Rijksmuseum van Oudheden
Royal Museum of Antiquities
Rapenburg 28
2311 EW Leiden
Telephone: 071–516 31 63
E-mail: info@rmo.nl
Opening hours:
Daily from 10am to 5pm
Entrance fees:
up to 18 years free
adults: 14.00 euros
The Museum of Antiquities in Leiden is a very special museum because it takes you back very far in time. It is beautifully situated on the Rapenburg in Leiden. We are here on a very quiet day, summer vacation has just begun. Which is really nice, because now the youngest can see everything very well. Here you will learn a lot about the Classical Antiquity and we start on the ground floor, with the Egyptians.
The Ancient Greeks and Romans, also very popular with our little monsters, will follow later upstairs. You will also learn about the Etruscans and the peoples from the Ancient Near East where the Assyrians and the Nubians lived, They might be less known to children.
Hint!
- During the summer vacation there's an artistic workshop Little Paestum for children aged 6 years old and over, which is super fun!
- Young and older can participate in the family discovery and listening route Go visit a Roman villa
When you enter this museum in the hall you will immediately see a small Egyptian temple which you can enter, with a large sarcophagus standing next to it. How incredible is it that all these beautiful, centuries old objects have been preserved for so long to be later discoverd and excaveted? So you, who are standing here today in 2024 in the Netherlands on an ordinary summer's day, can look at all these very rare and extremely old objects. It's truly amazing!
Pharaoh's as well as important people who died in Ancient Egypt were first mummified. When ready they were put in a most beautiful decorated wooden coffin, which was kept in a stone sarcophagus and then placed in the burial chambers in a pyramid, We often read that both burrial coffins are called a sarcophagus. The wooden coffin in which the mummy lies as well as the stone sarcophagus in which the mummy coffin was placed.n coffin
But that's not right, says our guide from the audio tour. Only the stone coffins are called sarcophagi, those made of wood are simply called mummy coffins. That is fun fact for us, that such beautifully painted coffins are simply called mummy coffins.
Here you see all kinds of Ancient Egyptian amulets. Hundreds of types of amulets have been found from the ancient Egyptian civilization. For example figures of gods, animals, body parts, utensils and hieroglyphs. The type of amulet is depending on their function and the period they were made in.
Still dozens of amulets are sometimes found between the wrappings of one single mummy. Those amulets should shield the deceased from evil and give him or her all sorts of protection in the afterlife.
The fact that so much is known about Egyptian civilization is largely due to writing. Because the Ancient Egyptians wrote and drew on every stone, clay tablet and later papyrus, scientists in later times could read firsthand what daily and court life looked like at that time.
Because there are not that many people who can read hieroglyphs, we are lucky that there were scientists worldwide who recognized the importance of this. Who wanted to learn to read this script and thus also be able better to interpret the illustrations. As a result, we now know so much about the lives of the people who lived in the Antiquity.
Then on to the first floor
In this section you see the most beautiful Roman statues and the head of Julius Caesar, in statue form and as he would probably have looked like when he was alive. We also see impressive Roman masks, helmets and much more. But also Etruscan objects en some from the Near East. Then you walk right into the Greek Antiquity.
We mention sports and the Olympic Games first because today most people worldwide watch this on television. From the lighting of the Olympic flame to the closing ceremony.
But the classical civilization of the ancient Greeks also played a global leading role in developments in science, the visual arts, architecture, politics, economics and agriculture, from which we still benefit today.
When you step inside this area there is a very large map showing where the Roman settlements were located in the Netherlands. Here you will find a small exhibition with all kinds of objects that have been excavated from those settlements in the Netherlands. By archaeologists or sometimes by farmers, who plowed the fields.
The most unusual things have been dug up in this country, even human remains. Also a mass grave with the skeletons of many horses which fought in a long ago war. Please read the text in the next photograph for the details.
Some objects are incredibly well preserved, like this beautiful helmet. Also weapons, jewelry, statues, pots, dishes and other earthen ware were perfectly preserved in the ground, but other objects were dug up damaged. We believe these objects all are very special, because they take us back to the people who lived here before us, a very long time ago.
Then it's time to buy souvenirs and have coffee and a snack, before we go home. Our monsters like the cute cuddly toys and the books best, but for grandma they choose a beautiful Egyptian cat, wearing an amulet and a magnet on her back, so she can stick to the refrigerator.
Today was a wonderful, well spent vacation day! Young and older enjoyed themselves very much and we all learned a lot, about things we did not know all that well. We will surely come back to the Rijksmuseum of Antiquity again!
News!
- Up to and including September 22 you can see prehistoric spiers, found in the Netherlands at the mini-exhibition On the hunt for Doggerland
- In October there will be an exhibition about the Bronze Age, in this museum
Happy Summer Vacation!