February 21, 2009 Museums of Europe - Altes Museum in Berlin
Europe is rich with the museums. I have an idea about reviewing and sharing about the museums I have visited in Europe. I usually try not to miss the interesting museums at my destinations. Besides opening my eyes on various matters like history, art, culture or other civilizations, visiting a museum also adds some sort of educational aspect to these trips. Through these museums I visualize European history, admire its huge art collections and appreciate their approach to art, music, architecture. And most of the museums are equipped with guided tours, audio guides, guide books and small explanatory notes in English if you want to quickly tour the museum without guides.
So here goes the first post and it's about Altes Museum (Old Museum) in Berlin. It's located on Museum Island along with few other museums. The building of the museum itself is an attractive neoclassical building with the ionic order columns in the front side (ancient Greek architecture). It was built in 19th century as a Royal Museum, later it was damaged during the World War and restored afterwards. Nowadays it hosts Greek and Roman antiquities museum and the Egyptian museum.
If you decide to go there, I'd highly recommend getting an audio guide that tells about the most precious items in the mass collection of Greek and Egyptian artifacts. Here I'll share few of them. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera with me and the pictures below were taken by my mobile phone camera. Thus the low quality.
The bust of Queen Nefertiti
They say that she's Berlin's most beautiful woman! I could only agree. Even though she doesn't hold German passport and had nothing to do with Germans at all. She's ancient Egyptian queen. And the museum hosts her bust (sculpture that includes head, neck, shoulder and maybe chest). Despite the hundreds of years passed, the bust of queen's head was greatly preserved and shows the timeless beauty of ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti, who together with her husband, pharaoh Akhenaten, changed Egypt's religion from a polytheistic religion to a monotheistic religion. They believed in only one god, Aten - the Sun God. It's one of the most precious works of art in the world. The bust was made from thick plaster covered over limestone core structure. It was found by German archeologists in Egypt and brought to Germany. They found it in the work studio of ancient Egyptian sculptor Thutmose who used to work for the pharaoh Akhenaten.
And as you see, one eye is missing. I remember someone telling me that it was left incomplete intentionally by the sculptor Thutmose in order to avoid getting murdered by the queen. Because she was afraid that he could make another such a beautiful sculpture for someone else. Well, I have heard similar stories about other masters. Like the one who built Prague's famous astronomical clocks and got blinded by the king so that he'd not be able to make similar ones somewhere else.
Besides the bust, there are many other sculptures and statues for Nefertiti and Akhenaten. Below is one of them where they are sitting under the rays of Aten.
The Praying Boy statuette
Another important item in the museum is the statuette of the praying boy. It was found in Greek island Rhodes in 14th century and then brought to Venice. It was made of bronze and was cast around 300 BC. In 16th century it came to Prussia. Later the arms were added later to make it look like a praying boy.
Papyrus Collection
Altes museum has one of the largest collection of ancient Egyptian manuscripts on the papyrus. Thanks to the invention of papyrus, we know a lot about Egypt's history today. Scientists are still trying to interpret more from these papyrus archives.
Canopic jars
These were used in ancient Egypt to mummify and store the internal organs of the dead people for the afterlife. In the below you can see the jars with the heads of man, ape, jackal and falcon.
Mummy masks and tombs
You can find lots of mummy tombs and masks brought from Egypt. But there's no real mummy in the museum.
Golden artifacts
There are lots of golden artifacts as well. One of them is the golden fish plate (500 BC) that was found by a fisherman in his net.
Another interesting thing that I learned about the ancient Egyptian sculptures and hieroglyphs is the basic postures of people;
Sitting posture - it showed that a person was enthroned, a noble and distinguished from others. If it is used after dead people, then it shows that the person joined the community of distinguished people in the eternal life.
Standing and walking posture - you can also see person's walking person with left leg in front in the Egyptian figures. It showed physical dynamism and readiness to act in the eternal life if used after dead person.
