Pergamon Museum

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Coordinates: 52°31′16″N, 13°23′48″E

The Pergamon Museum (in German, Pergamonmuseum) is among the museums on Museum Island in Berlin. The site was designed by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann and was built from 1910 to 1930. The Pergamon houses original-sized, reconstructed monumental buildings such as the Pergamon Altar, the Market Gate of Miletus, and the Ishtar Gate, all consisting of parts transported from the original excavation sites.

The museum is subdivided into the antiquity collection, the Middle East museum, and the museum of Islamic art. The museum is visited by approximately 850,000 people every year.

Contents 1 Origin 2 Exhibition 2.1 The Antiquity Collection (Antikensammlung) 2.2 Islamic Art Museum (Museum für Islamische Kunst) 2.3 The Middle East Museum (Vorderasiatisches Museum) 3 Future plans for the Museum Island 4 Gallery 5 External links

[edit] Origin

By the time the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum on Museum Island (today the Bodemuseum) had opened, it was clear that the museum was not large enough to host all of the art and archaeological treasures excavated under German supervision. Excavations were underway in Babylon, Uruk, Assur, Miletus, Priene and Egypt, and objects from these sites could not be properly displayed within the existing German museum system. As early as 1907, Wilhelm von Bode, the director of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Wilhelm-Museum had plans to build a new museum nearby to accommodate ancient architecture, German post-antiquity art, and Middle Eastern and Islamic art.

This large three-wing museum had been in planning since 1907; when Alfred Messel died in 1909 his close friend Ludwig Hoffman took charge of construction, which began in 1910. The construction continued during the First World War (1918) and the great inflation of the 1920s. In 1930 the building hosting the four museums opened.

The Pergamon Museum was severely damaged during the air attack on Berlin at the end of the Second World War. Many of the display objects were stored in safe places, and some of the large pieces were walled in for protection. In 1945, the Red Army collected all of the loose museum items, either as war booty or, ostensibly, to rescue them from looting and fires then raging in Berlin. Not until 1958 were most of the objects returned to East Germany. Significant parts of the collection remain in Russia. Some are currently stored in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. The return of these items has been arranged in a treaty between Germany and Russia but, as of June 2003, is blocked by Russian restitution laws.

[edit] Exhibition

Among the great pieces the museum displays are:

• The Pergamon Altar
• Market Gate of Miletus
• The Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way, Babylon
• The Mshatta facade

[edit] The Antiquity Collection (Antikensammlung)

The collection goes back to the Electors, or Kurfürsten, of Brandenburg, who collected objects from antiquity; the collection began with an acquisition to the collection by a Roman archaeologist in 1698. It first became accessible (in part) to the public in 1830, when the Altes Museum was opened. The collection expanded greatly with the excavations in Olympia, Samos, Pergamon, Miletus, Priene, Magnesia, Cyprus and Didyma.

This collection is divided between the Pergamon Museum and the Altes Museum.

The collection contains sculpture from archaic to Hellenistic ages as well as artwork from Greek and Roman antiquity: architecture, sculptures, inscriptions, mosaics, bronzes, jewelry and pottery

The main exhibits are the Pergamon Altar from the 2nd century BC, with a 113 meters (371 feet) long sculptural frieze depicting the struggle of the gods and the giants, and the Gate of Miletus from Roman antiquity.

As Germany was divided following the Second World War, so was the collection. The Pergamon Museum was reopened in 1959 in East Berlin, while what remained in West Berlin is on display in the Castle of Charlottenburg since 1995.

v • d • e Museums with major collections of Greek & Roman antiquities State Hermitage¹, St. Petersburg, Russia 106,000 objects [1] British Museum, London, UK 100,000 objects [2] Antikensammlung Berlin, (Held at the Altes Museum and Pergamon Museum), Berlin, Germany 60,000 objects [3] [4] [5] Istanbul Archaeology Museum², Istanbul, Turkey 53,000 objects [6] Musée du Louvre³, Paris, France 45,000 objects Getty Villa, Malibu, USA 44,000 objects [7] Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA 35,000 objects [8] University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Pennsylvania, USA 30,000 objects [9] National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece 20,000 objects [10] Museum of Fine Arts*, Boston, USA 18,000 objects [11] Please Note: ¹ Hermitage - Misleading Collection, includes many objects from ancient settlements on the Northern Black Sea coast - ² Istanbul Archaeology Museum; Misleading Collection. Total collection size = 1 million objects of which 800,000 coins, 75,000 books, 75,000 Ancient Neat East cunieform tablets, 2000 enamels and various Ancient Near Eastern objects - Musée du Louvre; 2005 Annual Report - Tableau récapitulatif de l’état d'avancement de l'informatisation des collections fin 2005, pg 185 - * Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - Misleading Collection, includes Nubian and Ancient Near East collections. n.b. it should be noted that this list is controversial, in so far as it contains only qualitative analysis of museum holdings. These may or may not reflect actual artistic quality of collections in question.

