Inaugurated in 1930, the Pergamon Museum is the most impressive museum on Berlin's Museum Island and the most visited in the city. It‘s neoclassical building houses the impressive Antiques' Collection, as well as the Museum of the Ancient Near East, and the Museum of Islamic Art. The first thing one can see upon entering the Museum is the Pergamon Altar hall - currently closed to visitors until 2020, due to renovations. Built more than 2,000 years ago to thank the gods for the blessings granted, it gives name to the museum itself. The impressive monument we can see today was erected around 170 BC and unearthed in 1865, in the acropolis of the Greek city of Pergamon. Unfortunately, a large part of it was already found destroyed. Leaving behind the Altar and entering the room on the left, another incredible reconstruction of antiquity opens up before the visitors: the Market Gate of Miletus, built roughly in 120 AD. Its immense 17-meter high gate was destroyed by an earthquake in the Middle Ages. After being restored by German archaeologists, the door was damaged again during the bombings of the allies during the Second World War.
The next room, as wonderful as the previous ones, contains a reconstruction of one of History's most important buildings: the Ishtar Gate. This eighth gate to the inner city of ancient Babylon was built in the 6th century BC. In this part of the museum, more than 6,000 years of culture from Mesopotamia, Syria and Anatolia are exhibited. The collection is composed of more than 270,000 objects collected from large excavation works in Babylon. On the upper floor of the museum are diverse artifacts representative of ancient Islamic Art from the 8th to the 19th century. Among the different exhibition themes and objects, a beautiful and well-preserved collection of ancient oriental rugs stands out.
More information: https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/pergamonmuseum/home.html
Check also: Visiting and eating in Mitte
