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 Neptune's Triuphant Return
N 52° 23.568 E 013° 03.614
33U E 368008 N 5806498
A 300 year old fountain, about the be restored to its old beauty
Waymark Code: WM39V6
Location: Brandenburg, Germany
Date Posted: 03/02/2008
Views: 123
Neptune's Triumph
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250 Years of History
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This fountain dates back almost 300 years in which it was built, rebuilt, demolished, buried, forgotten, accidentally unearthed and finally restored.
Originally, the area was a part of Potsdam’s City Castle. In the early 18th century, the basin was connected to the river and served as a dock for the yacht of King Frederick I.
Later, King Frederick II turned the dock into a basin and ordered architect Johann August Nahl to design a glorious fountain. In 1749, the sculpture group "The Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite Stilling the Waves" or "Neptune’s Triumph" for short, was finished with gold-plated sand stone sculptures.
Throughout the next 200 years, the sculptures were repaired and replaced many times but the theme remained intact as the picture below, taken in the 1930s indicates.
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The fountain suffered major damage during the bombings and battles of World War II and remained a ruin until the early 1950s, when communist authorities ordered the complete demolition of the castle’s remains.
In 1952, a soccer stadium, made mainly of the rubble of the castle, was built in this place. The location of one goal line roughly coincided with the location of the former fountain.
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Communist authorities worked very hard to let Potsdam’s royal past slip into oblivion and in the case of Neptune’s fountain they almost succeeded – most people of the post war generation living in Potsdam, including the author of this waymark, never knew about the fountain.
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Restoration
In 2000, the stadium was demolished in an effort to restore the castle's original pleasure garden. To the surprise of many, a backhoe brought up fragments of statues buried in the ground for 50 years. Careful excavation unearthed the foundation of the basin, one complete statue and pieces of two others. When word got around about the find, some more fragments, hidden by a private collector, were returned.
The first two restored sculptures
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What are all those weird metal pipes for?
Under the lead of Potsdam’s Rotary Club, efforts have been made to restore the complete fountain. So far, donations financed the restoring of a second figure in the group. Two modern artists, Rainer Fürstenberg and Raiko Epperlein, designed a metal structure, outlining the shapes of the original group and, hopefully, showing the progress of the restoration.
Metal structure, outlining the missing pieces
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Mist Fountain
The artists included a fundraiser in their creation: for the price of one Euro, one can start the coin-operated mist fountain and for five minutes one can travel back in time and get an idea of what the place must have looked like 250 years ago.
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| Visit Instructions:
Please post another photo of the fountain and tell us your opinion about the fountain.
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