Pergamon Museum
Step into this neoclassical colossus on Berlin's Museum Island and you are actually stepping into three museums at once: the Collection of Classical Antiquities, the Museum of the Ancient Near East and the Museum of Islamic Art all share the same building. Commissioned by Wilhelm II and designed by Alfred Messel in 1907, it was completed in a simplified form by Ludwig Hoffmann between 1910 and 1930, and is itself part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. What it is best known for are the entire stretches of ancient architecture brought indoors and reassembled exactly as they stood: the Pergamon Altar, the Market Gate of Miletus, Babylon's Ishtar Gate and Processional Way, and the Mshatta Facade. Because of a complete renovation, the museum has been entirely closed since 23 October 2023; one section is expected to reopen in 2027, but the whole building will not be back in service until 2037.
Germany · 3 The overlooked corners inside
The overlooked corners inside
Museum of Islamic Art
This museum's showpiece is not a single object but an entire wall: the Mshatta Facade, the front of an Umayyad desert palace. In 1904 the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II gave it as a gift to Wilhelm II, and it was this gift that brought Berlin's Museum of Islamic Art into being. Founded by Wilhelm von Bode, it is the oldest institution of its kind outside the Islamic world, beginning life as the "Islamic Department" inside the Kaiser Friedrich Museum (today's Bode Museum). Its collection now holds around 100,000 objects from the 7th to the 19th centuries, drawn from the Mediterranean region, Central Asia and South Asia.
Sources: de.wikipedia.org
Berlin Collection of Classical Antiquities
The Greek and Roman architecture you see brought indoors and reassembled across the three great halls at the very heart of the Pergamon Museum belongs, for the most part, to this collection. It is one of the world's most important holdings of ancient art, with archaeological finds from Greece, Rome, Etruria and Cyprus. The greatest draw is the Pergamon Altar, alongside Greek and Roman architectural testimony from Miletus (the Market Gate of Miletus), Priene, Magnesia, Baalbek and Falerii. Beyond architecture, the collection also holds a wealth of ancient sculpture, vases, terracottas, bronzes, sarcophagi, engraved gems and precious-metal work. Its pieces are spread across three buildings on Museum Island — the Altes Museum, the Neues Museum and the Pergamon Museum.
Sources: de.wikipedia.org
Museum of the Ancient Near East
Stand here and you are surrounded by an entire city gate glowing in glazed blue — Babylon's Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way before it, this museum's strongest draw. The Museum of the Ancient Near East occupies the main floor and basement of the Pergamon Museum's south wing, and its collection is one of the largest of ancient Near Eastern artefacts in the world. Its roots reach back to 1899, when the Royal Prussian Museums established an independent "Near Eastern Department"; from the start of the Pergamon Museum's construction in 1907, the south wing was reserved for this department. In 1930 the halls of the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way were the first to open to the public, with the remaining galleries filled in only by 1937.
Sources: de.wikipedia.org
FAQ
What overlooked corners are worth seeing inside Pergamon Museum?
Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin Collection of Classical Antiquities, Museum of the Ancient Near East and more — 3 spots in all, each with sources and a guide in your language to read or listen to on the spot.
Is the Pergamon Museum guide free?
All 3 guides are free.