The Pergamon Museum: Art or Commerce?

 

Museum Island, Berlin

A friend from UNESCO once told me that his organization’s famous World Heritage List generally excludes museums. I suppose this may have to do with the fact that museums are very obviously heritage sites. As such, they do not need a UNESCO declaration to be accorded recognition and protection.

One interesting exception is Berlin’s Museum Island which was inscribed in 1999. This is the name that has been given to the northern portion of a small isle in the center of the Spree River in the Mitte district of the German capital. 

There are five venerable institutions in this site: the Altes , opened in 1863, houses the Greco-Roman Collections, the Neues, recently restored to showcase the Egyptian Collection, the National Gallery, completed in 1876, the Bode, constructed in the early 20^th century for the Byzantine Collection, and the Pergamon, holding larger reconstructed archaeological tableaux.  It is this unique concentration which won UNESCO’s nod.

The Berlin Cathedral

Dominating the entire area are the huge greenish domes of the Berlin Cathedral. I could not help thinking as I surveyed this ecclesiastical pile that, for all its magnificence, this immense church was not even the star of the show. It was no match for the drawing power of its neighbors. There was no doubt : people flocked to Museum Island because of  the Museums.

The Entrance to the Pergamon Museum

Of the five, the most visited are the Neues and the Pergamon. The former is the home of the bewitching bust of Queen Nefertiti. The latter is named after its most spectacular display: the great Pergamon Altar.

I had seen so many photos of the Altar that I was quite anxious to examine the real thing. The prospect of viewing an ancient Greek building squeezed into a large hall of another edifice was rather appealing. After wandering around the other museums, I finally entered the one for which I had really come to Berlin. As it turned out, I was quite unprepared for what awaited me.

Model of the Pergamon town acropolis with the Altar at the right

Scale model of the Altar

 

The Pergamon Altar was breathtaking. It is a horseshoe-shaped colonnaded building which may have once sheltered a ceremonial space for making offerings. There was something about the broad marbled expanses that easily evoked the idea of perfection shining from a distant summit. A quick glance at the scale models in the room would reveal that this structure had been part of a hill of temples very much like the Acropolis in Athens.  The Altar was recovered from a site in what is now modern Turkey which was associated with the town of Pergamon, a center for parchment production in the Hellenistic world. An echo of this production can still be seen in the Spanish word for parchment : pergamino.

 

The  Pergamon Altar from the front

 

                                        The gigantomachy frieze on the Pergamon Altar 

All around the base of the Altar is a carved frieze which depicts a battle between the Gods and the Giants. This is what scholars call a “gigantomachy”. The Greeks must have identified with the struggles of the Gods. As citizens of small states fending off the invasions of a gargantuan empire like Persia, they probably saw themselves in the same light.

How this impressive ensemble ended up in Berlin is quite a story. Apparently, in the 19^th century, the Germans probably felt left out as the other European powers scrambled for fragments from the past.  Temples, tombs, and palaces in hapless localities like Egypt and Mesopotamia were being stripped of their contents. These were then carted back home to grace what were, in a sense, sanctuaries of plunder – the great museums. I suppose it was important to show a legitimizing connection with the Ancient World. Collections of classical artifacts were able to confer on their owners the mantle of wisdom and grandeur associated with the Romans and Athenians of yore. If Germany were to be perceived as a rich industrialized nation, it too must have museums of antiquities.

A German team conducted excavations at Pergamon from about 1878 to 1886. Negotiations with the Ottoman government allowed what was dug up to be brought back to Berlin. Some say that this transfer actually saved the Altar since the nearby villagers had been mining the Pergamon precinct for building materials! Turkey would later bring up the idea that Germany return what had been taken but it is doubtful that this request will be approved.

Another building taken from Pergamon

Of course, the idea of displaying entire buildings inside a museum is not unique to the Germans. Other examples abound in the United States. Among the more famous exhibits of the Metropolitan Museum in New York is that of the Temple of Dendur and its gate. These were given by the Egyptian government as a token of gratitude for the assistance granted by the American people (thru the leadership of such luminaries as Jacqueline Kennedy) to save the monuments submerged by the rising waters of the Aswan Dam. The Temple was the backdrop for a party in the movie, Maid in Manhattan, starring Jennifer Lopez.

