Grand Tour, Day 23: Berlin Tuesday

For some reason, I got up first at 6:30. Pablo was next at 8. When everyone else got  up, we walked to the Hautbahnhof, where we took a streetcar to Museum Island.

Our destination was the Pergamon Museum, but we stopped on the bridge across the Spree to take a picture in front of the Berliner Dom, which was completed in 1905. It is the largest church in Berlin.

There are five museums on Museum Island. We were only able to visit one. In the photo above, the RBs are standing in front of one we did not visit: the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery).

The main attraction for us at the Pergamon Museum was the Ishtar Gate, an image of which is featured prominently in my legendary, unfinished book "A History of the World for Nina, Pablo, and Emilio."

In about 575 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II ordered construction of the Ishtar Gate on the north side of the city of Babylon, which was probably the largest city in the world at the time.

In II Kings, chapter 25, the Bible describes how the soldiers of Nebuchadnezzar the II laid siege to Jerusalem in 587 BCE, destroyed the First Temple ("Solomon's Temple"), and deported Jews to Babylon. The Ark of the Covenant was lost at this time.

Psalm 137, which begins "By the waters of Babylon, we lay down and wept ...", was written about a deportation of Jews to Babylon that took place twenty years before, in 607 BCE. Deporting Jews from Israel was, apparently, one of the ancient Babylonians' favorite pastimes.

Daniel ("Lion's Den" Daniel) was one of the Jews who went on to serve Nebuchadnezzar the II in Babylon. In the Bible, Daniel convinces Nebuchadnezzar of the superiority of the Hebrew god. No other historical sources report this.

Ishtar was a Babylonian goddess represented by a lion. The figures on the walls in these photos represent dragons (the long-necked creatures) and young bulls (the ones with horns), both of which are associated with other Babylonian gods.


The Babylon of the Bible was semi-legendary until the excavations of German archaeologist Robert Koldeway confirmed its geographic and historical reality.  Koldeway's excavations began in 1902 and ended when the British captured Baghdad in 1917 during World War One.

Koldeway returned to Berlin, where he died in 1925.

Reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate using original bricks was completed in 1930. Hundreds of crates of glaze brick fragments were carefully cleaned and then pieced together with new bricks baked in specially designed ovens.

The Ishtar Gate is only one small part of the design of ancient Babylon that also included the palace, temples, an inner fortress, walls, gardens, other gates and the Processional Way (represented in the photo of the model above). The lavish city was decorated with over 15 million baked bricks, according to estimates.The Processional Way, which has been traced to a length of over half a mile, extended north from the Ishtar Gate. The Ishtar Gate was actually a double gate; the part that has been reconstructed at the Pergamon Museum--which is about four-and-a-half-stories high--is the smaller, frontal part. The larger, back part--just visible in the model above--was considered too large to fit into the constraints of the structure of the museum; it is in storage.

Another of the featured attractions at the Pergamon Museum is the reconstructed gate to the Miletus Market, seen above.

The gate was most likely built during the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (about 120 to 130 AD), and it served as the northern entrance to a market (agora) in the city of Miletus, near what is now the western coast of Turkey.

In the 10th or 11th century the gate was destroyed by an earthquake. 

In 1903, fragments of the original structure were excavated by the German archaeologist Theodor Wiegand. These fragments were transported to Berlin in 1907 and 1908.

From 1925 to 1929, over 750 tons of fragments were reassembled to form the gate that is now on display in the Pergamon. There were not enough original fragments to re-build the entire gate, so "fill material" was used to provide the missing pieces. Many people criticized this practice at the time.

During World War II,  the gate suffered significant damage from aerial bombardment. Both the roof and skylight above the gate were destroyed. The right wing of the gate collapsed, and additional damage was done by fire and shrapnel. Significant restoration work was completed in the 1950s.

Between 2005 and 2008, the gate was surrounded by scaffolding so that further restorative work could be completed.

Another one of the best-known features of the Pergamon Museum is the structure that gives the museum its name: the massive Pergamon Altar, which was built in the 2nd century in Greece.  We were unable to see it as it is currently being restored and will not be open again to the public until 2023.

My caption for the photo above: "The Ancient Arameans invent Rock, Paper, Scissors. The King, playing paper, beats the servant, playing rock."

The Museum's caption in German reads (translation by me and by Google Translate):  "Relief plate from the . . .  castle of Sam 'al  Zincirli [near the coast on the current border between Turkey and Syria] around 730 BCE. On the throne sits the Prince Barrakib, before him stands his scribe with a writing-tablet under his arm. The inscription in Aramaic script next to his head reads: 'I am Barrakob, son of Panammuwa.'"

This mihrab (prayer niche), built in south central Turkey in 1270 , featured interactive elements that Pablo enjoyed. Every mosque has a mihrab that indicates which direction Mecca is so that those who pray can face that direction.

This pillared arcade runs along the Bodestraße on Museum Island.

After leaving the Pergamon, we walked by the Berliner Dom again. Heavily damaged during the war, this church was closed until 1993 (!).  It was in atheistic East Berlin, which explains why restoring the church was not a high priority.

This bronze statue of Communist Manifesto authors Karl Marx (sitting) and Friedrich Engels was installed in 1986. in a park that was named "Marx-Engels Forum."

After German unification in 1990, and the fall of the East German Communist regime, some recommended that Marx-Engels Forum Park be renamed and the statue be moved elsewhere. It wasn't, and they weren't.

After leaving Marx-Engels Forum, we walked down the broad, Unter den Linden boulevard through central Berlin.  When it started to rain, we stopped for lunch at a covered cafe terrace: croissants with cheese, a gouda sandwich (!) with mustard and cucumber (Mari's choice), dessert cookies and an eclair.

The Brandenburg Gate is at the end of Unter den Linden. Built between 1788 and 1791, it was originally called "Peace Gate."

The Memorial to Murdered Jews is a block south of the Brandenburg Gate. Underneath the monument is an information center with photos, exhibits, videos and recordings documenting the Holocaust. We stood in line for a while to get in. They didn't have audio guides for the kids because the subject matter was considered too mature. Mari accompanied Nina and Pablo, and I accompanied Emilio. The experience was not pleasant. Emilio and I stayed longer than Mari, Nina, and Pablo. Emilio wanted to go sooner, but I was insistent that he be exposed to more of this history.

The Memorial to Murdered Jews was opened in 2005. It contains 2,711 stone blocks.

It is easy to lose someone here.  We lost Nina momentarily.

On our way back to the Jugendgästehaus, we walked through the massive Tiergarten ("animal park," in English), which is just west of the Brandenburg Gate. The public park was protected in 1527 as a hunting area for Brandenburg's rulers, who had wild animals placed here.

We stopped at the Hautbahnhof mall for supper and had a quiet night of reading and journaling in the Jugendgästehaus. Lights out at 11.