The collection of the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden - National Museum of Antiquities - is the only one in the world to offer a complete overview of the earliest history of the Netherlands. The museum owns more than 9700 objects from prehistoric times, the Roman period and the Middle Ages. King William I established the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden in 1818. In addition to the Dutch collection, the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden maintains and displays also the national collection of antiquities from Ancient Egypt, the Near East and the Mediterrenean world of the Greeks, Romans and Etruscans. The museums Egyptian collection is one of the best in the world.
