BERLIN.- For everything we’ve ever wanted to know about the Museum of the Ancient Near East… Director Beate Salje has the answers. Who were the most important discoverers and excavators of the archaeological objects in your collection? Well for a start, the architect Robert Koldewey, who worked ceaselessly from 1899 to 1917 in Babylon and who ranks as one of the pioneers of scientific field research. One member of his team, Walter Andrae, started the digs in Ashur which he later completed in 1914. In 1928 he was appointed director of the Museum of the Ancient Near East and it’s him we have to thank for the visionary philosophy behind the museum’s display strategy that continues to fascinate visitors today with its spectacular architectural reconstructions. Is there an exhibit that particularly interests you more than any other? What gets me excited is not an object itself, rather the way the objects depicting Mesopotamia’s cultural history are displayed in Walter Andrae’s over