By Youssef Kanjou
One of the most important architectural and cultural monuments of ancient Syrian civilization is the entrance to the National Museum in Aleppo. With its majestic design and large statues, this entrance not only fulfills an architectural function, but is also a symbolic gateway to a history rich in civilizations and artistic and religious creativity. It is a replica of the facade of the royal palace of the Aramaean prince Kabara in Tel Halaf from the 9th century BC. Its central section consists of three large statues representing three goddesses. The one in the middle represents the weather and storms (Hadad or Teshub), on the left is the goddess Ishtar, the goddess of love, and on the right is her son Sharm. The entrance is 8 m high and 14 m wide. The main task of the goddesses was to protect the place, especially temples and palaces, from the intrusion of evil spirits. They stand on three animal statues: a lion on each side and a bull in the middle. These columns are surrounded by a wall at the top, on the right, and on the left. The side section was decorated with a sphinx, a lion, and a row of other statues. Around 178 statues were discovered at this site, which decorated the lower part of the palace’s outer wall on both sides.
The history of the Aleppo museum store
How this gate and its statues came to be in front of the Aleppo museum is a long and interesting story with archaeological and political aspects that also affect Germany.
The settlement mound of Tell Halaf, located in northeastern Syria near the city of Ras al-Ayn in the province of Hasaka, is considered one of the most important archaeological sites in the Syrian Jazira region. The oldest settlement dates back to the sixth millennium BC, when one of the earliest types of ancient pottery, now known as Halaf pottery, was produced. The city of Jozana, the capital of the Aramaic kingdom of Beit Bahyani, was founded on this site in the 10th century BC.
German excavator Max von Oppenheim
This archaeological site became famous thanks to the discoveries of German archaeologist and diplomat Max von Oppenheim (1860-1946). In 1899, when the region was still part of the Ottoman Empire, Oppenheim traveled from Cairo to northern Mesopotamia, where the Baghdad Railway was being built, as a representative of the Deutsche Bank. On his way there, he discovered Tel Halaf on November 19 after villagers told him about stone statues buried under sand. In just three days, several important artifacts were unearthed, including the so-called „seated goddess.”
During exploratory excavations, the entrance to the so-called „West Palace” was also uncovered. As he did not have legal permission for the excavation, Oppenheim ordered the statues to be reburied and then continued his journey. Ten years later, he returned to Tell Halaf and carried out extensive excavations between 1911 and 1913.
In 1927 and 1929, when Syria was under French mandate, he continued the excavations and discovered striking statues and architectural remains, in particular the royal palace, the temple, and the gates, which are decorated with statues and bas-reliefs made of basalt stone depicting religious and war scenes. These date from the Aramaean period (late 10th to early 9th century BC).
The journey of the finds to Berlin
The statues discovered in Tel Halaf, more than 2,000 objects and fragments, were transported to Berlin by Max von Oppenheim after the 1913 excavation at the beginning of the 20th century – allegedly to protect them from destruction. The transfer was complicated and difficult not only because of the size and weight of the sculptures and the geographical and logistical conditions at the time, but also because it was secret, as the Ottoman authorities did not grant official permission for the transfer to Berlin. The artifacts were transported from northern Syria by camel and rail to ports such as Beirut or Alexandretta and then across the Mediterranean to a port in Germany. After their arrival in Berlin, the figures were exhibited in 1930 in a museum specially set up by Oppenheim, the private Tell Halaf Museum, in an old abandoned machine factory building. This was because the Pergamon Museum, which already existed at the time, did not feel able to exhibit the finds.
At the same time, the National Museum of Aleppo was founded. It has a significant collection of Tell Halaf statues, although these are less numerous than those transported to Berlin, some of which are originals from the 1929 excavation and others copies of the Berlin originals. These pieces are kept in a section dedicated to Syrian artifacts from the Aramaean period, which is one of the museum’s highlights. Among the most important pieces are the statue of the goddess Ishtar, the statue of the scorpion man, and the winged sun disk depicting Enkidu and Gilgamesh.
Destruction in World War II and new excavation
In 1943, the Tel Halaf Museum in Berlin was bombed during an air raid in World War II, destroying all the sculptures, which were broken into 27,000 pieces. However, in an extensive restoration project that began in 2001 and lasted until 2010, a German team was able to reassemble and restore more than 30 sculptures and reliefs from the broken stone remains, which can now be seen in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
The palace gate was chosen as the entrance to the Aleppo Museum when a new museum was established in 1966. This is because the entrance is an important symbol of ancient Syrian civilization. This is particularly true of the Aramaean period, which forms the most important part of the Aleppo Museum. The gate was selected after an international competition for the best design because it fits in with the museum’s content and has important political and religious significance. Copies of the originals brought to Berlin were used for this purpose.
The museum in Aleppo was damaged both during the war in Syria and in the 2023 earthquake. However, the sculptures from Tel Halaf remained intact, with the exception of the entrance, which was severely damaged by grenades and the earthquake but is still intact and in urgent need of restoration.
After a 77-year hiatus, a Syrian-German team from the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums in Damascus and the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin, in collaboration with the universities of Halle, Munich, and Tübingen, resumed excavations at Tel Halaf in 2006. However, these excavations had to be suspended again in 2011 due to the war.
Where should important antiquities be displayed in museums?
Due to the wars in the Middle East, many people believe that it is better to move museum collections from the Middle East to Europe for their protection. But the destruction of the monuments of Tel Halaf in Berlin during World War II and the destruction of numerous Ukrainian museums in the Ukrainian-Russian war show us that there is no safe place for museum collections. There is always a potential threat, whether from war or natural disasters. Museum collections from the Middle East or other parts of the world, such as Greece and Egypt, have become an important part of European museums such as the Louvre Museum and the British Museum. However, there is currently intense debate about whether to return these collections to their countries of origin or leave them in European museums.
The entrance to the Aleppo Museum and the gate of the Kabara Palace are not only expressions of the history of ancient Syria, but also tell a chapter of the intertwined cultural relations between Syria and Germany. When German expeditions excavated the ruins of the Gozana Kingdom in Tel Halaf, they brought back fragments of a cultural identity that are now scattered across international museums and have become symbols of the struggle for cultural identity and ownership, especially after the war-related destruction of archaeological sites.
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