Seen at Altes Museum. A Greek sarcophagus cover frame

a Greek sarcophagus cover frame

When visiting interesting places, we often have too little time to stop and think about what we see or even read a plate with a description of the items we are looking at. Just for pleasure I have a habit of going through numerous photos I take when traveling and quietly studying them. This time is the ancient museums in Berlin, which I managed to quickly visit when on a business trip to Berlin last year. I had not enough time to just stop and contemplate the artifacts. But today, you can ask Google for ‘a similar photo’ and it will tell you what you see on it and often even specify exactly where you saw it.

This beautiful ancient Greek artifact is a cover frame of a sarcophagus. It is made of clay. It was either left white or it was decoratively painted, as you can see in the photo. When archaeologists were working on excavations and then wanted to take the artifacts to other countries, they only took the frames leaving sarcophagus basins on site.

The sarcophagus cover frame on the photo above you can find in the Old Museum in Berlin.

Seen at Altes Museum. A Greek sarcophagus cover frame

A postcard from Berlin. The head of singing Dionysus

When you go to Berlin, it is Sunday (shops are not open), it is your first time in years in this city, your hotel is at a central location and the weather forecast says it will be raining, your first thought is to visit the famous Pergamon Museum. So, my first steps today were to the Museum Isle. In fact, you have everything there – a couple of museums, the Dome and the Berlin Palace. As I bought my ticket to the Pergamon, I was informed that I have to wait more than two hours to be allowed there. With plenty time to spare, I made myself to make some photos of the Dome and the palace. But I did not mange to reach them. Just round the corner, I noticed the entry to the Old Museum. It is not that popular with the tourist as the Pergamon, but the collection of ancient artifacts brought to Berlin by the German archaeologists is very impressive.

On the photo above, ‘the head of singing Dionyses’, one of the numerous sculptures you may admire in the Greek collection. The Head of the Singing Dionysus is a marble sculpture that dates back to the 1st century BCE. It is believed to be a Roman copy of a Greek original and is thought to have been part of a larger statue depicting the god Dionysus, the ancient Greek god of wine, fertility, and theater.

A postcard from Berlin. The head of singing Dionysus