Pergamon

Wednesday, June 20.

Today Sara and I went to the Pergamon Museum, to use our 3 Day Museum Passes.  I wanted to see the Pergamon because of its monumental pieces of the Ishar Gate and Pergamon Altar.  First walking in, you see the enormous Pergamon Altar straight on.  Here is a view from the side.  It is a sight to be seen, as are the number of people here only 30 minutes after the museum opened.  Many of them have audio guides and are examining the artifacts while listening to information about each piece.  Sara and I decided to go around without the audio guides, strictly gaining information by reading the pieces.  I think the audio guides would have been helpful, as many of the signs don't have English translations, but that would have made it hard to discuss the artifacts amongst each other.

Here I am in front of an Ancient Roman marketplace, the Gate of Miletus, dating from about 120 CE.  I have loved learning about the Romans these past few semesters, so anytime I see anything from Rome I get excited.  This market hall structure was enormous, spanning the whole side of the room!  The natural light from the high ceilings gave all the objects a natural glow.  The monumental statues in the side galleries acted as centerpieces, pulling you in to each gallery just to see what the object was.

Here is Sara in front of the Ishar Gate, one of my favorites! This gate was absolutely stunning, a true sight to behold.  I love the gold and dark blue colors.  Using this as an entry way made it hard to examine closely, but the exhibits on the sides were helpful to understand more about the gate.  Since we were moving through the museum fairly quickly in order to see multiple museums, I missed a lot of the information about this gate.

Here is a piece from the Islamic area, which was very well organized in chronological order.  This upstairs section guided us through, with very few dead ends or points where we needed to turn around. I was fascinated by the beautiful patterns and bright colors.

Now, this one was a huge surprise! Towards the end of our trip, I was walking quickly through the last few galleries when I spotted one of these guys from a gallery over.  The Lamassu! I remembering learning about them about 2 years ago in Intro to Ancient Art History.  While I had to look up the name, the Lamassu is a protective deity, sometimes placed at the entrance to a city to ward off enemies. I was so impressed by the immensity of these guardians, and I love the fact that they have 5 legs so that they will be accurate from the side view and the front view.

Sara and I had a very good time at the Pergamon.

In the evening, after my museums class we took off for the Foto Festival.  Here we looked around for a short time before seeing a movie about war photographer Robert King.  I really liked the movie a lot, but it was very chilly inside the outdoor tent.  At the end, Robert and the movie producer answered questions.  It was chilling to see Robert's answers to some of the questions, he is a very intense individual.  I enjoyed the movie, which gave insight into the difficult lives of war photographers.