The Neues Museum will reopen on 17 October after being closed for more than 70 years. It will be a great moment in German history as well as a major milestone for world culture. The collection of ancient world objects is outstanding, and their presentation helps place them in the context of their original era, whilst adding to our understanding of the world in which we now live. The renovation of the 8,000 square meter museum cost about 220 million (about $328 million and a lot more than the brand new build the New Acropolis Museum, which reportedly cost $200…
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I am making a short expedition to Berlin’s Museum Island which is establishing itself firmly as a major destination in Europe for Ancient World artefacts. This week the Neues Museum is re-opening to the public after a massive renovation project. The place looks amazing and is as much about the modern world as the ancient. Iwill be traveling over there to learn more about the design of this impressive building and complex of museums as well as to get a good look at one of the most iconic artefacts on display anywhere in the world — the Nefertiti Bust (Nofretete…
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The Pergamon Altar,also called the Zeus Altar, in Pergamon Museum on Berlin’s Museum Island, is a must see for anyone serious about understanding the ancient world. The scenes of the ‘Gigantomachy’, depicting the battle of the Greek gods against the giants is one of the most spectacular examples of Hellenic art and is presented in an impressive quasi-reconstruction. The backstory of how the the Pergamon Altar is even in Berlin is also a great drama – a drama that bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the Elgin Marbles. The Pergamon Altar was originally from Bergama, Turkey, where remains of…
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Germany is investing more than 233 million to renovate Museum Island in Berlin reports Spiegel Online. Coming soon is the new home for the Nefertiti Bust and the vast collection of Egyptian artefacts. As it seems with all the new Museums these days, the architecture of the building itself is as noteworthy as the collection. Berlin is hoping that more than 4.0 million people will visit each year, which will make it a top destination for Ancient World explorers and a serious challenge to the British Museum. Spiegel explains: “When the Neues Museum reopens in October, the city’s famous Egyptian…
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Actually the old iPhone camera is not so bad. The new iphone seems to be even better (finally). It isn’t a digtial single lens reflex (DSLR)with a wi-fi memory card but it is quite handy and you can blast your photos across the internet and now even MMS! Check my iphone photos here on my flickr stream. above: iphone photos that I sent to my Flickr stream using AirMe A few tips: * The lens is not that sharp, so best to shoot stuff within 5 meters (15 feet). Closer the better really. * It behaves like a 35mm more…
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It was much colder than Ihad expected.It was icy, damp and windy and of course dark at 04:30 when we made our way over to Stonehenge to see the sun rise at 06:05am. There was a crunchy frost on the ground. It is kind of hard to imagine the ancient days when standing on a motorway and staring at a chainlink fence. It seems more like a golf course that you can’t play. At first we could see the moon over the stones. It was starting to get light and there was a light violet color washing over them. We…
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I have been browsing of our ever-growing Flickr group focused on Ancient World sites, artefacts and adventurers exploring, and have been thinking about what the ancient world is all about (power tips for browsing Flickr here). It seems unnecessary to drop a definition on what the ancient world is–but we can certainly describe it. My top ten ways for describing Ancient World sites and artefacts: 10. The Ancient World is Old First of all the Ancient World is really old–from a long time ago. It is much, much older than any one now alive could possibly remember. Even generations older…
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As we have been developing the Heritage Key online areas, we have tried to find a good working definition of the “Ancient World.” On some levels this is easy to do. We can draw a crude line at the Middle Ages and say everything before that is Ancient. So we then might conclude that anything made by man before 565AD, the death of the roman emperor Justinian, could be called Ancient. Some things are more Ancient than others. In the 6th Century AD the Eastern Roman Empire was based out of Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) and the Emperor Justinian ordered…
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We make a lot of use out of Flickr. It is one of the best community sites and photo sharing servces online. You can make it work even better with a little effort. We use Flickr to do a couple of main things: post and share photos find photos to link to them First thing is to use Firefox (huh? download it here.) to browse Flickr and get the Greasemonkey add-on. Greasemonkey (GM) allows you to add GM scripts that will automate tasks and rework your view of web pages. Yeah, it is cool enuough really. In fact there are…