Viewed at night, it turns the museum into an object that seems to float above the waterline, encased in delicate blue threads.

FORBES: Why the man who controls Gucci had to have his own museum.

Looking at this object in the museum today, one wonders: what did a person see and believe who witnessed it in motion in 1560?

FORBES: The World of Clockwork Robots

If the museum does decide to repatriate the object, it will be as a sign of good will, according to Tim Schadla-Hall, a Reader in Public Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology at University College London.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Akin to MUJAM in its celebration of Mexican products, the Museo del Objeto del Objeto (the Museum of the Purpose of the Object) is a collection of more than 30, 000 quotidian objects, some more than two centuries old.

BBC: Mexico City's ultra-niche museums

In the eyes of a museum or an auction house, the object is clean simply because no-one has questioned its provenance along the way.

CNN: Opinion: Illegal antiquities trade funds terrorism

Advances in haptics could allow blind people to feel objects that others can see, or allow visitors to a museum website to feel the shape and texture of an ancient object.

BBC: Promise of touch technologies

Although he's on the dollar bill now and on the quarter, "Washington would probably object, " says Douglas Mudd, curator of the museum at the American Numismatic Association in Colorado Springs, Colo.

FORBES

Ms. SUZANNE THOMASSEN-KRAUSS (Textile Curator, Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History): When you look at a lit object, what you're getting is only the light radiation that's reflecting back off the object.

NPR: Using Science to Rescue Art

It will become a display object, removed from reality, its terrible message tamed and transformed -- just another museum-style, climate controlled, artifact.

WSJ: Daniel Libeskind Envisions Ground Zero