What's on

The Allard Pierson manages a large and important collection of maps and atlases. Thousands of them were made and traded in Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th centuries. Reproductions of about a thousand maps can be viewed in the freely accessible GeoZone.

Browse through centuries-old atlases on a touch table. The results of current research and new applications are also presented here.

Upon request, we will make a print for you from a selection of maps in the Allard Pierson collection - from Dutch polders to all continents combined.
 

Explore the Allard Pierson's archaeology collection. From the animal mummies of Ancient Egypt and the decorated pottery of Greece to fragile Roman glass and textiles preserved by the desert sand: these objects bring both makers and users very close. It is stunning to see how cultures influenced each other in many ways, across times, seas and borders.

The permanent exhibition is located on the first floor of the museum. You can start your journey of discovery in the gallery on the origins of script, or in the Egyptian cabinet, with its stories about temples and gods. It’s easy to wander for hours in the galleries on the Greek and Roman worlds. Marvel at the reconstruction of an Etruscan tomb in Italy, full of pottery vessels. A separate gallery is dedicated to the culture of Egyptian Christians in the early Middle Ages.

Do you like listening to music? Find out more about the Allard Pierson's audio collections in this space. Analogue sound recordings such as tapes and cassettes are digitised here. In The Studio, you can listen to recordings from the Muziek Centrum Nederland (Nederlands Jazz Archief, Nederlands Pop Instituut, Donemus and Gaudeamus) and the Theater Instituut Nederland. From gems of Dutch lyric-driven songs to legendary recordings from the Bimhuis.

The Allard Pierson owns nearly 300 casts of sculptures from antiquity, mainly copies from the Greek classical and Hellenistic periods. These sculptures offer insight into how eras and cultures influenced each other. Many of these copies are based on Greek originals, sometimes through Roman versions having their own distinctive features. The revaluation of ancient sculptures in the 16th and 17th centuries, too, played a major role in the development of Western European art. 

Our curators regularly pick up pearls from the collections and write blogs about them on our website.  In the Cabinet of Stories, one of the Allard Pierson's finest spaces, there’s a new object for you to explore every few months, highlighted in an accompanying blog by one of our curators. In a video made especially for this small presentation, you can watch the curator talking to an expert from the field. What can an object from the past tell us today?

Check out our past exhibitions here.