Museum Explorers Ancient Greeks

Museum explorers ancient Greeks

Families Ages 6+ The Hamlyn family trails are supported by Welcome Museum explorers This trail guides you on a journey of exploration and discovery ancient around the Museum. On the way you’ll track down some amazing treasures and learn tales Greeks of human history. Whichever way you go, and whatever you discover, enjoy yourself! If you ever feel lost, just ask a member of staff for help.

Useful information for families

• Accessible toilets and baby changing facilities are available. You can breastfeed and bottle feed anywhere on the Museum’s grounds but if you would like more privacy, please use the feeding room in the Ford Centre for Young Visitors in the Clore Centre for Education on the Lower floor, Level -1, or one of our baby changing spaces. For details, ask at the Families Desk or Information Desk in the Great Court, or pick up a map of the whole Museum.

• You can leave fold-up pushchairs in the cloakroom free of charge.

• You can find child-friendly ancient Greeks food at the cafés. High chairs The didn’t are available. have cameras, so they used sculpture to capture • You can use the Ford Centre for Young Visitors to picnic people’s faces instead. The Hamlyn family trails are supported by with your family at weekends What expression would your and during school holidays. sculpture have? This map shows the locations of the objects in this trail. You can pick * Families Desk is open at Take a trip through thousands of years up a map of the whole Museum at the Information Desk in the Great weekends and during school Court. Please note that some galleries may be closed at short notice holidays only of Greek history to find out how life and due to unforeseen circumstances or refurbishment. art changed across the centuries and how Toilets Families Desk* Stairs the ancient Greeks lived. You’ll need to Accessible toilet Information Desk Lift be extra observant to track down every object you need! Baby changing Cloakroom Level access lift

Your journey starts in Room 12, Ground floor, Ground floor North Level stairs 0 & 1 Level 0 Level 0 30 Case numbers can be hard West 24 26 27 to find – don’t be afraid stairs 29a 29b East to ask a member of staff stairs 20 for help finding an object 21 18 19 Ancient makers 9 4 1 1 Room 12 6 22 4 18b 5 Meet the neighbours 18 17 23 8 4 1 2 Room 13

18a 16 Party time

10 7 4 1 3 Room 15 18 15 Great Court F 3 Down Down to Clore to Clore Happy Birthday, Athena 14 Level 0 Centre Centre 4 Room 18 13 6 South 2 2 stairs Walking on water 12 1 6 3 5 Room 17 Your journey starts 2a in Room 12, Ground floor, Level 0 People and portraits Level 0 Main entrance Great Russell Street 6 Room 22 Now go to Case 8 and look Ancient makers at the Mycenaean objects. Can you find: Go to Room 12 on the Ground floor, Level 0, Precious jewels? and find Case 2 A weapon? The Greeks used the metal named ‘bronze’ for the first Tools for catching food? time in what archaeologists call the Bronze Age. The Minoans and the Mycenaeans are the peoples What do these objects tell we know most about from this time in Greece. you about Mycenaean life? How rich were they? The Greek Bronze Age covers Did they fight? What did the period 3200–1050 BC they eat?

Find this jar. It once stood in the Minoan palace at Knossos on the island of Crete. Minoans and Mycenaeans decorated It can hold 450 litres of wine, pots with animals that were important oil or grain – that’s enough to them and made small objects to fill two big baths! What shaped like them. Explore Case 2 and would you and your family find these animals: store in it?

Octopus Dolphin Goat

Bull Falcon Duck The Archaic Age covers Go back towards the Meet the neighbours the period 700–480 BC entrance of the room and find the vase with the motifs below. Go to Room 13 and find the two statues It was used to mix wine pictured below and water for drinking. Can you find these In the Archaic Age the Greeks got to know their creatures on the vase? neighbours around the Mediterranean Sea. They set up trading towns in other countries and swapped ideas about art with the people they met.

The left statue is from Egypt and the right one is from Greece. The Greeks were influenced by Egyptian sculpture, but then developed their own style. What similarities can you spot between the two statues? What differences are there? Find this pot in Case 1. It shows the Party time Greek hero Theseus fighting a mythical creature called the Minotaur. Guests at ancient Greek parties told Go to Room 15 stories inspired by the myths and legends illustrated on pots. Why do you think Greek culture flourished in theClassical Age. Cities Theseus and the Minotaur are fighting grew larger and richer and many great monuments were in this illustration? Now take turns and built. Craftspeople refined their skills, writers produced create a story together, using the picture wonderful plays and great thinkers shared their deep on the pot as a starting point. thoughts with others.

