As the collection of the Old Museum was growing larger, it required new facilities. The issue was solved with the construction of a new building which already in 1859 hosted first visitors.
The building was severely damaged during World War II and stayed in ruins for a long time. Reconstruction only began in the 1980s. The renovated museum opened in 2009. Its halls hold exhibits of the Egyptian Museum and a collection of papyruses. Statues, reliefs, colourful statuettes, stone sarcophagi, papyruses tell the story of the Ancient Egypt from 3000 B.C. till the Roman Empire. The gem of the collection is the bust of Nefertiti. The same building hosts the museum of prehistoric period and early history with the world’s largest collection of prehistoric archeology of the Old World from palaeolith till the Medieval Ages. It is here that you can see Trojan gold discovered by Heinrich Schliemann, and the skull of a Neanderthal from Le Moustier.