Adventures of Wes and Laura

Weekend update

Saturday we went to the Pergamon museum here in Berlin and saw antiquties from ancient cities of Hellenistic (Greek-origin), Bablylonian, Assyrian, Islamic origin. Above is a recreation of the Pergamon altar, a city on the Turkish coast where this temple was build - the myths depicted in the friezes were explained to us on our audio tapes and were spellbinding. Then to see the 'Ishtar Gate', the ancient entrace to the city of Babylon, and later art from Assyr, the capital of Assyrian culture and (also located in modern Iraq!) was amazing. All three of those civilizations were at odds with early Christian (or earlier Jewish) civilization so all their names are familiar to those who've studied the Bible, but unless their harsh or 'heathen' depictions in the Bible (naturally because often they attacked or enslaved peoples of ancient Judea) the acomplishments of all these civilizations are equally impressive. Laura liked the Assyrian art personally, with its beautiful basalt stone and the cuniform script it was often decorated with. As a former student of religion I am of course always interested in seeing how the early cultures and very long and complex history of the near/middle east, the 'cradle of civilization' and the modern three Abrahamic religions, have led to the strong differences in East and West that are so present today. We often forget that these cultures do have these common roots and have each borrowed extensively from one another, and from the cultures that came before them.

Coming back to Earth now, we just chilled out today in Berlin and did a lot of long-term travel-planning and budgetting. We also did a laundry at the laundromat, which reminds me I have some pictures and great stories to share with you of our first laundry experiences in Germany. Look for those later this week.

Congrats to the AU Tigers and the Gators, both winners. Of course you can't find that out without looking for it over here -- we're a long way from the SEC.

By the way - I fixed the comment section so you don't have to register to post comments

Wes

posted by Wes and Laura @ 9/17/2006 01:06:00 PM