The Temple of Dendur in the Met Mueum in New York

Unlike the Temple of Dendur, the Altar in Berlin stands atop a vast staircase. The best part is that people are allowed to sit on the steps, dreaming, trying to recapture glorious days under Mediterranean skies, basking in the light of the first mornings of democracy.

 

Gates of Ishtar with zoomorphic figures. Source: Wikimedia Commons

A panel of the Babylon Exhibit

At the time of my visit, a special exhibit was being held at the Pergamon Museum.  It was called Babylon: Truth and Myth.  It aimed to show how certain notions had arisen about this legendary capital and how these overlay the knowledge that had been gleaned from archaeological investigations.  Often, popular perceptions were not borne out by what was actually found on site.

Due to sources like the Bible, the great City on the banks of the Euphrates was seen as place of debauchery, later to be destroyed as a punishment for its sins.  Archaeologists have determined, however, that Babylon was not demolished in one conflagration. It simply faded away as its power waned. Likewise, it is now thought that the real-life model for the great queen, Semiramis, who had helped earn for her presumed hometown the title of the Great Whore of the Ancient World, was probably not a citizen of the place at all.

Whatever is the reality, it is the myth which remains vibrant. I understood better why Babylon continues to captivate when I finally beheld the other great reconstructed jewel of the Pergamon Museum : the Gates of Ishtar.  The tireless German archaeologists had managed to carry back vast quantities of the tiles that had once festooned the walls of Babylon. Reassembled in Berlin, the glazed panoramas of dragons and lions continue to startle and enchant.

  

  

Bag for sale with designs taken from the Ishtar Gate

The gift shop for the Babylon exhibit

As with all my museum forays, my peregrinations - for all their historical and artistic aspirations – would invariably end at the gift shop. I noted that a large, brilliantly hued, temporary display of exhibit-related products was set up, not to be missed, right at the entrance. I was delighted to find that the ferocious creatures from the walls of Babylon could now be brought safely home as bags and notebooks. There were also images of the Altar, spread out on poster scrolls.

I suppose you could call this effective product design and marketing. Yet, the question which arises is this: do museums perpetuate the myth that their many displays - shard, painting, or ancient edifice – are being exhibited for the sake of art when, in fact, the underlying force is really that of commerce? After all, it can be seen how the treasures of poorer nations were packed off to the capitals of Europe to create the perception that the new host countries were world powers that deserved to be leaders of the global economy.

The model of the Pergamon altar from the back

Did the Queen of Crime Stay at the Pera Palace Hotel?

 

 Opening frames from the movie "Agatha"

One of my favorite movie opening sequences begins with a scene where a silver mug is being engraved with the words, “… my love, my friend.” The engraver pauses, waiting to be told what else the woman beside him wanted to add to the dedication. The camera focuses on her face as she utters, “Agatha”. The name then appears on screen as it is the title of the film. 

The woman is supposed to be Agatha Christie, the world’s most successful crime writer with more than a billion books sold. A few years ago, when I was convalescing, my cousin, Manny, gave me discs containing dramatizations of Christies’ novels featuring her two star sleuths, Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple. I found watching the episodes very comforting. Perhaps the sense that everything - no matter how complicated - would be made right in the end was so reassuring after a serious illness. I have been a fan ever since.

The 1979 movie with the engraved mug scene I just described, presented an imagined account of the 11 days in 1926 when Christie mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps she had felt devastated after learning that her first husband, Archie, (the recipient of the mug) was divorcing her. Since the famous writer had never revealed what happened to her, all kinds of theories abound. Many hotels have also joined the fray, making conflicting claims about the writer holing up in their premises when she went missing. One of the more sensational stories related to Christie’s unaccounted days involves the venerable Pera Palace in Istanbul.

