From collecting ladies hair to the fascinating history of barbed wire, here are 11 of the
strangest museums in the world!
11.
International Cryptozoological Museum
Like so many museums on this list, this one is the only of its kind.
The International Cryptozoological Museum in Maine, USA is a formal archival museum.
Cryptozoology is the study of hidden or unknown animals.
This includes Bigfoot, the Yeti, and Sea Monsters.
However, it also includes animals unproven to science.
Animals that have been recently found were once considered cryptids, like the mountain
gorilla, okapi, megamouth shark, and the coelacanth.
Therefore, it's not necessarily a branch of pseudo-science for the crazy.
According to their website, the International Cryptozoological Museum's mission to educate,
inform, and share cryptozoological evidence, artifacts, replicas, and popular cultural
items with the general public, media, students, scholars, and cryptozoologists from around
the world.
It came about in 2003 when the museum was founded by cryptozoologist, Loren Coleman.
The museum's collection includes an 8-foot-tall representation of Bigfoot, one hundred footcasts
believed to belong to Bigfoot, the Yeti, and others, a six foot-long model of a coelacanth,
and reproductions of fakes like the Fiji mermaid and furred trout.
Cryptid-related props are also on display, such as The Mothman Prophecies' Point Pleasant
"police" outfit, the TV series Freakylinks' 22 foot wide "Thunderbird," and some of
Magnolia's falling frogs.
The collection is shown in a fun and engaging manner because Coleman sees cryptozoology
as a "gateway science".
Part of the mission of the museum is to spark the interest of young people in more popularly-accepted
exploratory and research-oriented disciplines like biology and anthropology.
10.
Icelandic Phallological Museum
The name of Reykjavik's Icelandic Phallological Museum probably gives you a hint as to the
nature of its collection.
This museum contains the largest collection of phallic specimens, most of which were gathered
from land and sea mammals that live in Iceland.
At present, the museum houses more than 215 penises and penile parts.
It also contains four human penises and a so-called "elf" penis.
The museum itself got its start because of a joke.
In 1974, Sigurður "Siggi" Hjartarson received a bull's penis as a gag gift.
Hjartarson worked as the headmaster of a secondary school.
After he was given the bull's penis, other teachers began bringing him whale penises
to tease him further.
I don't know how the actual gag-gift/tradition got started.
Hopefully they didn't give him these gag gifts at school because I don't think that
would have been very appropriate.
Gradually, the idea arose to create a real collection of various penises and penile parts.
In the 1990s, a museum was opened to show off the "growing" collection.
Hjartarson's son Hjörtur Gísli Sigurðsson inherited the collection from his father and
now acts as the museum's curator.
9.
The Museum of Bad Art
If you love art but maybe feel like what you picture in your mind isn't exactly what
comes out on paper, don't worry.
There's at least one place in the world that will showcase your art no matter how
ugly people might say it is behind your back: The Museum of Bad Art in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Their slogan is, "Art too bad to ignore."
The collection began when founder Scott Wilson pulled the first piece, dubbed Lucy in the
Field with Flowers, out of a trash heap.
Since the museum opened its doors in 1994, it has horrified the eyes of all visitors.
It's not enough for the art to just be ugly, however.
Curator in Chief Michael Frank sifts through bad artwork from the world over, looking for
art that has a special quality that sets it apart.
You wouldn't think a place like this would be popular but the gallery has opened branches
in other parts of Massachusetts as well, both near Boston.
Today, the collection consists of over 600 pieces.
8.
The Museum of Broken Relationships
When Croatian artists Olinka Vistina and Drazen Grubisic separated, they found themselves
reluctant to part with the sentimental reminders of their relationship.
This spawned the idea of the Museum of Broken Relationships, which has two main museums:
one in Zagreb, Croatia and the other in Los Angeles, USA.
However, there are smaller exhibits all over the world.
People are free to mail in items to be exhibited.
Besides the anticipated teddy bears and letters, the collection also includes a few poignant
and sometimes unsettling surprises.
One woman sent in her wedding dress crammed into a mayonnaise jar.
She could have resold it for someone to wear it again, but I guess cramming it into a mayonnaise
jar is symbolic enough of the broken relationship...
Another wedding-related item, this one from Norway, is an iron.
The man who sent it in explained it was used to iron the suit he wore at his wedding.
Now, it's all that's left of the marriage.
