The joint educational activity aimed to make the collection accessible to a type of audience that does not usually visit the Ure Museum: older people.

The Ure Museum has previously partaken in the celebration of Older People’s Day in Reading, which coincides with the UN International Day of Older Persons. The purpose of this event is to be a celebration of the achievements and contributions that older people make to the society and economy, granting them visibility and challenging negative attitudes and outdated stereotypes that they face.

Over the last few years that this event was celebrated, we shared a stall with our colleagues at the Museum of English Rural Life in a mall situated in a busy area of Reading, much more visited than our museums at the UoR campus. We took the chance to bring out some artefacts of our collection – the handling collection that we usually use for our primary school sessions – and some 3D printed replicas produced for the “Cyprus in 3D” project. While visitors enjoyed the opportunity to engage with objects created around 2000 years ago, they felt more comfortable handling the 3D printed replicas, as they were worried they might drop them and break genuine and irreplaceable objects.

The pandemic, however, interrupted these series of events: the lack of opportunities to socialise left older people suffering from isolation and depression, circumstances that might lead to cognitive dysfunction, disability, and a general increase in mortality rates.

Thus, resuming our engagement with the elderly should be part of the Ure Museum’s outreach programme.

Methodologies:

– object-based learning

– re-enactment/ performative expressions

– music-making

– reminiscing

1. Welcome the audience at the entrance of the museum.

Educator should be dressed in robes to boost interaction and introduce the audience in a performative space.

Educator should provide clear housekeeping instructions (toilets location, fire exit door, etc.).

Educator introduces the concept of festival in antiquity:

• Ask the audience what they consider to be a festival
• Ask the audience if they ever attended one
• Ask the audience how they imagine festivals were like in antiquity

2. Accompany visitors to the display cases, especially one with relevant objects:

Focus on a divinity which would be the focus of the festival (Hekate, Apollo, Aphrodite, Dionysus, etc.)

• Ask the audience if they are familiar with that sort of divinity
• Ask the audience how they imagine devotion/worshipping in antiquity and how it would compare to current beliefs.

3. Accompany visitors to the display cases, especially one with relevant objects:

Focus on the concept of votives.

Explain how offerings worked (gifts, mimicking devices, repetitive gestures, etc.).

Focus on Cypriot figurines and hand out 3D printed replicas:

• Ask the audience how they feel handling these objects
• Ask them what they think about the gender they represent, the objects they hold, the symbolic meaning, etc.
• Ask the audience to think about why people gifted them to the gods

4. Show the audience stop-motion animations made by the Ure Museum moving around the figurines.

Explain the concept of sanctuary/shrine in antiquity and ask the audience how it can be compared to today’s sacred places.

Invite the audience to re-enact a festival in antiquity by:

• Carrying the figurines around the museum
• Dress in robes
• Play music (tambourine/lyres/ aulos)
• Offer food, wine, flowers, etc.
• Dance, etc.

5. Conclude by inviting the audience to share their experiences and feelings regarding the festival re-enactment:

• What do they think should be included in a festival?
• What do they think should be left out?
• What other divinity do they think should have their own festival?
• How to they think material culture from the past captured the importance of festivals?

6. If possible, please provide a short survey to assess the activity.