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Richly decorated with gold leaf and hieroglyphic inscriptions, this ancient Egyptian sarcophagus, which dates back to around 850 BC, protects the mummified body of a court musician. Although museum researchers have never opened the case, a hightech CAT scan has revealed that she died at age 35 from a severe tooth abscess.

With heads rearing and jaws open, these two menacing Jurassic carnivores lunge after their prey, a bony-plated Stegosaurus . The skeletons are lightweight casts of the original bones.

The Golden Age of Athens – about 400 BC – comes alive in this model of Greek temple life, which depicts the Parthenon and surrounding buildings as they looked at the height of ancient Greek civilization.

This active beehive is a highlight of the Hands-On Biodiversity Gallery. Visitors can see the interior of the hive, buzzing with thousands of honey bees that have flown in from the outdoors.

A spectacular mosaic dome tops the rotunda. Over a million tiny colored squares of Venetian glass form symbols of ancient cultures, such as an Inca thunder god and a mythical Greek seahorse.

Dating from the 1750s, with original carved pine walls and period furniture, this parlor looks as if a wealthy English gentleman and his card-playing friends have only momentarily left the room. Though the gilded harp in the corner is silent, evocative, ambient Baroque music completes the vignette.

Guarded by stone camels, a fierce warrior, and a scepter-bearing adviser, this ensemble of funerary sculpture features artifacts from the Yuan dynasty (14th century), Ming dynasty (15th–17th centuries), and Qing dynasty (17th–18th centuries). Sculpted mythological animals adorn the arches.

Four striking crest poles, the stylized figures commemorating family origins and achievements, were carved out of western red cedar in the 1880s by the Nisga’a and Haida peoples of Canada’s northwest coast. The tallest is over 80 ft (24 m) high.

Two proud stone lions, carved for a Beijing palace in the 1600s, stand guard outside the museum.

The dappled light and hushed calm of an Ontario hardwood forest are perfectly re-created in this diorama. If you look closely, you will see more than 20 animals, among them a porcupine and fox, hiding among the colorful autumn leaves.