Antiquity on display

"[This book] is a critical biography of Berlin's Pergamon Museum and its popular architectural displays: the Great Altar of Pergamon, the Market Gate of Miletus, and the Ishtar Gate of Babylon. [The author] argues that the museum has produced a modern décor, an iconic image, which has replaced the lost ancient monuments rather than creating an explicitly hypothetical representation of antiquity. Addressing the dilemmas raised by the continuing presence of these displays, which embody the distinctive traits of the artistic and ideological programs of the last two centuries, Bilsel questions what the process of reproduction and authentication of antiquity in the museum tells us about our changing perceptions of historic monuments. Documenting the process through which these imaginative reproductions of architecture were conceived, staged, and came to be perceived as authentic monuments, this volume offers an insight into the history of Berlin's Museum Island and the shifting regimes of the authentic in museum displays from the 19th century to the present."--Book jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Philosophy. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.