Altes Museum

The Ägyptisches Museum (Egyptian Museum) owns one of the world’s most important collections of Ancient Egyptian Art. Through its pieces of art especially of the time of King Akhenaton (around 1340 BC) from Tell el Amarna the museum has reached world niveau and renown. Famous works such as the bust of Queen Nefertiti, the portrait of Queen Tiy and the famous “Berlin Green Head” belong to the collection.

The Egyptian Museum and Paypyrus Collection closed its doors at its location in Charlottenburg and returned to the Museum Island in Berlin-Mitte, where it reopened its doors 13 August 2005 in the Altes Museum.

The collection

The impressive collection of the Egyptian Museum includes masterworks belonging to different epochs of ancient Egypt: statues reliefs as well as monumental pieces of Egyptian architecture document the different time periods of ancient Egypt from 4000 BC up to the Roman Period.

In addition to the bust of Queen Nefertiti, whose original colour is preserved without restoration since the Amarna period, other pieces such as the sculptured portraits of the royal family and members of the royal court are also unique. The most significant work of the late period is the so called Berlin “Green Head” named after its greenish stone (ca. 500 BC).

The Altes Museum, built between 1823 and 1830 after the design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, is one of the most important works in the architecture of Classicism. With a lucidly ordered exterior and an interior structure of great precision after the Ancient Greek style, Schinkel pursued Humboldt’s idea of the museum as an educational institution open to the public.

The monumental order of the 18 fluted ionic columns, the wide stretch of the atrium, the rotunda – an explicit reference to the pantheon in Rome – and finally the grand staircase are all architectural elements which, up to this point, were reserved for stately buildings.

Originally built to house all of Berlin’s art collections, the Altes Museum has accommodated the Collection of Classical Antiquities since 1904. Between 1943 and 1945 the building was severely damaged by fire. Reconstruction work continued up until 1966. Since 1998 the Collection of Classical Antiquities has displayed its Greek collection, including the treasury, on the ground floor of the Altes Museum. The Egyptian Museum has, since August 2005, shown its collection on the upper floor where it will remain until it moves to the Neues Museum in 2009.