★★★★★ 5.0
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Allard Pierson Museum of Antiquities
Rails for money trolleys still cut through the entrance hall floor beneath your feet... because you're standing in the former fortress of Dutch finance, the old headquarters of De Nederlandsche Bank. But this story runs much deeper than gold and guilders. As you approach this stately 19th-century banking facade on Oude Turfmarkt, you're walking over six centuries of buried secrets. Excavations here uncovered pewter spoons and earthenware from 1402, when Franciscan nuns of the Nieuwe Nonnenklooster lived in quiet devotion exactly where you stand. The medieval sisters never imagined that bankers would later wheel cartloads of currency through their sacred halls. Look closely at that angled rear wall inside - it follows the exact curve of the Amstel River from around 1400, and medieval monks actually chiseled the river's original course into the floor stones. The building literally bends with history. Now those ancient walls protect 6,000 years of human civilization, from Egyptian mummies to Roman pottery, making this Amsterdam's most layered treasure vault.
Did You Know?
- The Allard Pierson Museum is housed in a striking former bank building—the original headquarters of De Nederlandsche Bank—where architectural relics like rails for money trolleys still run from the quay into the entrance hall, blending Amsterdam’s financial history with its archaeological treasures.
- The museum’s collection includes the world’s only known true-to-life portrait of the Persian king Artaxerxes III, a unique artifact that offers a rare glimpse into the real appearance of an Achaemenid ruler, unlike the stylized official images found elsewhere.
- Though named after Allard Pierson, the museum’s foundation was actually shaped by the merger of two major private collections: that of banker Constant Lunsingh Scheurleer, acquired after the 1929 economic crash, and the antiquities bequeathed by professor Jan Six, whose death in 1926 prompted the creation of the Allard Pierson Foundation to preserve these treasures for public education and research.