Friday, June 1, 2018 (continued)
We thought to go to the Pergamon Museum, but the entrance line went around the building. After Peter & Beth headed back to the hotel, we continued to the Old Museum/
Altes Museum, which now houses the Greek, Etruscan and Roman artifacts of the Antiques Collection/
Antikensammlung. It also has items from the Coins Cabinet/
Münzkabinett.
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The world's largest granite bowl/Graniteschale (1827-1828, by Christian
Gottlieb Cantian) was made from a single stone; nicknamed the
"Berlin Soup Bowl," it was supposed to sit in the rotunda of the
museum (now Altes Museum) designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel,
but ended up outside because it was too large to fit inside |
I ran across this quote: "During the Hitler era, the space in front of the [Old] Museum (the Lustgarten) was used for massive rallies, which Hitler loved to organize." Well, the bowl was in the way of the parades and rallies, so it was moved to the north of the Berlin Cathedral. In 1981, when the bowl was being returned to its rightful location, it cracked. It has a circumference of 21.7 m/71', which is greater than the 13 m/43' of a porphyry bowl at the Vatican, which apparently made Friedrich Wilhelm III feel supreme.
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| Tamiko by the world's largest granite bowl (KSS) |
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Andokides Amphora (circa 530-525 BCE, by
Andokides) depicting wrestling |
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| Roman mosaic tile floor (circa 200-300) from Jerash, Jordan (KSS) |
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| Roman mosaic tile floor from Jerash, Jordan (KSS) |
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| Erotic oil lamps (1-3C, Roman) (KSS) |
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The Hildesheim Silver Treasure (on the second floor) is the largest
collection of Roman silver found outside of the Roman Empire;
found in 1868 in Hildesheim, Germany, it was thought to be the
table service belonging to a Roman military commander |
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The rotunda of the Old Museum for which the
granite bowl was too large |
Our next stop was the Berlin Cathedral/
Berliner Dom. The doors to the Imperial Staircase were locked.
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| Berlin Cathedral interior |
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| The dome is decorated with mosaics by Anton von Werner (KSS) |
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| Organ (1905, by Wilhelm Sauer, restored 1990s) |
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| Pulpit (by Otto Raschdorff) |
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Ceremonial sarcophagi of Friedrich Wilhelm the Great Elector/
der Grosse Kurfürst and his second wife, Sophie Dorothea |
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| The chancel with the original altar (1850, by Friedrich August Stüler) |
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The ceremonial sarcophagus of Friedrich I of Prussia
(By ceremonial, I assume that means it is not
the actual sarcophagus?) |
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The crypt was full (nearly 100) of actual sarcophagi,
of members of the Hohenzollern dynasty |
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| The sarcophagus of Friedrich Wilhelm II |
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| Power-assisted and GPS-tracked rental bikes |
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The sun is reflecting off the communist-
built TV Tower, in the shape of a cross |
We took a bus from Museum Island to the Victory Column in the Great Tiergarten.
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The Commander's House/Kommandantur (1795-1796, by
Wilhelm Konrad for the commander of the Berlin garrison, demolished
in 1950, replaced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building that
was itself demolished, rebuilt 1999-2003 by Thomas van den Valentyn
as headquarters for Bertelsmann AG, and international media company) |
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Embassy of Russia (1949-1953, by Anatoly Strischewski, Lebedinski
and Sichert, Friedrich Skujin, and Fritz Bornemann as the
Embassy of the Soviet Union) |
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| Another view of the Victory Column |
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Monument to Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
(1904, by Joseph Uphues), a Prussian Field Marshal |
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Monument to Otto von Bismarck (1901, by Reinhold Begas),
a Prussian statesman who was the first Chancellor of
the German Empire in 1871-1890 |
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| Monument to Otto von Bismarck (10/2/1987) |
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