Museum Secrets

We climb a scaffold to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to discover the secret of Michelangelo’s genius and why he feuded with the Pope. We hunt for the miscreants who defaced a Raphael masterpiece with hate filled graffiti. The censor who was responsible for putting fig leaves on penises is revealed and a visit to the Vatican’s Secret Archives uncovers the true story of the Knights Templar.

The secrets of the Mona Lisa are unveiled – the brazen theft and how it became the most famous painting in history. The official portrait of Napoleon’s coronation is scrutinized to reveal a canvas of lies. We re-stage the freak jousting accident that killed a French king and find out whether modern medicine could have saved him. And we probe a king’s murder to discover if the assailant was a lone assassin or in league with a conniving queen.

A tiny Egyptian baby mummy is unwrapped to find out how it died 2000 years ago. Two theories are tested to determine whether 12th Century Islamic vessels were bongs or bombs. A dinosaur lost for decades within the museum’s walls is pieced together into the colossal skeleton of a Barosaurus. The great-great grandson of Sitting Bull is brought into the museum to discern whether the museum’s prized Sioux headdress belonged to his illustrious ancestor. And finally, the stuffed remains of a 1930s prize-winning bulldog are examined to uncover a disturbing revelation about the dangers of unnatural selection.

We search for the lost tomb of Ramesses the Great, then, we recreate the last violent moments of an ancient king to discover if he was a brave or cowardly man. We visit the stomping grounds of Indiana Jones to discover how a poor Pharaoh amassed a hoard of gold to rival King Tut, and enter an underground animal necropolis to find out why ancient Egyptians mummified cats, baboons and falcons by the millions. Cryptic inscriptions discovered on a pyramid’s capstone reveal the secret of the pyramid’s spiritual power, and King Khufu’s pyramid is searched for his true likeness in a chamber that includes a locked, unopened door.

An old skull is examined to discover if prehistoric Brits were cannibals and a killer shark is pulled from a pool of formaldehyde to find out how its genetic makeup helped swimmers win Olympic gold in Sydney. We dare a curator to handle a famous gem said to curse all who touch it, and then enter a once top-secret room where WWII spymasters created a bomb that came within a hair of killing Hitler. And we evaluate a perfectly preserved specimen of a Dodo, to discover whether the flightless bird’s extinction was really as inevitable as we have been led to believe.

The armor of Henry VIII is examined to help shed light on why he got so fat and crazy, then enter New York high-society to reveal the role a nude sculpture played in a brutal murder. Inside a vast Egyptian temple (enclosed within the museum’s walls), a secret chamber is searched to discover why the temple’s statues celebrate the foreign emperor who conquered the land of the Pharaohs. We touch the Holy Grail (or maybe not) to discover what gives religious relics their power, then discover how a museum curator invented modern body armour. And finally, in a lab equipped with the latest NASA technology, we discover how museum scientists use art to solve mysteries of the past and present.