Team Babylonians are interpreting the clues.
One of my favorite places in New York City is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I still remember the first time I visited the museum and was overwhelmed by both the size (it is the largest museum in the United States) and by the Temple of Dendur. Visiting the museum with my son has been on my places to visit list for some time, but every time I mentioned it I received the typical teenage response, “Do I have to?” To ensure that my son would have a change a heart, I decided to sign us up for a scavenger hunt through Watson Adventures. I also invited two other families to join us, so when he heard two of his best friends would be part of our team, he was ready to roll!
We decided to participate in “The Whodunnit Family Scavenger Hunt.” Our scenario was that a crazed killer was on the loose and the museum’s head curator was missing! The police received an anonymous package from someone claiming that he murdered the curator somewhere in the hall. To taunt the cops, the person enclosed the scavenger hunt. We competed against six other teams, all starting at different points to solve the mystery by discovering the killer’s name, the weapon he used, and where he hid the body in the museum.
The MC provided us with fourteen photos and 18 questions. Each photo was a close-up of an object or place in the museum that was part of the hunt. Each team only received one copy of the pictures, so it was kind of hard to keep track and the photos were in black and white, not color. The four questions that didn’t have matching photos revealed the suspect, the weapon, and the crime scene. We had to solve the mystery in an hour and forty-five minutes (which was not enough time).
Clue # 7 – “Look at the man who looks at himself. I might have the same first name as the artist.” 1910 self-portrait of portrait painter William Orpen.
We had a lot of fun sleuthing around the museum to solve the mystery. While solving each clue were able to enjoy masterpieces in the American Wing, the Arms and Amor galleries (the boys favorite), the European Paintings gallery and European Sculptures and Decorative Arts galleries. Below are some of the highlights of our detective work while taking on the “killer’s challenge.”
Clue # 18 – “Look at a woman pointing a weapon. She looks toward the side of the room you should visit.”
Clue # 18 – “There, find something that once could take the heat. Maybe this is the CRIME SCENE where I stuffed the body, up in. If I needed support from the two women here, I’d call them Amor and…what?”
Clue # 1 -Arms & Armor… “a perfect place to steal a weapon.”
Clue # 2 – A bedroom from Palazzo Sagrado Venice – “a cozy place for murder.”
Clue # 5 locating an unhappy SUSPECT with a strange creature on his shoulder. “Maybe this is how the victim looked in his final moments. (Imagine my evil laugh here). My first name might be the same as the artist who made this piece. What is that name?”
Overall we had a lot of fun, and the scavenger hunt was a great way for the kids to gain access to the museum so they could explore and develop skills to interpret visual language. This particular quest is not for children under the age of ten and by no way was it “Elementary, my dear Watson.”
Has your family ever enjoyed a scavenger hunt?
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