Most museums around the world are closed to visitors, but curators are finding creative ways to engage and educate the masses.

The Yorkshire Museum in York, England, started a Twitter battle over which museum has the creepiest object and called on curators from around the world to post their photos for everyone to see.

It kicked off the competition by posting a photo of a hair bun from a Roman woman’s burial in the third or fourth century, with hair clips still in place.

The National Museum of Scotland took the contest to another level with a pink “mermaid” with rotting teeth and the creepiest eyes you’ve ever seen.

On Prince Edward Island, Canada, the PEI Museum joined the fray by submitting a cursed children’s toy found inside the walls of a 155-year-old mansion, and in Germany, the German History Museum posted a beaked plague mask from the 17th-18th century.

Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum raised the stakes with a pendant in the shape of a decaying skull beset by worms, and the Pitt Rivers Museum, another Oxford institution, offered a sheep’s heart stuck with pins and nails, made in 1911 for “breaking evil spirits.”

Historic Environment Scotland made its presence known with a man’s distorted face painted on a whale’s eardrum.

No matter how you personally feel about the items chosen for this museum battle, I think we can all agree — they’re all as creepy as can be.

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