Pergamon Museum: romance, civilization, and Iron Germany

Everyone might agree that Europe has the most glorious museums in the world such as Louvre Pyramid, Paris; British Natural History Museum, National Gallery, and British Museum, London. Last year, I travelled to Netherland where is famous for museums everywhere. A museum card brought me to visit over 10 museums with different themes, including Vincent Willem van Gogh, diamond, church, movie, tulip, etc. within 2 days in Amsterdam.  

However, there is a common problem for those most visited museums in the world, that is, they have been crowded all the seasons of the year. Consequently, you feel somewhat distracted or cannot even move your feet toward the artwork or wall paintings, Mona Lisa in Louvre Pyramid exemplifies this. So, the most visited museum could be a very impressive one but not your favourite or memorable one. 

Mona Lisa in Louvre Pyramid

Among all the museums I ever visited, although the number is never large enough. I especially prefer Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Germany. 

I visited this museum in Springtime several years ago, there are not so many people at that time. As I stayed in Berlin for one week, I took a slow pace to explore the Capital of Germany.

When I stepped on the top floor of my hotel, the first image for me is to ask why they still need to raise a war since this country is so spacious and has few people living here, expressing the message to me that there is no need to compete for resources. However, this feelings is merely from my personal view, and the reason behind the war is not my focus here.

Let me back to Pergamon Museum. This museum is built along the riverside, its iron-gray colour represents what a Germany is: strong, durable and solid; to some extent cold-blooded and hard-hearted in terms of the self-discipline people.

Unlike British Museum of the kind collect a various range of national trophies, Pergamon Museum houses three most impressive themes: the Antikensammlung, the Vorderasiatisches Museum, and the Museum für Islamische Kunst, making it become so special to me. 

The Babylonian Empire was defeated by the Persians

I still remember when I walked in the reconstructed processional street of Babylon to discover another world with a great historical and mysterious Sumerian and Assyrian civilization, everything unfolds with mystery and romance.

As we know, the term Babylon (Βαβυλών), ‘gate of god’, is the name of an ancient city, it has another meaning—‘confusion’ in the Bible. It was home to the earliest known civilisation--the Sumerian civilisation, which arose in the fertile Tigris-Euphrates river valley of southern Iraq. 

While the geography of the remains of the city are now in Iraq, where is notorious for terrorism and warfare, when it comes to Babylon, the most interesting thing for me is about a Japanese comic book named:Crest of the Royal Family (Nile’s daughter), a story about an American young girl who loved archaeology and how she crossed through 3,000 years to fall in love with an ancient Egypt prince. The backdrop of this romantic comic book is presented in Egypt and other ancient countries such as Assyria and Babylonia, and many characterisers are vivid and attractive, making it one of the best-selling manga ever.

Source: Crest of the Royal Family

There is also a war in this comic book. As the beautiful, wise American girl from the mysterious future West was so precious as gold, the Assyrian prince and Hittite (a strong neighbour country next to Egypt) prince were all surprised with this blonde-haired Carol, and attempted to take her out of the Egypt prince; as a result, love has become a real war full of competition and conspiracy. By the way, don’t forget about men do fight for women in human history such as the Trojan War, imaginably, a war fighting for dignity and face, rather than the women.  

Prince イズミル (source and copyright: Crest of the Royal Family)

(source and copyright: Crest of the Royal Family)

(source and copyright: Crest of the Royal Family)

每個人都會同意，歐洲擁有世界上最榮華的博物館，如巴黎的盧浮宮金字塔;英國的自然歷史博物館，國家美術館和倫敦大英博物館。去年，我到了各處都有博物館的荷蘭旅行。一張博物館卡就讓我在2天內在阿姆斯特丹參觀了10個以上不同主題的博物館：梵谷，鑽石，教堂，電影，鬱金香等等。

然而，世界上訪問次數最多的博物館都存在一個共同的問題，那就是，它們一年四季都很擁擠。因此，你覺得有點分心或甚至不能移動你的腳走向藝術品或壁畫，盧浮宮金字塔的蒙娜麗莎就是這方面的例證。所以，參觀人數最多的博物館可能是一個非常令人印象深刻的博物館，但不是您最喜歡或難忘的博物館。

在我參觀過的所有博物館中，雖然數量從來都不夠大。我特別喜歡德國柏林的佩加蒙博物館。幾年前，我在春天時訪問了那裡，當時沒有那麼多人。因我在柏林待了一周, 我放慢步調地探索德國的首都。當我踏上旅館的頂層時，對我來說，第一個印像就是要問為什麼他們仍然需要發動戰爭，因為這個國家非常寬敞，人口很少，向我表達的信息是沒有必要競爭資源。但是，這種感覺僅僅是出於我個人的觀點，戰爭背後的原因並不是我這文章關注的焦點。

讓我回到佩加蒙博物館。這座博物館建在河邊，它的鐵灰色代表了德國的特點：強壯, 耐用,堅固;從自律的民族性來看,在某種程度上是冷血和堅強的。與大英博物館收藏各種各樣的國家戰利品不同，佩加蒙博物館收藏了3個令人印象深刻的主題：Antikensammlung，Vorderasiatisches博物館和伊斯蘭藝術博物館，使它變得如此特別。

我仍然記得，當我走進重建的巴比倫通道去發現另一個有著偉大的歷史和神秘的蘇美和亞述文明的世界時，一切都隨著神秘和浪漫而展開。

我們知道，巴比倫（Babylon，Βαβυλών）這個詞是'上帝之門'，是古代城市的名字，它有另一個意思 - 聖經中的'混淆'。這裡是最早的已知文明蘇美文明的起源，這種文明起源於伊拉克南部肥沃的底格里斯 - 幼發拉底河流域。

雖然城市遺蹟的地理位置現在在伊拉克，那裡因恐怖主義和戰爭而臭名昭著，但談到巴比倫時，對我來說最有意思的是一本日本漫畫書，名叫：《尼羅河女兒》原名《王家的紋章》,故事講述了一位美國年輕女孩熱愛考古學，如何穿越了3000年愛上了一位古埃及王子。這部浪漫漫畫的背景是在埃及和其他古老的國家，如亞述和巴比倫，並且許多人物形像生動而富有吸引力，使它成了有史以來最暢銷的漫畫之一。

這部漫畫中,也有一場戰爭。因為來自神秘未來西方的美麗聰慧的美國女孩像黃金一樣珍貴，亞述王子和西台（埃及旁邊的一個強大的鄰國:又稱比泰多）王子都對這位金髮的卡羅爾驚為天人，並企圖把她從埃及王子身邊奪走;結果，愛成了充滿競爭和陰謀的真正戰爭。順便一提，不要忘記男人曾在人類歷史上為女性而戰，比如特洛伊戰爭，可以想像的,這是一場爭奪尊嚴和面子,多於女性的戰爭。