The Pergamon Museum - Berlin (Part I)

Pergamon Museum entrance

The Pergamon is situated on the Museum Island in Berlin. Construction of the Pergamon Museum, the youngest structure on Berlin's Museum Island took many years. From 1830-1876 three neoclassical museum buildings had been erected on the island in the Spree: The Altes Museum, The Neues Museum and the Alte Nationalgalerie. But already there was no room for the display of the large number of objects that found their way to Berlin thanks to new purchases and from excavations in the Mediterranean region and Near East that had begun in 1875.
In 1881 the Berlin Architects' Association was commissioned to design structures to house the finds from Olympia and Pergamon, as well as an extension for the enormous collection of plaster casts. The smaller and first Pergamon Museum accommodated finds from Pergamon, Magnesia on the Maeander, and Priene.
The new, bigger Pergamon Museum with three-winged complex was build between 1910 and 1930 under the supervision of Ludwig Hoffman, working from designs by Alfred Messel. Today, it houses three separate museums: The Collection of Classical Antiquities, The Museum of Ancient Near East and the Museum of Islamic Art.The monumental reconstructions of archaeological building ensembles - such as the Pergamon Altar, the Market Gate of Miletus and the Ishtar Gate including the the Processional Way of Babylon and the Mshatta Façade-made the Pergamon Museum world famous and the most visited museum in Germany. 
In this Part I, I will describe what can be seen in the Collection of Classical Antiquities.

The Collection of Classical Antiquities

Hall of Hellenistic Architecture
In the Hall of Hellenistic Architecture, architectural fragments are presented in partial reconstructions in such a way as to illustrate their function and effect. The hall combines reconstructions and original fragments from Hellenistic buildings from Miletus, Priene, Magnesia on the Maeander and Pergamon. 

Hellenistic Architecture Hall

Athena Parthenos

Entrance Gate

Opposite the doorway leading from the centre hall with the Pergamon Altar is the façade from the Temple of Zeus Sosipolis. This temple stood in the marketplace (agora) at Magnesia, surrounded by colonnaded halls, and is a typical example of Hellenistic architecture in Asia Minor from the 2nd century BC. In the corner to the right is a reconstruction of the Doric Temple of Athena, and to the left the graceful Temple of Zeus from the upper market at Pergamon. The Temple of Athena, built of andesite and tufa in the late 4th century BC, features the traditional Doric order with simple cushion capitals and a geometric entablature frieze. Also from Pergamon is the entrance gate (propylon), through which one enters the hall. Behind the palace's Hephaestion Mosaic in the centre of the hall stands a colossal Hellenistic copy of the Athena Parthenos from the Acropolis in Athens that was found in Pergamon's Athena sanctuary. To the left of the gate is a corner column with Corinthian capitals from the entrance to the courtyard of the Miletus town hall.The hall's long walls feature sections of two famous large temple columns in their full original height. One is from the Temple of Athena from Priene and the opposite pair of columns come from the Temple of Artemis in Magnesia. 

The Pergamon Altar
The Great Altar of Pergamon, excavated in the 19th century and partially reconstructed in its original size in the Pergamon Museum opened in 1930, is one of the most famous monuments on Berlin's Museum Island.

Altar of Pergamon

The ancient fortress of Pergamon lies in the north-west coastal region of Asia Minor opposite the island of Lesbos. Its acropolis, 330 metres high, commands the fertile plain of the Caicus River. At its foot lies the modern Turkish city of Bergama. Pergamon first took on political significance under the successors of Alexander the Great. Under Eumenes II and Attalus II, Pergamon became a splendid royal residence. The most important monument in this redesigned city, visible from afar, was Pergamon Altar, built on a terrace of the acropolis under Eumenes II. The altar, nearly square, stood atop a base surrounded by a frieze. Above this stood a portico whose back wall enclosed a courtyard containing the actual altar. The courtyard wall was faced on the inside with additional, smaller frieze picturing the Telephus myth. The altar's base frieze with its large number of figures in almost fully three-dimensional relief represents the Gigantomachy, the struggle between the Olympian gods and the Giants. According to ancient Greek myth, the Giants hoped to plunge the divine order into chaos, and the Olympian gods managed to prevent them only with the help of the mortal hero Heracles. The turmoil of battle is impressively evoked in overlapping, richly varied sculptures of pairs of combatants, the menace of the Giants emphasized by their serpentine legs and animal attributes. 
The central event of the Gigantomachy is found in the right half of the east frieze. Here, Zeus, the father of the gods, and his daughter Athena are seen in combat with several Giants, and the earth mother Gaia is begging for the life of her son Alcyoneus, who has been subdued by Athena. 

The Telephus Frieze

Relief Panel in Telephus Hall

After climbing the altar's tall stairs, one enters the Telephus Hall, where offerings were actually made. The fire altar, of which only a few exquisitely decorated marble cornices survive, stood a courtyard. In its place, in the middle of the floor, there is a mosaic from the small altar chamber of Palace V in Pergamon. At the bottom of it there is a frieze with garlands of fruit enlivened by birds. 
A frieze that narrates the life of Telephus circles the walls of the hall, just as originally appeared in the altar courtyard. This mythical hero was thought to be a son of Heracles, and Pergamon's founder. By celebrating this mythical precursor, the Attalids hoped to lend legitimacy to their only recently established ruling dynasty. 

Hall of Roman Architecture (Miletus Hall) 
Planned as a counterpart to the Hall of Hellenistic Architecture, the Miletus Hall contains monuments dating from the 1st to 3rd centuries AD from various regions of the Roman Empires, from Italy to Syria. It is supplemented by the smaller balustrade-fronted Trajaneum hall. The most important monuments came from the cities of Miletus and Pergamon in Asia Minor, present-day Turkey. In addition to these are partial reconstructions of temples from Baalbek (modern Lebanon) and Sia (southern Syria), portions of a round mausoleum from Falerii (Italy) and relief friezes and a statue of a seated emperor from Rome. 

Market Gate from Miletus (Miletus Hall)

The hall is dominated by the reconstructed Market Gate from Miletus. The two-storey gate was erected in the early 2nd century AD as a magnificent passage-way between two large squares, the agora and the so-called South Market at the heart of the wealthy trading city of Miletus.

The Orpheus Mosaic

Inset into the floor in the centre of the room, between the Market Gate and the Tomb of Cartinia, is a mosaic from the dining room (triclinium) of a private house in Miletus. The polychrome panels with figural decoration and a framing of meanders and guilloches are original. In the centre of the upper section the mythical singer Orpheus is seated on a rock, holding his cithara in his left hand and the plectrum used to strike its strings in his right. With his singing he has tamed all the nearby animals. In a charming contrast, the long rectangular panel benetah it pictures a mythical hunt led by four cupids. For centuries, both subjects, the hunt with cupids and Orpheus playing his cithara surrounded by tamed beasts, were highly popular in the art of antiquity.
The south wall of the Miletus Hall is dominated by the reconstructed pair of columns from the altar courtyards with monolithic shafts of Egyptian rose granite. In front of them sits the heavily restored statue of Roman emperor from Rome, to which a head of Trajan that was not part of the original sculpture was affixed in the 18th century.
In the Trajaneum hall there are additional building fragments from Baalbek, a colossal marble tripod from the Miletus bouleuterion and reliefs from Rome and Miletus. The model of the city centre of Miletus is also there.

Note: This blog is based on various sites and books as well as author's private visit to the museum.