[edit] Islamic Art Museum (Museum für Islamische Kunst)

When the Bode-Museum was opened in 1904, a section for Islamic art was created which was later on included in the Pergamon Museum (in 1950) .

Besides Islamic artwork from the 8th to the 19th century ranging from Spain to India, the main attraction is the Mshatta facade, which originates from an unfinished early Islamic desert palace located south of Amman in present-day Jordan. It was a gift from the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany. Parts of the eastern portion of the facade and the ruins of the structure of which it formed a part remain in Jordan.

Another unique exhibition is Aleppo room.

v • d • e Museums with major collections of Islamic Art Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, Egypt 103,000 objects [12] Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, Istanbul, Turkey 40,000 objects [13] British Museum, London, UK 40,000 objects [14] Tareq Rajab Museum, Kuwait City, Kuwait 30,000 objects [15] Khalili Collection¹ 20,000 objects [16] Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK 19,000 objects [17] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA 12,000 objects [18] Musée du Louvre², Paris, France 10,000 objects [1] Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece 8,000 objects [19] Please Note: ¹ Khalili Collection; Largest Private Collection - ² Musée du Louvre; 2005 Annual Report - Tableau récapitulatif de l’état d'avancement de l'informatisation des collections fin 2005, pg 185. n.b. it should be noted that this list is controversial, in so far as it contains only qualitative analysis of museum holdings. These may or may not reflect actual artistic quality of collections in question.

[edit] The Middle East Museum (Vorderasiatisches Museum)

Main article: Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin

The Middle East Museum exhibition displays objects, found by German archeologists and others, from the areas of Assyrian, Sumerian and Babylonian culture. Additionally there are historical buildings, reliefs and lesser cultural objects and jewelry.

The main display is the Ishtar Gate and the Procession Way of Babylon together with the throne room facade of Nebuchadrezzar II.

v • d • e Museums with major collections from the Ancient Near East British Museum, London, UK 290,000 objects [20] National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad, Iraq 170,000 objects [21] Musée du Louvre¹, Paris, France 100,000 objects [2] Oriental Institute, Chicago, USA 20,000 objects [22] Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA 7,000 objects [23] Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, Germany [24] ¹ Musée du Louvre; 2005 Annual Report - Tableau récapitulatif de l’état d'avancement de l'informatisation des collections fin 2005, pg 185 n.b. it should be noted that this list is controversial, in so far as it contains only qualitative analysis of museum holdings. These may or may not reflect actual artistic quality of collections in question.

[edit] Future plans for the Museum Island

The main plan for the Museum Island dictates an expansion of the Pergamon Museum, which will become the centre of the museum complex. It will connect to Neues Museum, Bodemuseum and Alte Nationalgalerie and the new entrance building.

There was an architectural competition in 2000, won by Oswald Mathias Ungers from Cologne. The museum complex will be redeveloped according to his plan, which controversially proposes large alterations to a set of buildings unchanged since 1930. The current entrance building will replace the building in Ehrenhof, and an elevated walk (Archäologische Promenade, archeologic walk) will connect the buildings. The rebuilding is scheduled to begin in 2005 and end in 2010.

[edit] Gallery

The Muschatta wall

Islamic Art

The bird mosaic shown at the Pergamon Altar, at the place where the original main altar stood

[edit] External links

• The Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pergamonmuseum.
• Pergamonmuseum Homepage

	Museum Island in Berlin
Pergamon Museum | Altes Museum | Bode Museum | Alte Nationalgalerie | Neues Museum | Berlin Cathedral | Lustgarten | James Simon Gallery