The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden is the Dutch national museum of antiquities, with one of the finest collections of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern objects in northern Europe. The Egyptian galleries are the obvious highlight — sarcophagi, mummies, statues, household furniture — and the whole collection is housed in an elegant 19th-century building on the Rapenburg.
The reconstructed Temple of Taffeh stands in the entrance hall: a complete Nubian sandstone temple, a kilometre from the canal where Rembrandt was born. The Roman and prehistoric Netherlands galleries are also strong and well-labelled in English.