Someone has described this museum as 'a lifesize picture of antiquity'. Berlin's most popular museum, it draws around 2000 visitors a day. The museum's name comes from the reconstructed Pergamon Altar (Asia Minor, 170 BC) that has pride of place here. Photo above and left is a sample of the marble frieze that surrounds it. The gateway to the market at Miletus (120 AD, Asia Minor) is the second treasure: my photo (last one, below) shows a piece of it, looking up. Fragments from both made their way to Berlin late in the 19th c. and early 20th, all very legal. The middle photos give an idea of the Ishtar Gate from Babylon, 6th c. BC, with its blue enamelled bricks, and the Processional Way that led to it. About 1/10th of the bricks are original. Can you see which are ? Ceremonial processions used this route into the city on New Year's Day, during the time of Nebuchadnezzar II.
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