Pergamonmuseum
AND WHAT ABOUT THE PERGAMON ALTAR?
Of the five museums concentrated on the aptly named Museum Island, the Pergamon is most deserving of your time and attention. In the late 19th century, German archaeologists scoured the Eastern Mediterranean region, unearthing remarkable artifacts of the earliest human civilizations. Indiana Jones-like adventurers, including Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890), Carl Humann (1839-1896), Theodor Wiegand (1864-1936), and Robert Koldewey (1855-1925), brought their oversized findings home to Berlin. The best of these are on display in the Pergamon Museum—Germany’s answer to the British Museum.
The manageably sized Pergamon lets you peruse impressive treasures from four different civilizations in a couple dozen well-laid-out rooms. Although the museum’s star attraction—the gigantic Pergamon Altar—is undergoing a years-long renovation, there are plenty of other jaw-dropping monuments displayed here. You can traverse a long, glazed-tiled hallway, past roaring lions, to the gargantuan Ishtar Gate. There’s the hall-sized Gate of Miletus and a floor-sized mosaic from the Roman world. And there’s the Islamic collection, culminating in the elaborately painted Aleppo Room, a 400-year-old testament to multiculturalism.
We’ll start on the first floor with the Babylonians and their predecessors, the Assyrians. Next come several over-the-top monuments from the ancient Roman world. Finally, we’ll head up to the second floor to see impressive artifacts from the Islamic world, which carried the torch of civilization through medieval darkness.
If you’re planning to visit the Pergamon and one or more additional Museum Island sights, get a pass (described below) and set aside a good part of the day. For more details about Museum Island and the other sights here, see the previous chapter.
(See “Pergamon Museum Tour” map, here.)
Cost: €12, includes superb audioguide; if you’ll tour at least one other Museum Island collection, invest in the €18 Museum Island Pass combo-ticket or €29 Museum Pass Berlin.
Hours: Daily 10:00-18:00, Thu until 20:00.
Information: Tel. 030/266-424-242, www.smb.museum.
Pergamon Altar Closed: The museum’s namesake Pergamon Altar is undergoing conservation and won’t be on view for years (see the end of this chapter). In the meantime, the rest of the museum is plenty impressive.
When to Go: Mornings are busiest, and you’re likely to find long lines any time on Saturday or Sunday. Bad weather also brings crowds. The least-busy time is Thursday evening, when it’s open late.
Crowd-Beating Tips: To skip ticket-buying lines, purchase a timed ticket online at the museum website; if you buy a Museum Island Pass or Museum Pass Berlin, you can book a free timed-entry reservation for the Pergamon at the same time (possible online if you read German, but easier in person at the museum or a TI).
Getting There: The nearest S-Bahn stations, Hackescher Markt and Friedrichstrasse, are a 10-minute walk away. The Am Kupfergraben tram (#M1, #12) stops are closer—just across the river from the museum. Or ride bus #100 or #200 along Under den Linden to the Lustgarten stop, and walk through Lustgarten park and around the Altes Museum to reach the Pergamon entrance.
Getting In: As part of a multi-year renovation of Museum Island, they’re building a new entrance pavilion called the James-Simon-Galerie on the west bank of the island. For now, you’ll enter the Pergamon from the courtyard behind the colonnade on Bodestrasse. Be prepared for changes.
Tours: The superb audioguide (included) helps broaden your experience.
Length of This Tour: Allow about 1.5 hours for the Pergamon—less if you skip the Museum of Islamic Art.
Services: Baggage check is next to the ticket desk.
Merkel Sightings: Germany’s formidable leader, Angela Merkel, could live in the expansive digs at the Chancellery. But she and her husband (who’s a professor at Humboldt University) have long lived in an apartment overlooking Museum Island. You’ll see a couple of policemen providing modest protection in front of her place on Am Kupfergraben, directly across the bridge from the Pergamon Museum.
Eateries: Renovation has closed the museum’s on-site café. For lunch nearby, try the cafés at the Bode or Neues museums, the restaurants down Georgenstrasse (follow the elevated train tracks; see recommendations on here), or Hackescher Markt (cross the Friedrichsbrücke bridge; see here).
Starring: Ancient wonders, from Babylon and Assyria to ancient Rome and medieval Islam.
(See “Pergamon Museum Tour” map, here.)
