Thursday, June 15, 2023. 9:00 pm and Friday 7:00 pm from Warsaw, Poland.
After 2 trips to Egypt (2019 & 2023) visits in the States to the Chicago Oriental Institute, Brooklyn Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), I treated myself to 5 hours Thursday at the Neues Museum in Berlin, Egyptian collection! Judging from the amount of artifacts in the three of the 5 floors of the Museum, German Archeologists were extremely busy not only in Egypt in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries but also in Nubia, Turkey, Iran and Iraq. (See Babylonian post from yesterday)
While in Egypt, our groups visited several sights that gave evidence that sections of the tombs were had been cut to remove a section of the wall to sell to rich patrons and to Museums. At the Neues Museum, I was able to see where some of these ended up. Here are examples of what was left in Egypt (photo 1) and what I saw in Berlin (photo 2)
Notice the smooth edges of all images.
The prize of the Egyptian collection is the head of Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten and step mother and future mother-in-law of King TUT who lived around 1345 BC.
The bust is showcased it its own room with two guards and signs that you cannot take photos in the room. The guards must be used to the disappointed look of tourists when they first see the sign. The first guard pointed to a spot behind the sign where he said I could take a photo. He then said that I could go to the other door and take a second shot. The reflection in the third picture is Ellen.
The bust was found by German Archeologists working for the German Oriental Society in 1912 The bust was awarded to Germany by Egypt in the division of finds after coating it with clay and saying that is was just plaster. (Really it is limestone with a stucco covering)
During WWII it was hidden in in a bank and later in a salt mine and re-discovered by the American Army and put on display in West German. It was returned to the Neues Museum in East Berlin following reunification.
Other notable items included in the museum are the books of the dead, mummy cases, and burial of a mother and mummies of her two children from Fayum, Egypt.
I could have stayed for days, but the visit was something to enjoy from my photos (436) for years to come.
Ellen
Ellen’s Travel Journal 2016-2025 