Egyptian Museum of Berlin

The Egyptian Museum Berlin, actually Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection of the National Museums in Berlin, located since its reopening in October 2009, again at the New Museum. It houses one of the world's finest collections of Egyptian civilization, the statues, reliefs and small art objects from all periods of ancient Egyptian history includes. The most prominent exhibit and crowd puller applies the above appropriated in 1920 by James Simon bust of Nefertiti.

Director since July 2009, the German Egyptologist Friederike Seyfried.

History

The museum was founded on a recommendation from the Alexander von Humboldt in 1828 the Egyptian department of the art collection of King Frederick William III. forth. The first director of this department, which was initially housed in Monbijou castle, was Giuseppe Passalacqua, a merchant from Trieste, whose archaeological collection formed the basis of the department. An expedition under Karl Richard Lepsius 1842-1845 brought many more items to Berlin.

1850 the museum received its own new building on Museum Island, the reopened after its reconstruction in 2009 New Museum by the architect Friedrich August Stiller. James Simon donated to the Museum in 1920, among other pieces, the bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti, the most famous exhibit of the collection. Simon had the Ludwig Borchardt's excavations in the Egyptian Amarna financed and brought the artifacts to Germany.

By the Second World War the collection was torn apart. The New Museum in 1943 was heavily damaged and numerous exhibits burned. The collection was outsourced to different places. The bust of Nefertiti survived the war in a tunnel in Thuringia and was later transferred to the Museum Wiesbaden.

The bulk of the collection was in East Berlin and was exhibited at the Bode Museum in 1958 again. In West Berlin, the rest of the collection, who returned from West Germany, was issued in Stülerbau opposite the Schloss Charlottenburg since 1967. In the courtyard of the former Egyptian Museum Berlin- Charlottenburg Buddy Bear was ( " The Mummy " by Ralf Nepolsky ), which applies after the relocation of the museum to Berlin -Mitte to be lost.

After the reunification of both collections were put back together. The collection at the Bode Museum was closed in the 1990s due to renovation work. In August 2005 the Egyptian collection of Charlottenburg retired to the Museum Island, the Altes Museum first where until 2009 a representative cross-section of the collection was shown with the exception of large items. The main part of the budget for the permanent exhibition exhibits since October 2009 to get back to its original place in the constructed new museum. However, even there, much of the monumental sculpture and architecture from lack of space can not be shown, including the Gate of Kalabsha and the Tempelhof from the mortuary temple Sahure. These are according to the master plan museum to be built in the island still very much later and controversial fourth wing of the Pergamon Museum are shown.

Since July 2009, Friederike Seyfried is director of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, Dietrich Wildungsmauer replaced after twenty years in office.

Collection

The collection gives a comprehensive insight into art and culture of ancient Egypt over a period of four millennia. They lit on three levels, the museum everyday life in the Nile Valley, the worship of kings and gods, the belief in the afterlife and in part reflects the significant ancient Egyptian writings on papyrus. Among the most famous pieces include the bust of Nefertiti, the "Berlin Green Head" and the papyrus Westcar.

Exhibits

Striding figure of Nefertiti

Head of a Princess of Amarna

Relief sketch with head of Akhenaten

The priest tai -tai. New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, around 1380 BC v.

Akhenaten and Nefertiti with their children. Amarna period, around 1350 BC v.

Queen Tiye, Amarna Period, v. 1355 AD

"Berlin Green Head ", v. 500 BC