Learning about old stuff

Taking in 2,000 year old Greek art, with commentary from a snooty British lady.

One of the interesting features of living in a huge city like Berlin is having the opportunity to view various ancient artifacts such as those housed at the Pergamon Museum. It's called the Pergamon Museum because the signature piece for this place is an enormous altar from the ancient Greek city of Pergamon (modern day Bergama in Turkey). This structure dates from approximately 200 BC and, compared to most of the other items on display in the museum, isn't really all that old. In the years shortly after the turn of the 20th century, the Prussians apparently managed to make some smooth deals with the Ottoman Turks, who henceforth allowed a number of remarkable cultural and historical pieces to be moved from their lands to Berlin. The archaeologists attempted to reconstruct it all as it was on site, and the result is the museum. It perhaps wasn't the most culturally responsible thing to do, but I suppose there's no turning back now. And it does inspire, to a certain degree, a desire to visit the original excavation sites.

Anyway, like all museums of such significance, the self-guided tour provides the casual visitor with far more information than can be consumed in any one sitting. Moreover, I forgot to bring my notebook with me, and was therefore incapable of copying down some of the funnier translations of ancient inscriptions, some of which (in my brain, at least) sounded remarkably similar to the rhetoric used by a certain president of a large and powerful North American country. (I can't remember exactly what they were, but some were along the lines of "casting away of evil," "Do-er of deeds" and "may god X watch over our city and empire.")

May I also say that I take issue, to some degree, with the English language voice selected for the self-guided audio tour, i.e., the snooty British lady that talks to you through the headset that you carry around with you. The good folks at the museum always ask you what your choice of language is before handing you such a contraption; after the wife said "Englisch," I quickly amended the request -- only half jokingly -- to "Amerikanisch, eigentlich." Apparently I am not all that bright, because when I hear English being spoken at the sophistication level of which one hears on such a museum headset, and then I'm distracted with all these long vowel sounds, well, I just don't understand it all that well. Not only was I not entirely sure what a "frieze" was exactly, I also did not know until Saturday that one pronounces the 'e' at the end of that word (although an Internet search presents evidence to the contrary.)

Now, of course I am not one of these people who would suggest that everything be customized specifically to American tastes, or should I say lack thereof. I would take the snooty British over Tennessean twang any day. But still, it would be nice if they could pick a voice that we could all agree on -- a Canadian's, perhaps.