Guided demon hunts and mummification demonstrations at Chicago's ISAC Museum on 24 October

The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC) at the University of Chicago holds its annual Haunted Museum, a family evening, on Saturday 24 October 2026 from 4pm to 7pm. Visitors of any age can drop in for guided demon hunts, ghost stories, crafts, mummification demonstrations, face painting and live music from the Dirt Red Brass Band.

Tickets cost $10 for non-members, children and adults alike, and $5 for members. Children under three go free, and so does an adult who comes with a paying child. The institute asks everyone to register in advance; the museum is at 1155 E 58th St.

Ahead of the evening the museum is showing monsters and demons from its collection. One is a clay sealing, A34436, found by ISAC's excavations at Tell Fakhariyah in Syria and dated to the Middle Assyrian period (13th century BCE). Its impression shows a griffin demon with two wings, mid-stride, holding an object that survives neither on this impression nor on the others found.

In Cyprus the 13th century BCE falls in the Late Bronze Age, when island workshops cut cylinder seals in a local style inspired by Syro-Mitannian ones. The griffin is rare in Cypriot art and appears mainly on seals, rings and metalwork.