Berlin Adventures: Museums, Museums, Museums

Monday began two days of museum exploring which I LOVED. But we began first in a massive church on Unter Den Linden which includes a royal crypt, to which most of the royal line has now been moved, and a fantastic dome up which you can climb in order to see a view of the city. While originally designed by another it was later worked on by Schinkel, a man whose neo-classical style continues to pop up in the museum and monument areas of Berlin. It’s original purpose was to create a Protestant Vatican to compete with Rome. It is decorated extremely ornately on the inside and contains images of all of the major protestant reformers. I found this slightly ironic considering what some of those reformers had to say about the Catholics and their ornate churches.

Next we made our way over to Museum Island, where all of the major Museums of Berlin are located. We began in the Pergamon, a museum largely focused on ancient cultures. The highlights of this particular museum included the Ishtar Gate and an entire Greek Temple which was disassembled in Greece and reassembled in Berlin. But it also has an amazing collection of artifacts from various areas and eras of middle eastern culture.

[copy of the Quran]

Next we moved over to the Neues and explored a large collection of Egyptian artifacts from sarcophagi to mummified cats. The real highlight of this museum was the famous bust of Nefertiti which stands alone in a room of its own surrounded by about 4 guards, no pictures allowed.

[cat and bird sarcophagi]

Last on the list was the Altes Museum (also designed by Schinkel), themed around ancient Greece and Rome. It contained an incredible collection of Greek pottery, both black and red figure; impressive jewelry collection; and an amusing room of art focused entirely on sexuality in ancient art containing various creative depictions of certain areas of the male anatomy. The artifacts from the Roman “villa rustica” were particularly appealing to me, containing extensive silver serving sets for entertaining and a sculpture of a dog scratching its head.

Today we visited the memorial to the Victims of war, a statue of a mourning mother with her child. The statue is in a semi-covered building with a hole directly above it so the sunlight or rain falls upon it. Later in the Museum of German History I discovered that the spot used to contain a wreath dedicated to fallen soldiers.

The German History Museum was fascinating and above all, extensive. We began with the temporary exhibits which took until lunch, then continued through the main museum until about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. The first exhibit was dedicated to Fredrick the Great. It began with his life and image and followed the history of how his image was viewed and used until the present day. He began as a symbol when his grandson agreed to have a statue of him put up as a symbol of the strength of Germany and continued until he became an Andy Warhol painting and his image was used to sell beer in 2006. But he went in and out of vogue over the centuries. At times he was depicted with a laurel wreath upon his head and referred to as Fridericus Rex. He was also used as a symbol of the old strength of the German people by the Nazi party.

The next two exhibits, also in a newer building designed in a rationalist style, were once tracing the development of fashion throughout the last 200 years, which was a lot of fun, and an exhibit on the German Democratic Republic, or GDR, showing mostly various bits of what life under communist rule was like. My favorite bit was the protective suit worn around the nuclear reactor.

The main German history museum literally traced the history of the German People from the influence of the Celts ad ancient Romans to today. It included weapons, books, statues, miniatures, paintings, ceramics, and various technologies. Trying to see, read, understand, and absorb it all was nearly mind melting but I loved it. One of the more interesting bits of history was the hat and sword of Napoleon, abandoned in his retreat at Waterloo.