No God, No King, No Tower, No Whore - Babylon was not Babel!
So runs the tagline for this spectacular exhibition, promising to be the event of the Summer on Berlin's Museum Island. Assembling over 800 objects from the the British Museum, the Musée du Louvre and the Réunion des musées nationaux in Paris and Berlin's own National Museums, the exhibition compares the actual 3,000 year history of the Mesopotamian metropolis against the dark glamour of its myth.
Truth: Centering around the famed Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way of Babylon, once one of the Seven Wonders of the World and now treasure of the Pergamon Museum, this section of the exhibition examines the archaeological evidence of the world's first great city. The legendary gate is rejoined by ancient sculptures, documents, ritual objects and architectural fragments to reveal the roots of Western civilization.
Myth: The remainder of the exhibition examines the use of Babylon as metaphor for all that is denied, repressed, and feared in Western culture. Mankind's primal fears of slavery, sex, violence, and madness are expressed in its horror of the city as a place of sin and tyranny. Confronting the myth of the "metropolis of eternal apocalypse" exposes the psychology of urban culture and civilization's deep shadows.
Pergamon Museum
Am Kupfergraben 5 , 10117 Berlin, Germany
http://www.smb.museum/smb/babylon/show_text.php?lang=en
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