremely big, and even though I still feel a bit uneasy about eyeballing things that have been dug out of the ground by foreign Imperialists and suspended in time half way across the planet, I have to say that it was a pretty impressive viewing experience. And not just because everything was giant. We made into two of the three permanent collections there; the Museum of the Near East and the Museum of Islamic Art. Its main attraction is the Pergamon Altar (2nd century BC) which I posted above. The frieze depicting the battle between the Gods and Giants is regarded as a masterpiece of Hellenistic , and certainly impressed us. The next room to the south contains the market Gate of Miletus, which is famed for being an outstanding example of Roman architecture. Unfortunately it was all under wraps because it is threatening to fall apart, so I guess I'll never know.
I did get to see this amazing piece of architecture though, The Ishtar Gate (605-562 BC) , which is a reconstruction of a gate in a city of Ancient Mesopotamia. Millions of coloured glazed brick fragments found in Babylon were put back together again to build up in their original architectural structure the walls of the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Street lying before it. Friezes of sacred animals - the Lion of Ishtar, the Bull of Adad, the Dragon of Marduk - cover the walls, and were a bit of a favourite of mine.

So I am back on the Museum going after talking myself out of it for weeks. I just have to keep reminding myself that the museums here are just not like the ones in Western Australia that comprise chiefly of three taxidermized emus, one ancient asteroid and a long spiel about how great James Stirling and all the other murderous settlers were. I guess every Thursday is going to be a Angebot Thursday from now on.