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A blood-soaked doll with a missing eye, a smiling executioner’s mask, a sheep’s heart stuck with pins and nails strung on a loop of cord.
These are just some of the weird and wonderful pieces competing to become the creepiest relics in the world after a British museum put out a call on Twitter challenging curators to display their most gruesome objects.
“Museums Assemble! It’s time for #CURATORBATTLE!. Today’s theme, chosen by you, is #CreepiestObject!,” The Yorkshire Museum tweeted on Friday, and the entrants have been pouring in since, captivating a locked-down world.
To kick things off, the museum posted a picture of a hair bun from the burial of a Roman woman in the 3rd or 4th century which still has the hair pins sticking out.
The challenge was quickly taken up by dozens of museums across the world including from Europe, Canada and the U.S., which took great delight in showing off their chilling and gruesome collections.
Dan Hicks, an archaeology professor at the University Of Oxford, posted a gruesome image of an early 20th century sheep’s heart impaled with nails to “break evil spells.” National Museums Scotland sent in a grisly image of a mermaid complete with a set of rotting teeth. “Okay I’m not sleeping tonight,” the Yorkshire Museum Twitter account responded.
A particularly freaky item was a Plague Mask (1650/1750) sent in by Berlin’s Deutsches Historisches Museum:
While Canada’s Prince Edward Island Museum sent in a hexed 150-year-old hobby horse children’s toy that it claims moves on its own. “Staff put it one place and find it in another spot later on …” the museum tweeted.
So far, the #CreepiestObject tweets have been seen by more than by more than 1.8 million people, with nearly 900,000 engagements, Lee Clark, communications manager at York Museums Trust told MarketWatch. The responses, of which they’ve had more than a thousand, have been “fantastic,” he said.
The informal competition is part of a weekly #curatorbattle Yorkshire Museum has launched on social media to still engage with audiences while in lockdown.
“We are delighted so many museums have shared objects to the threads, which have become like global exhibitions of remarkable finds. We have had brilliant responses from the public too, sharing their personal objects, stories and reactions to posts. We can’t wait until tomorrow to see what the next #curatorbattle will bring,” Clark said.
Museums across the world have been hit hard by strict social distancing measures aimed at controlling the rapid spread of the coronavirus pandemic. While closures have left them without income from entrance fees or donations, many have turned to virtual experiences and online exhibitions as self-isolation has led to a rise in people browsing online collections.
“We are struggling. York Museums Trust is a charity and because we have closed we have lost 70% of our income, as most of it comes from visitor admissions,” Clark said.
Google GOOG, +1.49% Arts & Culture has teamed up with over 2,000 museums and galleries world-wide to provide virtual tours and online exhibits of some of the most famous museums around the world.
Other disturbing submissions in the #curatorbattles competition included a 155-year-old piece of side meat and a warped man’s face painted on a whale’s eardrum.. Minnesota’s official natural history, Bell Museum, sent in a mummified pigeon: “Sealed into the wall of a building, this pigeon died, desiccated and then its feathers were eaten clean by insects.”
