GLORIES OF BABYLON.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21196, 29 November 1930, Page 3

GLORIES OF BABYLON.

BERLIN’S NEW MUSEUMS. TWENTY YEARS’ TASK. The centenary of Berlin’s “ Museum • Island” was celebrated on October 2 bV the opening of three new museums upon it, _ the result of 20 years’ planning and building, much interrupted and delayed by the war, the revolution, and the inflation. The three new museums are not in fact entirely separate entities, and have not separate entrances of their own. The, portico and entrance hall of what is to be their principal facade have not yet been built, because until the new approach has been constructed over the Spree, which the present state of municipal finances forbids, they could not be approached from this side. At present, therefore, the , German Museum, the Pergamon Museum, and the Near Eastern Museum are links joining the Kaiser Frederick Museum at one end of the island to the Neuea and Altea Museums at the other end, so that the whole complex of buildings is united by bridges over the streets, and the Metropolitan Railway line which divides them. The new museums conceived by the late Wilhelm von Bode are superb exwple« gf the new German school of museum arrangement. The aim is to show painting, sculpture, and architecture in their original inter-relation. . A REMARKABLE COLLECTION. In the German Museum have been concentrated all the German sculptures and paintings in the Berlin collections from the early Middle Ages to'the end of the eighteenth century. This will prove a revelation for many visitors from England, where knowledge of German art is too often confined to Durer and Holbein. The_ early medimval, sculnture and the glories of German rococo art are both given a proper emphasis. But it is the Pergamon and . Near Eastern. Museums which contain the greatest surprises. In enormous halls whole monuments and facades have been reconstructed. ' Thirty yards of the processional street—originally 300 yards long —which led to the Ishtar Gate of Nebuchadnezzar IPs palace, have been reconstructed, though only half the original 50 feet in width. On either side of the visitor rise the shimmering blue glazed walls of ancient Bgbylon with their lions and legendary monsters. The gateway itself has been* built u]i in its entirety according to the excavations of Koldewey in 1899. Opposite to it rises the facade of a Parthian palace of the second century a.d. The wall -of Babylon stands back to back with the Roman-baroaue market gate of Miletus, second century ‘ a.d. In all these reconstructions it should be emphasised there is no falsification. The' original portions of the building—in the case of the Miletus Gate practically all the sculptured details, and even some of the ashlars which make up the plain wall space—are clearly but discreetly distinguished from the rest. THE GREATEST TREASURE. The greatest treasure of the museum is the 'Pergamon Altar built by King Eumenes II in 180 8.0, This has a huge room to itself. The original altar was on a mount 3|£t high, girt with a sculptured frieze representing the war of the Olympian gods with the giants. Half the building has been . reconstructed with a great flight of steps sweeping up to the colonnade which ran round the sanctuary. Some of the frieze can, therefore, be seen in its original architectural setting and the rest of it runs round the room. The steps shocked the Government building , inspectors because they are 2in higher than the municipal regulations allow, but the museum authorities manfully refused to mar their re-creation of an architectural masterpiece by iron railings for the weak-kneed to cling to or covering the steps with rough-surfaced linoleum.