• From the ticket desk, head up the stairs to floor 1, turn left, and enter Room 8—a long hallway lined with blue tiles.
You’ve entered the city of Babylon, circa 575 B.C., under the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar II.
Babylon (located near modern-day Baghdad) was the capital of Nebuchadnezzar’s vast empire and the world’s most glorious city. Rooms 8 and 9 re-create one of Babylon’s architectural wonders: a ceremonial highway called the Processional Way that led into the walled city through its main entrance—the Ishtar Gate. To picture how it all may have looked, peruse the model in the center of Room 8.
Now stand at the far end of Room 8 (facing the Ishtar Gate, in the next room), look down the lion-lined hallway, and imagine walking down the Processional Way in all its glory. Trumpets blare, drums pound, and the procession begins. Following a yellow-brick road that was 200 yards long and 30 yards wide, you’d pass fierce lions depicted in colorful glazed tile on your way to the Ishtar Gate. The walls to either side rose 50 feet—if you look up, you can see the blue ramparts that once topped the gate’s original height.
The roaring lions symbolize Ishtar, the fierce goddess of love (i.e., sex and fertility) and war. The lions walk against the flow, warning us of the awe-inspiring sanctuary we’re approaching. Above and below the lions are rows of daisy-like flowers. The colorful tiles—arranged in bands of blue, turquoise, yellow, black, white—accentuate the horizontal flow of this impressive promenade.
The Processional Way was central to an annual 11-day festival giving thanks to the benevolent gods for the return of spring. King Nebuchadnezzar rode in his chariot down the long passageway, dressed in his finest robes. His entourage and priests carried statues of the deities from their winter hibernation back into the city. Passing through the Ishtar Gate, they would arrive at the temple dedicated to Marduk, king of the gods and patron of the city. There, the statues would be returned to their sanctuary. And Nebuchadnezzar—Marduk’s mortal counterpart—would ceremonially “marry” a temple priestess who represented Ishtar, thus uniting heaven and earth and restoring harmony to the world.
• Promenade past the gauntlet of lions, into Room 9, for a closer look at the...
Nebuchadnezzar II made sure that all who approached his city got a grand first impression. His massive blue Ishtar Gate inspired awe and obedience. The gate stands 46 feet tall and 100 feet wide (counting its jutting facets).
This was the grandest of Babylon’s gates, one of eight in the 11-mile wall that encompassed this city of 200,000. It was a double wall—the outer wall was 10 feet thick, the inner 20 feet. The Ishtar Gate we see today was the smaller gate for that smaller outer wall. Looming behind it was its counterpart—nearly twice as tall, a third wider, and much more massive. (The museum has the larger gate, but it’s too big to display.) In its day, the Ishtar Gate was famous—one of the original Seven Wonders of the World.
Zero in on the decoration. Though the gate was dedicated to Ishtar, it has symbols of other gods as well. The yellow-black horned bulls (specifically the aurochs, a species now extinct) symbolize Adad, the god who brought sun and rain to provide a bountiful harvest. The skinnier animals are mythical dragons, with scaly bodies, curled horns, forked tongues, and fire breath. They combine body parts of the lion, cobra, eagle, and scorpion, and thus symbolize both Marduk and his son Nabu, god of wisdom and writing.
Check out the floor-to-ceiling inscription on the left side of the gate, which (among other things) reads: “I Nebuchadnezzar laid the cornerstone of this gate and had them built out of pure blue stone. Upon the walls are bulls and dragons—magnificently adorned with luxurious splendor for all mankind to behold and wonder.”
• On the walls to either side of the gate are two similar-looking tiled panels. These were part of the...
Nebuchadnezzar lived near the Ishtar Gate, and these colorful panels once decorated the facade of his Royal Palace, specifically the Throne Room. This is just a slice of the original facade that once stretched 58 yards. The panels fit nicely into the whole architectural ensemble we’ve seen, with similar-looking glazed tiles in the same colorful palette. They depict palm trees, plus lions and daisies, all framed with elaborate garlands and patterns.
All of the pieces in this hall—the Ishtar Gate, Processional Way, and Throne Room panels—are made of decorative brick, glazed and fired in the ancient Egyptian faience technique. Decorations like the lions, which project outward from the surface, were carved or molded before the painted glaze went on.