There's an unopened bottle of wine from Britain, with a card beside it explaining
it once belonged to a couple having an affair.
They planned to open it once they left their respective spouses.
A Slovenian sent in a key with a card that reads, "You turned my head; you just did
not want to sleep with me.
I realized how much you loved me only after you died of AIDS."
As melancholy of a subject as it may seem, the museums are very popular.
Over 1,000 people a week visit the collection in Los Angeles.
Many parents actually use it as a way to talk to their kids about love, sex, and relationships.
7.
The Dog Collar Museum
Leeds Castle in Kent, England, has plenty of significance that has nothing to do with
dog collars.
This massive castle is England's most visited historic building and its rich history includes
being a Norman stronghold and a private castle for England's monarchs.
It was donated to the Leeds Foundation in the 1970s and opened to the public.
In 1977, Gertrude Hunt, the wife of the Irish medieval scholar John Hunt, donated her husband's
collection of historic dog collars.
Hunt's collection included the earliest dog collar in record: a late 15th century
Spanish iron herd mastiff's collar, would have been worn for protection against wolves
and bears.
Collars began with a practical function meant to protect the dog with some collars having
spikes that could be used to harm any attacking predator.
As dogs became more popular as pets, collars morphed into practical metal bands that could
be decorated different ways.
It wasn't until the 18th century that people began engraving names on collars to help return
lost dogs.
Since the initial donation, more collars have been collected and the collection now contains
more than 130 rare and valuable collars.
The Leeds Foundation is committed to enlarging the museum and gladly accepts donated collars
and searches for them far and wide.
6.
The Kansas Barbed Wire Museum
In LaCrosse, Kansas there is a museum dedicated to barbed wire, specifically as it relates
to the history of the Great Plains.
Just in case you don't know, barbed wire is metal wire with barbed knots on it and
is used for creating fences.
The Kansas Barbed Wire Museum exhibits over 2,100 barbed wire varieties, as well as sculptures
made out of the wire.
Hundreds of antique fencing tools illustrate the inventiveness of pioneers in the United
States.
Probably more than you ever wanted to know...
The Kansas Barbed Wire Museum includes dioramas of early barbed wire use, a theater featuring
educational films, the Barbed Wire Hall of Fame, the museum archives room, and a research
library telling the story of the settling the Midwest, range wars between homesteaders
and cattlemen, and the transformation of the open prairie into what is now called America's
bread basket.
The exhibit takes about 30 minutes but there are people who spend hours staring at the
fascinating history of, yes, barbed wire.
That's one way to take a break during a road trip.
5.
Sulabh International Museum of Toilets
In India, more than half of the country's 1.2 billion people defecate in the open because
they do not have access to safe and private toilets.
The numbers were no doubt worse in 1970 when Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, a humanitarian and
social worker, introduced pay-to-use public toilets in a small village in Patna, Bihar.
Today, over 15 million people across the country use public toilets constructed by Sulabh International,
a non-profit Pathak founded.
Sulabh International's mission is to promote safe sanitation habits and provide public
toilet facilities throughout India.
With 50,000 volunteers devoted to the cause, Sulabh International is India's largest
nonprofit organization.
In 1992, they opened the International Museum of Toilets in its New Delhi offices as part
of its mission to promote hygiene and sanitation.
The museum takes up one long room in the building and traces the history and development of
toilet system around the world.
This history goes back 5000 years from the brick commodes of the ancient Harappan settlement
near Pakistan, through the Middle Ages to the modern day toilet with electrically controlled
flush system.
The museum also provides a chronological account of developments relating to technology, toilet
related social customs, toilet etiquettes, prevailing sanitary conditions, and legislative
efforts of the times.
Among its most prized possessions is a flush pot devised in 1596 by Sir John Harrington,
a courtier of Queen Elizabeth I, a gem-studded bided of Queen Victoria, table-top toilets
from England, and a couple of highly decorated commodes from Austria.
Some of the toilets of these periods were meant to blend into a room.
There is a French one that looks like a stack of books, and an English one resembling a
treasure chest.
Hanging on the walls are display boards with poems, comics, jokes and cartoons related
to toilet humor.
However, one of its most amusing displays is a full-size replica throne from the court
of the French King, Louis XIII, with a hidden commode underneath it.
The King used it to relieve himself while still in court.
4.
Hair Museum
Though calling it a museum may be a bit of a stretch, a pottery center/guest house in
Avanos, Turkey displays thousands of locks of hair, all from female visitors.
