The Altes Museum is the oldest museum in Berlin. It is located inside the so-called "Museum Island", declared a Unesco World Heritage Site, and was founded in 1830. The Neoclassical style building was designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, one of the leading architects of German Neoclassicism, to house the collection of the royal family. The monumental building has a long facade with 18 Ionic columns, a monumental staircase leading to a rotunda not visible from the outside, decorated with statues interspersed with ancient sculptures, with an explicit reference to the Roman Pantheon. Already in 1830 it was decided to transform it into a museum, opening its doors to the public, with an explicit program already present in the inscription on the portico which reads: "Friedrich Willhelm III dedicated this museum to the study of all antiquities and free arts. 1828 ". Today, the Altes Museum houses a vast collection entirely dedicated to ancient art, especially Greek, but also Etruscan and Roman (Antikensammlung). The Etruscan art collection is one of the largest in the world outside of Italy, with famous works such as the house-shaped urns of Chiusi and the clay tablet of Capua. The Roman art collection, on the other hand, reveals precious artifacts such as the Hildesheim silver find and the portraits of Caesar and Cleopatra . The numismatic cabinet (Münzkabinett) further completes the museum's collection, and preserves the first coins from the 7th century BC, up to the coins of the crisis years of the Roman Empire at the end of the 3rd century AD