The Pera Palace Hotel

In 1979, when the movie was about to be released, newspapers were abuzz with reports that a clairvoyant had been told by Christie’s spirit (she had died in 1976) of the existence of a box inside which was a diary that recounted the celebrated writer’s disappearance. The key to the box was hidden in Room 411 of an Istanbul hotel. Soon after, the manager of the Pera Palace announced that he had found such a key in a room of his establishment with the exact same number but apparently nothing else.

The Agatha Christie Room. Source: Pera Palace website

Today, it is generally agreed that Christie had been ensconced somewhere in northern England all along, far from Turkey. Yet the quarters in the Pera Palace that had been identified so supernaturally are still preserved in her honor. Like many others, I had assumed that this was where Dame Agatha penned Murder on the Orient Express which begins in the great city on the Bosporus.

Actually, the novel may not even have been written at the Pera. A hotel historian explains that while working on her manuscript, Mrs Christie would very likely have stayed at another Istanbul institution, the Torkatlian. This is, in fact, the hotel where she actually sets the first part of her story. It was from this comfortable base that she went on archaeological expeditions with her second husband, Max Mallowan, in Syria and Iraq. She would later compile her adventures in a memoir with a genteel title – Come Tell Me How You Live.  

Whatever the truth turns out to be, the Agatha Christie Room at the Pera Palace will always be a shrine for devotees of the Queen of Crime. The Room seems to have been arranged to suggest that it was as the novelist had left it. Among the furnishings are an old typewriter and a shelf filled with the honoree’s books.  The color of the curtains and of the bed cover - a deep red - hints of the blood spilled on the pages of Christie’s works.

The sanguine references notwithstanding, the Room’s atmosphere is one of quiet elegance which contrasts with the rest of the building. As befits an institution that housed the aristocratic passengers of the luxurious Orient Express, the Pera Palace appropriately exudes opulence. An old brass escutcheon on the wall of the terrace is a reminder that these two properties were once in the hands of one owner.

    The Lounge

   Brass Escutcheon

Built in the last decade of the nineteenth century with Alexander Vallaury as architect, the Pera was refurbished a few years ago by the Jumeirah Group which also runs the Burj al Arab in Dubai. Judging from old photographs I could see that the present interiors have been done up much more elaborately than in the past.

The lobby

                       Flowers greet you

Entering the lounge when I first arrived at the Pera Palace, I was overwhelmed by its strident pinkness. One encounters this heated color in the marble, the footstools, the cushions, and even in the flower arrangements that exploded on a round table near the door. Then I noticed that the fuchsia exuberance was balanced by the richness of the brass ornaments and the luster of the mother of pearl inlaid cabinets. The rosy tones of the stained glass windows that grew paler with each passing cloud quieted the room further while huge globes drew my attention away to other parts of the world.

   Pastry shop

It was when I caught a glimpse of the pastry shop on my way to my room that I deduced where all this pink belonged: in the trays of macaroons and strawberry tarts glistening inside glass vitrines. I promised myself that I was going to return to sample all that had been so lovingly confectioned.

    Antique elevator

Having torn myself away from all the sweet excess, I was conducted by the hotel officer to an antique elevator that was brimming with the wrought iron curves of a past era. As we ascended, I studied the moving compartment, remembering that the clairvoyant had mentioned riding one of these ancient conveyances in her vision. Soon, however, I would forget about these allusions to the occult as the view from my balcony would prove more fantastic than anything a seer could conjure.

    Sunrise over the Golden Horn

Dawn was just breaking over a luminous band of water that was none other than the Golden Horn. Imagine the endeavors that were launched here, the nautical battles waged, the fortunes gained and lost! Suddenly forlorn cries came from every quarter. It was time for the morning prayer and every mosque joined in the great call for the faithful to turn to the Divine.

The neighborhood in which the hotel stood would prove just as compelling. There were many vibrant bazaars, colorful cafes, and quiet bookstores. The area boasted its own wonderful gallery – the Pera Museum. At the time of my visit it had exhibits on traditional locks from Anatolia as well as a fine show on Turkish court painters.

