The Neues museum is home to the Egyptian collection in Berlin.
1. Nefertiti's bust
The bust of Nefertiti is the most precious gem of the Altes Museum and there's good reason for that: it's worth visiting this place just to see this one bust. For starters, the sculpture is life size, but beyond that, it still has it's original colours. It is the colours that make Nefertiti seem almost alive. The sculpture is in the center of a rotunda in one of the corners of the museum, again reminding me a bit of how Michelangelo's David is displayed at the Galleria dell'Academia, and pictures are not permitted in there (which is probably a good thing). Nefertiti was undeniably beautiful. Truly, a queen. Her husband's bust is in the Neues as well, but's it's a said ruin... Nefertiti is the star.
Egypt has formally requested to have the bust of Nefertiti returned. The Neues museum refused.
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| The room where is the bust is kept, at the end of this corridor |
2. The Ethnographic Collection
I was entirely taken aback when I reached the top floor of the museum, and found collections that are more my cup of tea: Neanderthal skulls, mammoth bones and other such treasures, more of interest to a paleontologist (okay, an archaeologist) than to someone who digs old Egyptian tombs.
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| The berlin elk was discovered when they were digging an underground railway in the city. This animal dates from 10700 BC, but modern species of elk have been extinct in Germany since the 1940s. |
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| Neanderthal skull with a 3D reconstruction |
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| Mammoth bones. Look at the side of that Ulna! (First bone on the top, below are one rib and a piece of mandible) |
3. The Berlin Gold Hat
This hat is an artifact of the Bronze age, made of gold. The decorations around the hat seem to have been a calendar. It's in a room all by itself and apparently it is one of only four artifacts of this type (golden hats from the Bronze age) in the world.
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| The Berlin Gold Hat |
4. Charlemagne deniers
This coin is apparently the only evidence of what Charlemagne looked like. Maybe he should have employed sculptors, like the Romans did 😆
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| Charlemagne deniers |
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| Staircases in the Neues Museum |
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