The colors—yellow, green, and blue (from rare lapis lazuli)—come from natural pigments, ground to a powder and mixed with melted silica (quartz). As the chemicals ionized, crystallized, and bonded in the kiln fires, the result was a sheen that’s luminous, shiny, and even weather-resistant.
The museum’s Babylonian treasures are meticulous reconstructions. After a Berlin archaeologist discovered the ruins in modern-day Iraq in 1900, the Prussian government financed their excavation. What was recovered was little more than piles of shattered shards of brick. It’s since been augmented with modern tilework and pieced together like a 2,500-year-old Babylonian jigsaw puzzle.
• You might peek into Room 6 (if it’s open) to see the 4 Model of Babylon, which shows the temple complex of Marduk (the end point of the Processional Way) and Nebuchadnezzar’s ziggurat.
But our tour is moving on to the next civilization. Start in Room 3, with a tall artifact that marks the link between the Babylonians and their northern cousins, the Assyrians.
This stele, or ceremonial column, commemorates the historical high point of Assyrian civilization, which dominated the Middle East a century before Babylon.
It’s the year 670 B.C., and King Esarhaddon is celebrating his victory over Egypt. The king is huge, lording it over the two puny Egyptian captives kneeling humbly at his feet—the pharaoh’s son (with crown) and another man. Esarhaddon is adorned with his royal fez crown, elaborately braided hair, and ZZ Top beard. He raises his right hand to present a thank-you offering to the gods. In his left hand he holds a scepter, as well as two leashes, to lead his two captives by the neck.
The inscription written across the entire lower half (in cuneiform script) tells of Esarhaddon’s cruel conquest: “I wrought a mighty bloodbath,” it says. Esarhaddon loved to boast of leveling whole villages, kidnapping the pharaoh’s wife and family, plundering Egypt’s wealth, and leaving behind pyramids of severed heads. Even the Bible chronicled Esarhaddon’s conquest (in Isaiah 20:4): “So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptian prisoners, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to their everlasting shame.”
With his victory over Egypt, Esarhaddon completed the conquest of the Middle East begun by his grandfather Sargon II (who invaded Palestine) and father Sennacherib (who sacked Babylon and kidnapped their gods). Esarhaddon proclaimed his dominance by erecting steles like this one in southern Turkey.
This stele also marks the passing of the baton between two great Mesopotamian powers, Assyria (in the north, near modern-day Mosul) and Babylon (in the south, near Baghdad). You see, Esarhaddon had taken control of Assyria after his brothers assassinated their father (II Kings 19:37). Esarhaddon began rebuilding Babylon, which his father had plundered. Ironically, within a few generations, a rebuilt Babylon become so powerful that the locals drove out their Assyrian overlords and soon dominated the Middle East.
• For an even grander look at Assyria, step into Room 2, where it’s not hard to locate the...
The 10-foot-tall basalt statue (c. 775 B.C.) depicts the popular Assyrian god Hadad (or Adad). He wears a thick beard and a helmet with curly horns (tucked close on either side), indicating his godly power. His (missing) hands likely held his symbol, the lightning bolt.
Hadad was the bringer of rain in the arid Middle East, and this statue was erected as an offering to gain the favor of this all-important god. It was Hadad’s storms that fed the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which irrigated the fields—putting the fertility in the Fertile Crescent. The inscription covering his long skirt is in Aramaic (not cuneiform), as Hadad was a popular god throughout the vast Assyrian empire.
• Backtrack to Esarhaddon’s stele and veer left to find Rooms 10-13 to peruse...
Browsing through these rooms you’ll get a sense of Assyrian grandeur. Assyrians were great warriors and ruthless conquerors. But they were also efficient administrators of the lands they controlled. As empire builders who dominated the Middle East for three centuries, they have been called the “Romans of the East.”
You’ll see artifacts from several royal palaces, as the Assyrian kings liked to make their mark by building new palaces in new capital cities along the Tigris. There are ruins from Ashur (the oldest capital, midway between modern Baghdad and Mosul), Nimrud (farther north), Nineveh (near Mosul), and Dur-Shurrakin (also near Mosul).
In Room 10, you’ll see 3,500-year-old objects from the capital at Ashur, including its Temple of Ishtar. In Rooms 10-12, huge statues of winged bulls (these are casts, not originals) demonstrate the colossal scale and wealth of the Assyrians. There are also wall panels depicting the Assyrian king (with his traditional fez and beard) alongside winged spirits who spritz him with a pine-cone censer. You’ll also see panels of the king in his chariot, hunting lions (the royal sport). The cuneiform inscriptions brag.