Scenes from the Pera District

    A painting at the Pera Museum

Beside the Museum was a lovely edifice decorated with a pair of atlantes. This was the Grand Hotel de Londres. I was later to learn that it, too, had its own Agatha Christie Room - this one done in shades of orange. Perhaps our writer has rested her head on many pillows!

   Grand Hotel de Londres

I was already on my way back from exploring the district when I stumbled into a bit of unpleasantness. I had just snapped the front of a bakery when a man who had been seated at a sidewalk table started yelling at me. He approached me all the while shouting and – without warning - gave me a strong shove. A thought flashed briefly in my mind: what if I responded with my best kung fu pose? It didn’t matter that I couldn’t tell karate chop from a pork chop. I just had to look convincing even if it meant channeling a panda. As a friend of mine observed: everyone else thinks that all Asians are masters of the martial arts. Eventually, I decided that the better part of valor was to use every last bit of my adrenalin rush to run towards my hotel.

Safely cocooned in the Pera’s Lounge again, I reviewed my brush with violence. I realized that if the incident had escalated further, I would have taken a serious hit for the sake of journalism!

Later, my mind wandering because of the chamomile tea, I feel to thinking about Dame Agatha. What might she have done had she been there on the sofa with me? Would she have asked me what my assailant had looked like? Would she have asked me if there were reliable witnesses?

Somehow, I imagined that it was more likely that she would have poured me more hot tea. Then, she might have quietly said: “Come, tell me how you live.”

   Safely back in the Lounge

Photo of Agatha Christie room is from the Pera Palace website

Into Egypt

       Painting of Cleopatra by Juan Luna, Prado Museum, Madrid

Non-archival photos and text by Ino Manalo

Like many the world over, I had grown up reading about Egypt and the pyramids. This inspired in me a lifelong passion to see the Land of the Pharaohs. Many movies helped fuel my interest: Cleopatra, The Egyptian, as well as the earlier versions of The Mummy. With regard to the first film on my list, I had thought about what it would be like to arrive for Sunday mass in San Antonio, my childhood parish church, borne on a sphinx-shaped palanquin just like Elizabeth Taylor entering Rome. Surely the look on the faces of the congregation would have been worth all the effort.

When I brought up the idea of vacationing by the Nile, however, most people were not encouraging. Some pointed to reports of terrorist attacks some years back.

The exception was Wendell Rodricks, the Goan designer and a recent dinner guest. He told me that he had just been to Egypt and it was wonderful. Hearing my misgivings, he noted that travelling required spirit. You shouldn’t step outside your door if you are not ready for anything that can happen.

Having plucked up the courage and having ignored all my worries, I finally found myself with my friend, Vince, on a Turkish Airlines flight headed for Cairo. The voyage was pleasant enough – they even gave us battery - powered candles that flickered reassuringly during our tasty meal!

My first impression of Cairo was one of chaos. As Vince and I came to know the city better in the days that followed, this initial sense of disorder would only be affirmed.  I saw vans that left their doors wide open while careening down the street - the better to pick up passengers wherever they wished. When a metal rail erected to prevent jaywalking proved inconvenient, an obliging Cairene thoughtfully cut the bars. Everyone and their mothers insisted on squeezing through the fence gaps, delaying carts and cars as well as porters bearing large sacks. It was while we were inching through this tumult that it came to me: I felt at home. Manila’s intersections were jammed as merrily!

Later, while we negotiated the choked thoroughfares, the Egyptian capital began to reveal a softer side. I saw avenues lined with beautiful Italianate and Art Deco buildings. These vintage gems went practically unheralded in a country that had so much more to offer. I was to learn that aside from districts filled with European-style edifices, Cairo also had neighborhoods resplendent with mosques and churches.

 

After the heat and the dust of the pavements it was a joy to come back to our hotel, the Sofitel El Gezirah, a cylindrical tower located at the tip of an island in the heart of the city. When we first arrived, we had been quite disappointed with our room which was sorely in need of sprucing up. As it turned out, we were transferred to better quarters and all was well. 

