by the museum, and articles range from Dutch prehistoric excavations to discussions on Coptic grammar. Van Giffen’s BAI also began issuing an archaeological journal, Palaeohistoria, in 1953. It contains research reports on activities by the staff of that institute, both in the Netherlands and abroad—for example, in the Middle East and indonesia.

An important backbone of classical archaeology has been the Vereeniging tot Bevordering der Kennis van de Antieke Beschaving (Society for the Furtherance of Knowledge of Antique Civilization). From 1925 onward, the Bulletin of this society (presently called Bulletin Antieke Beschaving, or BABesch) has appeared yearly and is the major journal of Mediterranean archaeology in the Netherlands. There are more archaeological journals with a Dutch background, the larger ones being Berichten ROB (which reports on the research by the ROB), Helinivm (which caters to Dutch and Belgian audiences, mainly prehistory), Iranica Antiqua, Persica, Anatolica, and Bibliotheca Orientalis (concerned with Middle Eastern philology and archaeology), and Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane Archeologie (archaeology in the Mediterranean). Of the others, Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia (which appears irregularly) and Archaeological Dialogues (which has a theoretical orientation) should be mentioned.

Major Collections and the Archaeological Record

The major archaeological collection of the Netherlands is in the RMO. The origin of this collection lies in the first systematic display of antiquities in the Netherlands, begun in the early years of the sixteenth century, when the Baron of Wassenaar looted the Roman fortress of Brittenburg, which had emerged at the ancient mouth of the Rhine owing to natural excavations by the North Sea. In a contemporary chronicle, the Wassenaar lineage was said to have descended from the fortress’s Roman lord (Aurelius 1517), and almost two centuries later, that attribution was echoed and extended (Pars 1697). To further substantiate his claims, the baron also bought Roman artifacts from other places. The Wassenaar collection remained in the family’s Duivenvoorde Castle in Voorschoten (south of Leiden) and was enlarged over later centuries. Part of it is still there, but another part is now in the RMO in Leiden.

The antecedents of Batavian (the native Germanic dialect) were eagerly sought after the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The years of insurrection against the Hapsburg’s centralism and taxation resulted in the foundation of the Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and territorial claims were bolstered by reference to a mythical past. Reconstructions of Batavian society were published or painted, and the collection of antiquities kept pace with the political situation, tacitly forgoing local, native remains for objects from classical civilization that exemplified humanist and Renaissance ideas. One example among many stems from the early-seventeenth-century Antwerp painter Peter Paul Rubens who assembled classical statuary, which, after a detour to the collection of the Duke of Buckingham in London, was obtained by the Rotterdam brewer Reiner van der Wolff in 1660; today, part of the collection is in the RMO. In 1647, the Nehalennia sanctuary—the temple of a Romanized local goddess near the mouth of the river Scheidt—was exposed by the sea, and several altars were found on the beach. Ultimately, they ended up in the RMO.

Dutch collectors were also active in classical countries: a set of antique statues ultimately attributable to a Venice collector was bought by the Council of Holland in 1660, and early in the following century, an important collection of 150 classical marmora was bought by Gerard van Papenbroek at auction and bequeathed to Leiden University in 1743. This “cabinet of antiquities” was put on display in a specially constructed pavilion in that university’s Botanical Gardens, probably the first public exhibition of antiquities in the United Provinces. The Papenbroek collection is remarkable for its relatively complete documentation, and it, too, is now in the RMO. In the same period, another important collection was begun when the Duke of Thoms, a Dutch diplomat in Italy, published an extensive catalog of his large collection of gems and coins in 1740. This collection was purchased by the Prince of Orange in 1751, who passed it on to his heirs. Looted by the French in 1795 and later