THE WORLD'S WEIRDEST MUSEUMS

Jenny Ackland takes a whirlwind tour of some of the oddest exhibitions on the planet.

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Have you got any unusual interests or strange collections? Maybe you have a selection of oddly shaped rocks or colourful feathers on display in your bedroom. Well, what you're actually doing is creating your own unique mini-museum. Because that's all a museum is – lots of interesting things in one place.

Perhaps you have been to some world-famous galleries such as London's Natural History Museum and gazed up at the amazing dinosaur and animal skeletons on display. These places are filled with lots of weird and wonderful things, from huge spaceships and life-sized planes to ancient mummies. However, there are less well-known collections out there and some of them contain bizarre items that might shock, surprise... or even disgust you.

Where it all began

Museums have been around for a long time. A princess in the ancient city of Ur, called Ennigaldi-Nanna, is thought to have opened the first one more than 2,500 years ago. She organised her collection of artefacts – which included the statue of a king – with explanations written on clay labels written in three languages. Archaeologists (experts who study ancient objects to help us understand history) discovered her treasures in 1925, giving them a valuable glimpse into life thousands of years ago.

Britain's first public museum opened in 1683. Elias Ashmole had donated his collection to Oxford University a few years earlier, and the Ashmolean Museum was built to display them all. His items were added to the university's own artefacts and, today, highlights include ancient Egyptian mummies and the lantern said to have been carried by Guy Fawkes when he was arrested underneath the Houses of Parliament. There are now about 2,500 museums and galleries in the UK and around 100,000 worldwide.