Temples the First Museums.
Natural objects of uncommon size or beauty were, in the earliest periods, consecrated to the gods, and conveyed to the temples, to awaken curiosity and to excite reverence. In the course of time the natural curiosities dedicated to the gods formed large collections. When Hanno returned from his distant voyages, he brought with him to Carthage two skins of the hairy women whom he found on the Gorgades Islands, and deposited them in the temple of Juno. The monstrous horns of the wild bulls which had occasioned so much devastation in Macedonia were, by order of King Philip, hung up in the temple of Hercules. The unnaturally formed shoulder-bones of Pelopos were deposited in the temple of Elis. The crocodile, found in attempting to discover the sources of the Nile, was preserved in the temple of Isis, at Cæsarea. The head of a basilisk was exhibited in one of the temples of Diana, and in the time of Pausanias the head of the celebrated Calydonian boar was to be seen in one of the temples of Greece.