Room 12 has the basalt water basin of the Temple of Ashur. It’s decorated with gods, who wear their obligatory horned crowns. This reservoir distributed water to the priests for their sacred ablutions. It was built to celebrate the king’s new system of irrigation canals.
In Room 13 you’ll see examples of cuneiform script—the first system of writing. It was invented around 3,500 B.C. by the Sumerians, who predated the Assyrians and Babylonians in Iraq. The script is called cuneiform, or “wedge-shaped,” because it was made not with pen on paper but with a wedge-shaped tool pressed into a soft clay tablet.
By the seventh century B.C., Assyria (in northern Iraq) was declining and Babylonia (in the south) was on the rise. When King Esarhaddon (whose stele we saw) divided his kingdom between his two feuding sons, chaos ensued, Egypt rebelled, invaders poured in, and Nineveh was sacked. Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon became the new master of the Middle East. Then Babylon fell to Persia (539 B.C.), which in turn was conquered by the Greek Alexander the Great (c. 333 B.C.). By 150 B.C., Alexander’s empire was coming under the sway of the next great civilization—Rome.
• Return to the Ishtar Gate and pass through it, into a large hall (Rooms 1-2) with supersized monuments from ancient Rome.
After you’ve passed through the gate, look back, and flash-forward 700 years to the ancient Roman city of Miletus. Dominating this room is the huge Market Gate of Miletus—50 feet tall, 100 feet wide. This gate served as the entrance to the town’s agora, or marketplace. Traders from across the Mediterranean and Middle East passed through the gate’s three arched doorways into a football-field-sized courtyard surrounded by arcades, where business was conducted.
The gate certainly makes for a grand entryway. It’s two stories tall, with niches where statues were once displayed. The sides project outward 20 feet, framing the gate. The columns are Corinthian—fluted, with capitals that sprout acanthus leaves. Overall, it’s a typically Hellenistic style that mixes Greek and Roman features popular around the Mediterranean.
The gate was built around A.D. 100, likely during the reign of Trajan or Hadrian, whose statues may have stood in the upper story. The gate comes from Miletus, a wealthy and cosmopolitan Roman-ruled, Greek-speaking city on the southwest coast of Asia Minor (modern Turkey). You can peruse a 9 scale model of Miletus opposite the gate, atop the balcony. Find the gate on the model: It’s the small white part of the wall farthest from the harbor, standing at the entrance to the town’s agora.
Miletus was destroyed by an earthquake centuries ago. Around 1900, German archaeologists unearthed the rubble, and the gate was painstakingly reconstructed here in Berlin.
• In front of the gate, on the floor, are two large Roman mosaics.
The exquisite mosaic floor of colored stone and glass comes from the dining room of a Roman villa in Miletus, c. A.D. 200. Part of the mosaic features the mythical Greek musician Orpheus. Inside a square panel, Orpheus sits, playing his lyre, enchanting the animals who come to listen—a crow and a dog, as well as other wild beasts in the frames around him. In stark contrast, in the nearby rectangular mosaic (from an adjacent room in the villa), the animals are wild, and winged hunters track them down. The size and workmanship of these mosaics is a testament to the wealth and sophistication of the people in Miletus, an important seaport as far back as 1900 B.C.
• Opposite the Gate of Miletus is a mish-mosh of...
The curved marble balcony is part of the Tomb of Cartinia, an ancient priestess in the cult of Juno, who died near Rome around the time of Julius Caesar (c. 50 B.C.). The 4-foot-tall segment you see was part of a cylindrical tomb that rose nearly 40 feet. The facade is carved with a frieze of vines, garlands, pitchers, and bowls.
Also on display are busts of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian (with beard). These busts (c. A.D. 100) once adorned the Trajaneum—a grand temple dedicated to Trajan as a god on earth, in Pergamon. The museum takes its name (and many of its pieces) from this ancient city on the Aegean Sea (on the west coast of present-day Turkey). German archeologists excavated much of Pergamon in the early 20th century, but many more ruins still remain there today, including an amphitheater, standing columns of temples, and more.
This room also displays interesting exhibits on various places and eras of Roman history.
