Nefertiti
The ancient world's most famous face, in original colour, in a room of her own.
Joyofmuseums โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Roy Zuo โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Damien Tournay โ CC BY-SA 2.0 ยท Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) โ CC BY-SA 4.0
Museum Island has five, and more than two in a day is guaranteed exhaustion. The strongest pair: the Neues for Nefertiti and Egypt, plus the Altes or the Bode by taste. The main Pergamon is closed for renovation for years โ its Panorama runs in a separate building.
A long-standing protection rule enforced without exception โ guards stop any attempt instantly. The rest of the museum photographs freely without flash. Treat it as an invitation to look long instead of through a screen.
Egyptology always works with children โ coffins, mummies, gold. Ninety minutes on a chosen route is their limit, and the story of 'the most beautiful queen' pulls them to the great room.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet โ be the first.
The Neues Museum on Museum Island is home to the most famous face in history: the bust of Queen Nefertiti, over 3,300 years old with its original colours nearly complete, displayed alone in a domed room where people fall silent. That one room alone earns the museum its place on any itinerary. Around it stands one of the weightiest Egyptian collections outside Egypt: coffins, papyri and heads from the Akhenaten era that explain the revolutionary artistic moment Nefertiti came from. Other floors hold European prehistory and Heinrich Schliemann's treasures. The building is a story in itself: wrecked in the war, it stood as a ruin for sixty years until architect David Chipperfield revived it with a bold idea โ leave the wounds visible and restore around them โ so the building exhibits its own history too.
The ancient world's most famous face, in original colour, in a room of her own.
Amarna heads and pieces explaining the artistic revolution Nefertiti was born of.
A rebuild that left the war wounds visible โ the building exhibits its own past.
Finds of Troy's discoverer โ an archaeological drama in itself.
Bodestrasse 1-3, 10178 Berlin