A carved Korean Devil Gof from the 18th century is on display at the Siskin Museum of Religious Artifacts inside Siskin Children’s Institute. Brothers Mose and Garrison Siskin collected religious items from several centuries.Inside Siskin Children’s Institute, just a few yards from where kids learn to count and read, sit rare religious antiquities collected over decades by two men committed to understanding the world’s largest faiths.
There are rare Torahs, second-century figurines and relics of Buddhism and Christianity on display in the Siskin Museum of Religious Artifacts.
“It’s a little-known gem,” said Deborah Luehrs, Siskin spokeswoman. “It’s one of those things that many people don’t know about, but when they see it, they are very surprised that it’s so expansive.”
All over the Tennessee Valley, tucked in a busy shopping mall, in the ruins of a century-old copper mine and on the site of an early Army post, lie museums that display rare pieces of history. Most charge nothing or just a few dollars to visit, and exhibits range from quirky to priceless.
“We like to think we’re the everyman’s museum,” said Ken Rush, director of the Ducktown Basin Museum, which preserves the history of three communities established around a once-bustling copper mining industry.