The University of Cambridge’s museums contain priceless art and artefacts and important teaching collections. This course will aim to get beyond the glass: the museums’ curators will introduce and contextualise the most important objects in each collection, from Egyptian, Chinese, Classical, Ancient Near East and Ancient Mediterranean cultures.
Each collection, in its presentation, tells a story: about how we distinguish different kinds of material culture and what we learn and value from and about the past. By comparing, contrasting and discussing these different stories, the course will challenge all participants to create and re-evaluate their own stories about the past.
Led by the course director (who will also give the first museum tour) and with the guidance of the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Director of Antiquities and other Curators of Cambridge’s Ancient and Classical collections, we will explore as well as question those stories we tell from objects, about cultural identity, about the history of civilisation, about art and expression.
This special and timely course – 2016 is the 200th anniversary of the University of Cambridge’s premier museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum – discovering the treasures of the museums of the University of Cambridge will involve gallery tours from Directors and Curators of Cambridge’s Ancient and Classical collections in the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Museum of Classical Archaeology and the Museum of Archaeology.
First in the Museum of Classical Archaeology we will explore the development, cultural and philosophic contexts and challenges of Greek sculpture and Roman portraiture. Then, following the Fitzwilliam Keeper of Antiquities’ introduction to her book, exhibition and timeline of objects, The Fitzwilliam Museum: Celebrating the First 200 Years, three intensive curator-led gallery tours will explore the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Ancient Near Eastern, Egyptian, Chinese and Mediterranean collections. Finally, we will explore ancient Celtic, Roman and Dark Age Britain and European culture, warfare and art in the Museum of Archaeology.
(This course will involve meeting in and exploring different museums in Cambridge, and may involve periods of standing.)