The story goes that the local potter, Chez Galip, was bidding farewell to a dear friend
of his when he asked for something to remember her by.
She cut off a lock of her hair and gave it to him.
So romantic!
He went on to tell the story to the visitors and tourists who passed through, leading to
other women leaving a piece of their hair behind as a way to be part of the story.
The museum started in 1979 when Galip put up a selection of hair for display.
Today, it now holds an estimated 16,000 samples, along with slips of papers showing the names
and addresses of the former owners.
The museum has also been included in the Guinness Book of World Records.
3.
Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum
Ah yes, college and ramen noodles!
While it's kind of a joke, ramen noodles have become an indispensable part of many
people's lives, providing for snacks and late-night or emergency meals.
Or, when you're too tired to cook.
In Japan alone annual consumption of instant noodles rose to 5.4 billion servings.
Yes, billion with a "b".
Osaka, Japan was the place where the first instant noodle was made.
So, it makes sense that the city would also boast an instant ramen museum.
The Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum contains the hut where Ando came up with instant noodles.
Its displays highlight the different instant noodles around the world, and the obstacles
Ando had to overcome to develop the classic.
The "Interactive Cup Noodle Theatre" is a theater shaped like a giant cup of noodles
and shows a video about how Ando came up with the ideas for the cup noodles as well as how
cup noodles are made.
Perhaps the museum's most popular attraction, is the workshop where you can create your
own noodle cup.
2.
The Sewer Museum
If there's a Toilet Museum, it only makes sense that one for sewers would exist.
This museum can be found in Paris, France.
In 1805, before the advent of the modern sewers, Pierre Bruneseau, an adventurer of sorts,
decided to map Paris' ancient and aging sewer system.
Even the police were afraid to enter the sewers for fear of monsters and dangerous criminals,
but that didn't slow down Bruneseau, who found lost medieval dungeons, jewels, and
the skeleton of an escaped orangutan.
Bruneseau finished his survey in 1812 and was lauded as the most intrepid man in the
French Empire and the Christopher Columbus of the cesspool.
In 1850, the modern Paris sewer system was designed and, by 1878, the sewer system spread
over 373 miles long.
Today, the network extends 2,100 kilometers beneath the streets of Paris, or farther than
the distance from New York to Miami.
The Parisian sewers are a mirror to the streets above.
All are large enough to accommodate a person, and you could rather easily navigate your
way around the entirety of Paris via the sewer system.
Each sewer "street" has its own blue and white enamel street sign, and its real street
number identifies each building's outflow.
One of the more intriguing displays is a giant iron ball.
The sewers are regularly cleaned using large wooden or metal spheres just smaller than
the system's tunnels.
The buildup of water pressure behind the balls forces them through the tunnel network until
they emerge somewhere downstream, pushing a mass of filthy sludge.
Oh, and one of the rules of the museum is that you must wash your hands when you leave.
1.
Museum of the Holy Souls in Purgatory
Called "Museo delle Anima del Purgatorio" in Italian, this small museum consists of
a single room in the Church of the Sacred Heart of Suffrage in Rome, Italy.
Purgatory, according to Catholic doctrine, is a place or state of existence after death
for souls who aren't going to Hell but aren't ready for Heaven.
Souls remain in Purgatory until they are purified from their attachment to sin and ready to
enter Heaven.
But do those souls ever try to communicate to the living?
According to this museum, the answer is yes.
In 1897, a fire destroyed a small chapel in the Church of the Sacred Heart of Suffrage.
While inspecting the damage, the parish priest Fr.
Victor Jouët found burn marks on the wall behind the altar.
They looked like a human face with a sad expression.
Convinced it was a sign left by a soul trapped in purgatory trying to get help from the living,
Fr.
Jouët felt inspired to seek out similar occurrences.
Through his life, the priest collected about a dozen or so objects and photographs, all
of which are supposedly marked by a soul seeking help.
He displayed them in the same room where the chapel once stood, making the human face on
the wall part of the collection.
Eerily, Fr.
Jouët died in that room in 1912.
Nothing has been added to the collection since.
The collection consists of books, tabletops, and articles of clothing all bearing scorch
marks.
Some of the marks in the shape of crosses while other are in the shape of hands.
The Catholic Church does not endorse the museum, but that doesn't keep away tourists looking
for a message from those that have passed on..
Have you ever been to any of these museums?
Let us know in the comments below!
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