• By A.D. 500, Rome’s vast empire had fallen. Europe settled into 500 years of relative darkness and decline. Meanwhile, a new civilization was rising in the Middle East—Islam. Over the next centuries, the Islamic culture would take over the territories of the former Assyria and Babylonia, and many parts of the Roman Empire.
To complete your tour of civilizations, find the stairs in front of the Ishtar Gate and head up to floor 2, which is dedicated to art and artifacts from the world of Islam. (While interesting, if you’re short on time this part of the museum is skippable.)
The Museum of Islamic Art contains ceramic tile work, bowls, jugs, carved ivory horns, metal-worked necklaces, mosque lamps, and carpets, carpets, carpets. Most of these fine objects are decorated in the distinctive Islamic style: elaborate patterns of intertwined lines, vines, and calligraphy, with only the occasional image of a person or animal. Muslim artists avoided depicting living creatures for fear of creating what the Quran and Bible call idols of false gods. The workmanship is exquisite. It demonstrates how—after Rome fell and Europe was mired in medievalism—the Islamic world carried the torch of civilization.
• For most, a quick breeze through these rooms is enough. Some may wish to simply glance at the impressive Aleppo Room (at the start of floor 2, to the right, in Room 15, described below). But if you’re up for more, here are a few highlights, placed into the sweep of Islamic history. Work clockwise through floor 2, and watch Islamic history unfold (roughly) chronologically. From the first room (with the map of the Islamic world), turn left.
Islam’s Beginnings (Room 2): Shown here are a few humble but rare objects from Islam’s origins in the seventh century. After Muhammed died (A.D. 632), his teachings spread rapidly throughout the Middle East, thanks to his cousins (from the same hometown of Mecca) of the Umayyad family. At its peak (c. 700), the Umayyad empire encompassed nearly a third of the world’s population and stretched into North Africa and Spain. Both secular and religious leaders, the Umayyads (661-750) ruled their caliphate from their capital in Damascus.
The rectangular stone fragment on display comes from a palace the Umayyads built in one of their holdings, Palestine. Its intertwined vines, leaves, scrolls, and stylized pomegranates are typical of Umayyad decoration.
In the year 750, the Umayyad caliph was assassinated, his surviving family members fled to Spain, and the Islamic world had a new ruling order.
Abbasid Period (Room 3): The displayed art of the Abbasid period (750-1258) focuses on the palace-city of Samarra. Various ceramics, carved ivory, and ornate prayer niches (mihrabs) attest to the enlightenment of this so-called Islamic Golden Age. The Abbasids, who made their capital in Baghdad, vowed to make their rule tolerant to non-Arabs and non-Muslims, reflecting the diversity of their vast caliphate. While Europe fumbled in the darkness, the Islamic world flourished, enriched by its mathematicians, astronomers, doctors, and thinkers. Thanks to the Abbasids, we have the works of ancient philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, whose writings were preserved in Arabic and Persian translations. The Abbasids were sensitive to the needs of their own people and the cultures on their frontiers—Egyptian, North African, European, Greek, Byzantine, and Indian.
Art of the Seljuks (Rooms 4-5): The Seljuks (c. 1050-1150) wrested temporary control of the Abbasid empire and moved the capital to Iran. In fact, the Seljuks were responsible for the conquest of Miletus, whose city gate we saw earlier. On display in Room 5 is a blue mihrab, the prayer niche found in every mosque around the world. This ceremonial alcove shows worshippers which direction to face to pray toward Mecca. This one has typical Abbasid faience tiles, decorated with vines, calligraphy of Quran verses (especially along the top), and a geometrical maze (below, with 12-pointed stars).
Alhambra Cupola (Room 6): This room is topped with an awesome domed ceiling, brought here from the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain. In 711 the Umayyads had expanded their caliphate as far as Spain, making that country Islamic for the next seven centuries. Moorish Muslims ruled from the glorious Alhambra palace, surrounded by lush gardens and bubbling fountains. This dome is only a tiny slice of the opulence still on display in Granada.
The cupola, carved in cedar and cottonwood, once topped a square room—as it rises, the ceiling morphs into an octagon, then a circle, which breaks up into a kaleidoscope of trapezoids and triangles, with a circular rosette in the center. The incredibly complex geometrical pattern is meant to replicate a starry sky, blended with Arabic letters boasting the Spanish Muslim motto: “There is no victor but Allah.”
