Neues Museum

A natural follow-up to the Pergamon Museum would normally be the Museum of German History (DHM or Deutsches Historisches Museum) but since the largest part of its permanent collection is closed for renovation up until the end of 2025, we would suggest the Museum favored by most visitors of the island after Pergamon, the Neues Museum. This museum opened its doors to the public in 2009 after a painstaking restoration work that had started in 2003.

The opening of the Neues Museum marked a key chapter in the history of 19th-century art, museum design, and technology.

Designed by Friedrich August Stüler and built from 1843 to 1855, the building suffered severe damage during World War II, after which it was left as an abandoned bombsite. Emergency measures to secure the structure were only taken in the 1980s.

It combines geographically and thematically related exhibits pooled together from three separate collections at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin: the collection of Egyptian art from the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, of prehistoric objects from the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, and of classical antiquities from the Antikensammlung.

This joint exhibition featuring exhibits of unparalleled breadth and diversity allows visitors to trace the development of prehistoric and protohistoric cultures, spanning from the Middle East to the Atlantic, from north Africa to Scandinavia.

Despite of what one usually expects of museums that cover such a wide range of time and space, this museum is not packed full of exhibits. Instead everything’s well laid out and focused, well lit and labelled. The line of stories the Neues Museum tells, from Nubians to Egyptians to Romans to Franks and Slavs, from the Stone, to the Bronze and Iron Age is simply brilliant. More