Pergamon Museum

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  • Mon-Wed & Fri-Sun 10:00 - 18:00 , Thu 10:00 - 22:00

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Lonely Planet review

If you only have time for one museum in Berlin, make it the Pergamon for a feast of classical Greek, Babylonian, Roman, Islamic and Middle Eastern art and architecture. The giant complex, which was only completed in 1930, harbours under one roof: the Collection of Classical Antiquities, the Museum of Near Eastern Antiquities and the Museum of Islamic Art.

All three collections are worth seeing at leisure, but if pressed, make a beeline to the following highlights. The museum's undisputed crowd magnet is the Pergamon Altar (165 BC) from Asia Minor (in today's Turkey). It's a gargantuan raised marble shrine surrounded by a vivid frieze of the gods doing battle with the giants. Walk up its steps for close-ups of the Telephos Frieze, which depicts the life story of the legendary founder of Pergamon. The next room presents the immense Market Gate of Miletus (AD 2), a masterpiece of Roman architecture. It's also impossible not to be awed by the reconstructions of the Babylonian Ishtar Gate, the Processional Way leading up to it and the facade of the king's throne hall. All are sheathed in glazed bricks glistening in a luminous cobalt blue and ochre.