The Classical Age covers the period 480–323 BC

Drinking parties were popular with ancient Greeks. Explore the cases in this gallery and find these objects for a drinking party:

Bowl Cups

Jug Pot with three handles Explore the gallery Happy Birthday, Athena Start by standing in the middle of the gallery. The stone carving Go to Room 18 round the walls is known as a frieze. The frieze Athens once controlled a large empire and was the richest shows a procession to city in the Greek world. The wealthy Athenians built a celebrate the goddess huge temple for the goddess Athena on top of a hill called Athena’s birthday. the Acropolis. The temple was known as the Parthenon. Walk round the frieze Inside the Parthenon stood a colossal statue and find: of the goddess Athena, made of gold and ivory, and towering some 12m high! A group of cattle People on chariots Horses galloping Gods and goddesses resting

Where on the frieze would you like to be? Choose a small section of the frieze that you find interesting. Imagine you’re there. What can you see, hear and smell? Walking on water

Go to Room 17

The skills of Classical Greek architects and sculptors were well known. The 2,000 year-old Nereid Monument is a beautiful tomb made for a king of Lykia. It is named after the Nereids, or sea-goddesses, whose statues look as if they are hovering over the ocean.

Lykian rulers built tombs above ground in their local tradition, but had them decorated with sculptures in the Greek style

Pick one of the three Nereid Look at the frieze on the wall sculptures standing between and find the picture above. the columns. Can you see the woman between Imagine what they were once the soldiers on the right-hand side? like. Mimic the pose and ask the Wave your arms like her. What do other people in your group to you think she might be signalling? guess which one you are copying. Draw a portrait of someone People and portraits in your group. If you don’t have a pencil to hand, draw it at home later. Go to Room 22

Lifelike sculptures of people, called portraits, became popular in the Hellenistic Age. A bit like looking at a 3D photograph of someone, people enjoyed seeing carvings of someone’s face. Artists of the time became very skilled at showing different people.

The Hellenistic Age covers the period 323–30 BC

Look around the gallery. What different types of people have the artists shown? Do you know anyone who looks like them?

Take it in turns to choose a sculpture and describe it. Ask the group to guess which one each of you is talking about. Other things you could You have completed At home do when you get home: the ancient Greeks trail! Read some Greek myths and find out what ancient Greek gods, goddesses You can find out even more about ancient Greek life and heroes got up to. in other parts of the Museum: Create your own mythical Learn about the everyday life of ancient Greeks creature – don’t forget to in Room 69 give it a name! Travel to Italy with the Greeks in Room 73 Explore the influence the Greeks had on Roman sculptures in Room 23

Head back to the Families Desk to receive a stamp! What an adventure that was. You’ve travelled through thousands of years of Greek history and explored life and art in the ancient Greek world. Of all the things you discovered, what was your favourite?

Names

Ages

Date Draw and colour the other half of this Greek pot using just Favourite objects orange and black – one colour for the figures, the other for the background. Trails in the Museum Cover: Marble head from 5 Part of the second frieze from a statue of a young woman the Nereid Monument, Antalya. explorers series or goddess from the Temple Turkey, Asia, Classical Greek, of Demeter (Knidos), 390 BC–380 BC. Ages 6+ Anatolia (South West). Turkey, Asia, Hellenistic, The Nereid Monument (Xanthus) • Africa around the world about 325 BC–275 BC. from Antalya, Mediterranean • Ancient Britain Region. Turkey, Asia, Classical 1 Terracotta pithos (storage Greek, about 390 BC–380 BC. • Ancient Egypt jar) from the Palace of • Ancient Greeks Minos at Knossos, Crete. 6 Marble head from a statue of a • Fantastic creatures Greece, Europe, Lare young woman or goddess from Minoan II to Late Minoan the Temple of Demeter (Knidos), • Journey across Japan IIIA1, 1450 BC–1375 BC. Anatolia (South West). Turkey, Asia, Hellenistic, about 325 Ages 3+ 2 Limestone standing figure BC–275 BC. of Tjayasetimu said to be • Colour and shape from Giza, Memphis. Egypt, Marble bust of the Stoic • Time to count Africa, 26th Dynasty. philosopher Chrysippos. Roman copy of the Greek original, 3rd Statue of nude standing or 2nd century BC. You can find out more youth, Kouros, probably about our family activities from Boeotia. Greece, Head from a bronze portrait Europe, Boeotian, about statue of a North African from at britishmuseum.org 570 BC–560 BC. the Temple of Apollo, Cyrene. Libya, Africa, Hellenistic, about See you at the British Museum Images from the Sophilos 300 BC. Dinos, a black-figured dinos again soon! (wine bowl) and stand, At home activity: The Sophilos painted by Sophilos, from Dinos, a black-figured dinos Attica. Greece, Europe, (wine bowl) and stand, painted Attic, 580 BC–570 BC. by Sophilos, from Attica. Greece, Europe, Attic, 3 Red-figured stamnos 580 BC–570 BC. showing Theseus killing the Minotaur, attributed to the Kleophrades Painter, made in Attica, Greece, found in Vulci, Italy. Greece, Europe, Attic, 490 BC–480 BC.

4 The Parthenon Sculptures, a marble relief (Block XLIV) from the South frieze of the Parthenon, Athens, Attica. Greece, Europe, Classical Greek, 438 BC–432 BC.