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Museum Island Berlin

Five World-class Museums

Located on the Spree River in Berlin, the Museum Island is home to five museums dating from the 19th to early 20th centuries: the Altes Museum, the Neues Museum, the Alte Nationalgalerie, the Bode-Museum, and the Pergamonmuseum, which was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1999.

On Spree River in Berlin, there is a long, narrow island known as Berlin Museum Island, with five museums built in the 19th and early 20th centuries on it.

These five museums are the Altes Museum (Old Museum), the Neues Museum (New Museum), the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery), the Bode Museum, and the Pergamon Museum, all of which have different architectural styles and exhibits spanning 6,000 years. Walking through The Roman Promenade on Museum Island is like entering a time tunnel: from ancient Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek sculptures to modern paintings, all of them are world-famous treasures. 1999, Berlin’s Museum Island was inscribed on the World Heritage List for its historical Cultural and precious collection.

Manywhere Trivia:
In terms of the size of a single museum, they still don’t compare to the Louvre Museum or the British Museum, but if you count these five museums together, they are definitely the top in the world for both quality and quantity.

Altes Museum (Old Museum) is the oldest museum on the island, it was completed in 1830 and built in the neoclassical style. The Old Museum is famous for its ancient Greek and Roman collections.

Despite the “new” in the name of Neues Museum (New Museum), it is the second oldest museum on the island. The New Museum’s centerpiece is the Nefertiti Bust, a 1345 B.C. sculpture that brings the Egyptian pharaohs and queens to life in an iconic display of ancient Egyptian art.

Nefertiti Bust - Neues Museum Berlin (wikipedia)

The Bode Museum, located at the northernmost of the Museum Island, was built in the early 20th century and its main collection consists of medieval sculptures and Byzantine artworks.

Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) is located next to the New Museum, and was modeled after the Acropolis in appearance. It is a temple of painting and art, with works of neoclassicism, romanticism, French impressionism and modernism.

The last of the five museums is the Pergamon Museum, which was built in 1930 and is home to the Pergamon Altar, the Ishtar Gate, Market Gate of Miletus, and other priceless treasures from ancient Greece, Babylon and Persia. The museum is one of the most popular museums on the island.

The Museum Island is also home to Berlin Cathedral with a Green Dome and the relaxing Lustgarten.