The Cairo Sofitel El Gezirah 

Our little aches disappeared whenever we looked out our window. For there, in the glow of each new morning was the Nile. We could see stately villas and tall office buildings lining its banks while glittering bridges spanned its width. The water was a deep blue-green that murmured of lapis lazuli and the scales of snakes. The river’s ends disappeared in the haze but one knew that north were the Mediterranean and the port of Alexandria while south were Nubia then the great Sud - the largest swamp in the world, and, finally, the lakes of East Africa.

Contemplating this liquid corridor, one understands why so many had been obsessed with exploring it and finding its source: the Nile was the lifeline of Egypt and Egypt had come to capture the European imagination.  Edward Said in his landmark tome, Orientalism, gives us an idea why. 

Said explains that there had been many projects to document, measure, and illustrate everything within Egyptian territory from palaces to tombs, wildlife to plants. One such project – carried out under Napoleon - resulted in the publication of the gargantuan, Description de l’Egypte. This was a set of about 23 large books with maps and illustrations produced by a team of French experts.

Description de l’Egypte frontispiece

These books and the information they contained became instruments which aided invasion and colonization. After all, knowing a country’s terrain and resources, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of its people makes conquest easier.

The Description de l’Egypte also helped generate popular notions about Egypt which, in time, degenerated into stereotypes. Pyramids, treasures buried under sand, a languid inscrutable people wandering amidst collapsed temples, all these became the standard images which were evoked when the Land of the Nile was mentioned. The frontispiece of the Description is a good example of such established representations. It shows valuable items strewn across a colorful many-pillared courtyard while obelisks rose in the distance.

Said further explained that these images were so compelling because they helped clarify the identities of the peoples of Europe: Europeans were what the Egyptians were not. For the citizens of countries such as France and England, exploring Egypt was a way to know one’s self better. 

Orientalist painting, Musee d'Orsay. Non-Europeans are portrayed as languid and lazy.

 

Capitalizing on this desire to experience Egypt, the tourism company that Thomas Cook had founded introduced steamer ships in the 19^th century that made holidays on the Nile more comfortable. Hotels were built in cities like Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, and Alexandria. Many of these establishments still survive, part of the legacy of what is romantically dubbed “the Golden Age of Travel”.

The Mena Hotel, Giza

The original entrance in 1900s

The entrance today

One such hotel is the Mena House in Giza. A former hunting lodge of the country’s ruler, it was bought by a rich young English couple who had it remodeled to accommodate visitors to the pyramids. Rooms were added as well as vernacular features like latticed balconies and domes.

Unfortunately, while we were there, the old wing was closed for renovation. We were given a room in the new section. Everything here was spic and span. Contemplating the many framed photographs of veiled women that festooned the walls of the corridors it became clear that Orientalist stereotypes were at play.  Veils were certainly part of clichés that exemplified the mysterious and inscrutable lands beyond the rationale ambit of the West.

That night we were kept awake by a noisy wedding celebration that was held in elaborate tents set up on the hotel grounds.   We could see from what was being projected on giant screens that the party -goers were beautiful and very wealthy.

The dawn brought another brobdingnagian image that came straight from legend: the grand pyramid of Cheops waxing purple in the mist. Everything else faded. How flawless was this edifice, how impossibly straight were its lines against the glimmering curve of sky.

At breakfast, when I turned to stare at the pyramid again, I spied some stragglers from last night’s fete seated at a table. Beyond them, men were putting away the party tents even while Cheop’s monument loomed in the distance. I had a sense that what was before me was Ancient Egypt recast in the 21^st century. As it had always been, the struggle of the masses was once more juxtaposed with the privilege of the elite. No wonder that Egyptian publicity campaigns proudly announce: Welcome to our seventh millennium!

 

We were to find out later that there had been a terrorist attack on a guard post many kilometers away. A number of lives were lost. Yet, for that moment, there in Giza, the tragedies of the world seemed far away. All that the mind could grasp was that one was standing before a structure created to confront eternity.