Back in 2006, a curator at a museum in Copenhagen was going through boxes in the storage area.

The new Karlsburg Glyptotek, or the Glyptotek, as it was generally known, features 19th-century

paintings from the Danish Golden Age.

It's got sculptures from French artists like Rodan and Degas, and it were now in

for its ancient Greek and Roman collections.

On this particular day, the curator was preparing to put on a new display of the museum's

antiquity collection, so she was rifling through the archives when she opened the box.

The box filled with noses.

There were sculpted noses made of marble and plaster of every shape and size.

There were a few ears, some locks of hair, and a fig leaf or two.

But what there wasn't was any notes.

No identifying information, but what noses belonged to which faces where did these

noses come from?

And why were they eventually put on display in the museum?

I'm Dylan Therese, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

Today, we go to the Glyptotek and sniff out how this nose collection came to be.

The New Carlsburg Glyptotek is an archaeological dream.

It's got a huge collection of sculptures from the Roman and Greek Empire.

In one exhibit, a man wields a sword above his head while he's trying to hold off an

invisible rival.

Across the room, there's a woman in a dance-like pose.

...