Vorderasiatisches Museum

The Vorderasiatisches Museum (Museum of the Ancient Near East) is a major institution within the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin State Museums) and houses one of the largest collections of Near Eastern antiquities in the world. The collection's history goes back to the mid-19th century, when Prussia acquired reliefs from Nineveh. Close cooperation with the German Oriental Society and the patron James Simon caused the holdings to grow considerably. An independent department was founded in 1899 and eventually found its permanent home in the south wing of the Pergamon Museum, which opened in 1907. The original staging of the rooms, designed by Walter Andrae, was known for its monumental reconstructions of gateways from Babylon, Assur, and Uruk. This dramatic mix of originals, plaster casts, and bold wall colors shaped the museum's appearance for decades and is still considered historically significant today.

Spread across 14 halls and 2,000 square meters of exhibition space, the museum presents objects from six millennia of Near Eastern culture. The finds come mainly from present-day Iraq, Syria, and Turkey and document the great civilizations of the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Hittites. Among the best-known treasures are the Ishtar Gate with the Processional Way from Babylon, the Zincirli gateway, and the Sennacherib water basin. Significant parts of temple complexes from Uruk, as well as an extensive collection of stamps, cylinder seals, and cuneiform texts, are also part of the holdings. The collection was built up largely through excavations at historic centers such as Assur, Hattusa, and Tell Halaf, and later supplemented by acquisitions from Nimrud and Susa.

The museum has been closed since 2023 for extensive renovation work, with reopening planned for 2037. During this time, the south wing of the Pergamon Museum is being fundamentally rebuilt, and the landmark-protected Andrae installations are the subject of controversial debate. To make the collection accessible during the closure, the museum has created a virtual tour titled "Babylon Reloaded," which documents the historic exhibition digitally. Before the closure, the museum offered special tours through its "Multaka" program, which fostered intercultural dialogue between visitors from the Middle East and the exhibits.