The hunt is on to find the creepiest exhibits in the world's museums after the challenge was launched by a group of curators in the north of England. 

The Yorkshire Museum in the city of York lay down the gauntlet after lockdown restrictions meant the gallery was forced to close its doors to members of the public, leaving staff with time on their hands.

The informal contest got under way when the museum published photos on its twitter page of a bun of hair cut from the head of a Roman woman and dating from the third or fourth century, complete with hairpins still holding the locks tidily in place. The grisly relic was unearthed at a third century burial site in the city, and dates from the time when York was known as "Eboracum" the Roman capital of northern Britannia.

Within hours, the responses were flooding in under the hashtag #Curatorbattle and #Creepiestobject, as galleries from across the U.S. and Europe added their own equally ghoulish artefacts. 

One of the first to respond was the National Museums of Scotland with one of its weirder exhibits, a model of a mermaid complete with claw-like hands and rotting teeth.

Before long the challenge had gone global with Prince Edward Island Museum in Canada tweeting a picture of an odd-looking children's toy discovered in the walls of an abandoned mansion. Nicknamed "Wheelie," "...it MOVES ON ITS
OWN: Staff put it in one place and find it in another spot later on," curators warned.

While the German History Museum in Berlin tweeted a picture of a so-called "plague mask." These terrifying contraptions shaped like the head of a bird were in use in the 1600s, usually by charlatans who claimed to be able to treat victims of the bubonic plague.

Not to be outdone, the Pitt Rivers Museum in the city of Oxford, which houses one of the world's biggest collections of anthropological artefacts, offered a picture of a sheep's heart stuck through with iron pins. The object was in use in rural England as late as the early 20th century, supposedly for breaking spells and curses.

Staff at the Yorkshire museum say they are overwhelmed by the response to the #creepiestobject challenge, which has kept them occupied during the past few days of the lockdown. 

One curator added: "It is great for us and other museums to be able to still share our collections with the public when our doors are closed. We just hope we haven't given anyone any nightmares!"