Live forever: Welcome to the Underworld – A Being Human Festival Late at the Ure Museum
“Live forever, welcome to the Underworld” was the first “late” celebrated on November 19th 2021 by the Ure Museum as part of the Being Human Festival. Since this year’s theme was “renewal”, we decided to explore how death and rebirth were inseparable for the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks. In both cultures, death sparked creativity and a wide range of coping methods. Please click below to download the booklet
We hosted three main activities:
1. Trails and handling at the Ure Museum:
Visitors were welcomed to engage with our temporary exhibition Troy, “Heroic Beauty: Beautiful Heroism”, covering the final destiny of Greek heroes (Elysium fields). New trails on the Egyptian underworld linked to our permanent collection were also added by UoR student and Ure Museum volunteer Harry Aboud. A handling session took place in the museum so people could engage with the offerings that people used to leave by tombs to accompany and easy the passing of the deceased to the realm of the dead.
Ancient Greece Afterlife Treasure Trail
2. Field of Reeds
In an extra room we recreated the Egyptian underworld. Ure Museum staff, university students, and academics from the Department of Classics (University of Reading) played the parts of the gods. Visitors took the role of the deceased on their journey to eternity, had their hearts weighed in Maat’s scales, met Osiris and Isis, and enjoy the Field of Reeds where they were able to play an ancient board game senet.
3. Elysian Fields forever
We also recreated the Elysian Fields, in which Ure Museum staff, UoR students and academics enacted the parts of gods and heroes: Hades and Persephone, Achilles and Aeneas, Helen and Cassandra all engaged with visitors and gave them a piece of advice on how to achieve immortality and enjoy eternal bliss.
Dr James Lloyd played the aulos – a replica of ancient Greek reeds – and explained our visitors how music was part of funerary rituals and how it was considered to favour the transition to the afterlife
A video will be available soon.