The Alhambra palace in Granada—the last outpost of Muslim rule in western Europe—finally fell to the Christian monarchs Ferdinand and Isabel in 1492.
Mshatta Facade (Room 9): These monumental walls and towers—120 feet long and 15 feet high—were part of an Umayyad desert castle, one of many that dotted the Middle East (especially in present-day Jordan, where this one stood). These castles were both imposing fortresses, to assert control of the locals, as well as luxury palaces.
The castle’s walls are decorated in a zigzag pattern with rosettes and elaborately lacy designs. Look closely (especially in the left part) to make out a filigreed forest of intertwining trees, vines, and flowers peopled with animals both real and imagined. The design reflects elements borrowed from Sasanian art, the last great Middle Eastern empire before Islam.
Ottoman Empire (Rooms 12-14): You’ll see lots of carpets, but no “ottomans”—the upholstered benches popularized by these Turkish rulers. The Ottomans (1299-1922) rose to power after Abbasid Baghdad was sacked by Genghis Khan’s followers, ending the Islamic Golden Age. The Ottomans conquered Constantinople/Istanbul and established their capital there. At their peak (c. 1650), they ruled an empire that included both the Middle East and eastern Europe—even Vienna. Under the Ottomans, carpet weaving became high art. Ottoman rulers often employed Greek (Christian) artists to craft their carpets, jewelry, and fine manuscript illustrations.
• The grand finale is tucked off in a little glassed-in side room of its own...
Aleppo Room (Rooms 15-16): The walls of this ornately painted room come from a 400-year-old home in today’s Syria. The owner—a Christian living in the Ottoman-dominated city of Aleppo—was a wealthy trader. He wanted his home to have an impressive entrance hall that would make his guests and clients feel at home. The man did business with people from all faiths and cultures in the cosmopolitan Aleppo, circa 1600.
That’s why this room is illustrated with motifs from the Christian, Arabic, Persian, and Jewish worlds. It was a big paint job—covering almost a thousand square feet of surface area, painted on wood panels. It’s impeccably preserved—a rare example of an Ottoman-era home.
The result is a happy mix that suggests diverse cultures living in harmony. The artists painted Islamic motifs, like intertwined vines, geometric designs, and calligraphic quotes from Arabic proverbs. They drew from the Jewish tradition, with scenes of Abraham sacrificing Isaac and quotes from the Psalms. There are Christian scenes—Mary with Child, Salome’s Dance, the Last Supper, and St. George. There are secular scenes from Persia—of pashas with their harems or on royal hunts, and even episodes from a famous Persian love story.
• The Aleppo Room is a good place to end this tour of the Pergamon Museum. The museum offers a once-over of many civilizations over several millennia. For me, it’s a reminder that many different peoples—often at war—can also live in peace.
The museum’s namesake and most famous piece—the Pergamon Altar—is being carefully protected and stored out of view while the hall that houses it is slowly modernized. The altar likely won’t be back until around 2025.
The “altar” is actually a temple, a masterpiece of Hellenistic art from the second century B.C. Modeled after the Acropolis in Athens, it was just one component of a spectacular hilltop ensemble of temples, sanctuaries, and theaters in the Greek city-state of Pergamon (near the west coast of today’s Turkey).
When Pergamon was excavated in the late 19th century, bits and pieces of the temple were brought to Berlin and reassembled to re-create the western third of the original temple building. Enormous and nearly intact, stairs lead up to a chamber with a small sacrificial altar where priests and priestesses sacrificed and burned animals, while toga-clad Greeks assembled in awe below. Wrapped around the entire temple was the Gigantomachy Frieze, a 269-foot-long dramatic pig pile of mythological mayhem, showing the Greek gods under Zeus and Athena doing battle with a race of giants. (Naturally, the gods win.)
While the restoration is ongoing, a nearby pavilion (on Am Kupfergraben, directly across from Museum Island) will house a temporary exhibit about the altar. The main attraction will be a huge, wraparound panorama painting of the Pergamon (by Berlin artist Yadegar Asisi). Some of the original sculpture from the altar will be installed in the panorama, and digital 3D models of the entire altar frieze will let visitors virtually appreciate the statuary. For the latest, consult the Pergamon website (www.smb.museum).