The Met Explorer

1. 

   Mission 1

   The Palace on Fifth Avenue

   The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the largest art museum in the Western Hemisphere — covering 2 million square feet across 17 curatorial departments with a permanent collection of over 1.5 million objects spanning 5,000 years of human civilization. The building took over 40 years to complete and its iconic Beaux-Arts facade on Fifth Avenue was not finished until 1902, over 30 years after the museum opened in 1870. The Met is so large it has its own zip code.

2. 

   Mission 2

   The Temple Inside the Museum

   The Temple of Dendur in the Met's Sackler Wing is a complete ancient Egyptian temple built around 15 BC that was dismantled stone by stone in Egypt, shipped to New York, and reassembled inside a glass-enclosed gallery overlooking a reflecting pool. The United States received the temple as a gift from the Egyptian government in 1965. The temple's original location on the banks of the Nile is now permanently underwater. The hieroglyphs carved into its walls include graffiti left by 19th century European tourists.

3. 

   Mission 3

   The Knights and Their Horses

   The Arms and Armor Hall contains a complete set of armor for both a knight and his horse, made in Germany around 1480. The horse armor alone weighs over 60 pounds and the knight's armor weighs an additional 60 pounds. The armor on display was made not primarily for battle but for tournaments and ceremonial display — the 15th century equivalent of a custom sports car, designed to show wealth and craftsmanship as much as provide protection.

4. 

   Mission 4

   The Statues Were Painted

   The white marble Greek and Roman statues that fill the Met's classical galleries were not white when they were made — they were painted in vivid colors, with realistic flesh tones, brightly colored clothing, and detailed hair and eyes. The paint wore away over thousands of years leaving bare marble that later generations assumed was the intended appearance. Scientists using ultraviolet light have reconstructed what the original colors looked like — and the results are dramatically different from what museum visitors expect.

5. 

   Mission 5

   The Mummy Room

   The Met's Egyptian collection contains actual mummies — real human beings who lived in ancient Egypt between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago, preserved through elaborate embalming processes over a period of 70 days. The collection includes not just human mummies but mummified cats, ibises, and crocodiles — animals considered sacred to specific Egyptian gods and mummified as religious offerings. Over 1 million animal mummies have been found in Egypt.

6. 

   Mission 6

   Find the Vermeer

   The Met owns five paintings by Johannes Vermeer — more than almost any other museum in the world. Vermeer painted in the mid-17th century and left only 34 to 36 authenticated paintings in his entire career — an extraordinarily small output that makes each surviving work almost impossibly rare. Standing in front of a Vermeer in the Met means standing in front of one of perhaps 35 objects that represent the entire artistic output of one of the greatest painters who ever lived.

7. 

   Mission 7

   The American Wing

   The American Wing contains complete period rooms transplanted from actual American houses — walls, floors, ceilings, furniture, and decorative objects removed from real American houses and reassembled inside the museum, creating the uncanny experience of walking into a fully furnished room from 1680 or 1820. The wing also contains a stunning collection of Tiffany stained glass including the famous Magnolia window.

8. 

   Mission 8

   The Roof Garden

   From May through October the Met opens its rooftop to visitors — a terrace on the fifth floor offering one of the most extraordinary views in New York: Central Park and the Manhattan skyline spread in every direction, with a rotating commission of contemporary art installed on the roof each season. The contrast between the 5,000 years of human history inside the building below and the living city visible in every direction from the roof above is one of the most thought-provoking experiences any museum anywhere offers.

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