Fright Night at the Metropolitan Museum

Do you think of the Met as all Classical nudes and Renaissance Madonnas? Well, look again! In the obscure and hidden corners of the museum there’s a world of strange, unusual and sometimes chilling artifacts—things you’d never imagine are hiding in plain sight.

But they form part of our heritage, and reveal things about us that are a counterpoint to our traditional views about what constitutes art. On this intriguing two-hour tour you’ll:

Encounter the Met’s surprisingly large collection of corpses;

· Learn about the vases in which the ancient Egyptians stored mummified livers, entrails and lungs—and just how important those bits and pieces were for the afterlife;

· Find out about New Guinea’s headhunters, and see the hooks they hung their enemies’ skulls on;

· Learn why African power figures are stuck full of nails;

· Meet the Met’s only painting with two castrati; and

· Discover if the cradle that rocks itself will rock for you!

Once you’ve completed this tour, you’ll see the Met as more than just a house of art—it’s also a giant cemetery, a cabinet of curios and a map to the less-explored recesses of the human mind. And you’ll realize that in addition to celebrating beauty, art also explores anxiety, death, violence and our darkest fears.