Writing position - it showed that the person is literate.
Kneeling, squatting are the other postures of ancient Greek figures.
Also, the figures of Gods or nobles were displayed much bigger than others.
+++ Check my travel photo sets at
So here goes the first post and it's about Altes Museum (Old Museum) in Berlin. It's located on Museum Island along with few other museums. The building of the museum itself is an attractive neoclassical building with the ionic order columns in the front side (ancient Greek architecture). It was built in 19th century as a Royal Museum, later it was damaged during the World War and restored afterwards. Nowadays it hosts Greek and Roman antiquities museum and the Egyptian museum.
If you decide to go there, I'd highly recommend getting an audio guide that tells about the most precious items in the mass collection of Greek and Egyptian artifacts. Here I'll share few of them. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera with me and the pictures below were taken by my mobile phone camera. Thus the low quality.
The bust of Queen Nefertiti
They say that she's Berlin's most beautiful woman! I could only agree. Even though she doesn't hold German passport and had nothing to do with Germans at all. She's ancient Egyptian queen. And the museum hosts her bust (sculpture that includes head, neck, shoulder and maybe chest). Despite the hundreds of years passed, the bust of queen's head was greatly preserved and shows the timeless beauty of ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti, who together with her husband, pharaoh Akhenaten, changed Egypt's religion from a polytheistic religion to a monotheistic religion. They believed in only one god, Aten - the Sun God. It's one of the most precious works of art in the world. The bust was made from thick plaster covered over limestone core structure. It was found by German archeologists in Egypt and brought to Germany. They found it in the work studio of ancient Egyptian sculptor Thutmose who used to work for the pharaoh Akhenaten.
And as you see, one eye is missing. I remember someone telling me that it was left incomplete intentionally by the sculptor Thutmose in order to avoid getting murdered by the queen. Because she was afraid that he could make another such a beautiful sculpture for someone else. Well, I have heard similar stories about other masters. Like the one who built Prague's famous astronomical clocks and got blinded by the king so that he'd not be able to make similar ones somewhere else.
Besides the bust, there are many other sculptures and statues for Nefertiti and Akhenaten. Below is one of them where they are sitting under the rays of Aten.
The Praying Boy statuette
Another important item in the museum is the statuette of the praying boy. It was found in Greek island Rhodes in 14th century and then brought to Venice. It was made of bronze and was cast around 300 BC. In 16th century it came to Prussia. Later the arms were added later to make it look like a praying boy.
Papyrus Collection
Altes museum has one of the largest collection of ancient Egyptian manuscripts on the papyrus. Thanks to the invention of papyrus, we know a lot about Egypt's history today. Scientists are still trying to interpret more from these papyrus archives.
Canopic jars
These were used in ancient Egypt to mummify and store the internal organs of the dead people for the afterlife. In the below you can see the jars with the heads of man, ape, jackal and falcon.
Mummy masks and tombs
You can find lots of mummy tombs and masks brought from Egypt. But there's no real mummy in the museum.
Golden artifacts
There are lots of golden artifacts as well. One of them is the golden fish plate (500 BC) that was found by a fisherman in his net.
Another interesting thing that I learned about the ancient Egyptian sculptures and hieroglyphs is the basic postures of people;
Sitting posture - it showed that a person was enthroned, a noble and distinguished from others. If it is used after dead people, then it shows that the person joined the community of distinguished people in the eternal life.
Standing and walking posture - you can also see person's walking person with left leg in front in the Egyptian figures. It showed physical dynamism and readiness to act in the eternal life if used after dead person.
Writing position - it showed that the person is literate.
Kneeling, squatting are the other postures of ancient Greek figures.
Also, the figures of Gods or nobles were displayed much bigger than others.
Labels: Berlin, Germany, Museums of Europe
+++ Check my travel photo sets at
posted by Aibek D. at
1:15:00 PM
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