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Half-term event: Greek mythology comes to life at University of Reading museum – University of Reading

The half-term holiday promises a journey back in time for visitors to the University of Reading's Ure Museum. The Ure Museum – which holds a fascinating collection of Greek ceramics – will give families the opportunity to discover Greek Mythology in its "Monsters from Myth" session on Monday February 12. This will include a family fact-finding trail and the opportunity to make your very own monstrous mask. Suitable for children aged 5 plus. £2 donation per child (accompanying adults free). Thursday February 15 offers equally exciting theme of sieges - from the Trojan Horse to the siege of Tyre by Alexander the Great – where families can learn all about how the Greek armies captured great cities. Learn about Odysseus and his plan and build your very own siege tower to take home! Suitable for children aged 7 plus. £2 donation per child (accompanying adults free). Both events will start at 1.30pm and finish at 4pm. For these events please book in advance by contacting the assistant curator at ure.education@reading.ac.uk or 0118 378 6990. Ends More information about the Ure Museum: The Ure Museum is the fourth most important collection of Greek ceramics in Britain, after those of the British, Ashmolean and Fitzwilliam Museums. It is named after Professor P.N. Ure, the first Professor of Classics at Reading (1911 to 1946), and his wife and former pupil Annie D. Ure, curator of the Museum until her death in 1976. Between them, the Ures published three books, based on their excavations at Rhitsona in Boeotia, the Homeric Mycalessus, which are still essential reference works for the typology and chronology of Boeotian, Attic and Corinthian pottery, as well as over fifty articles on Greek pottery in general and a volume in the prestigious international series Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum (1954) containing about half the present collection in the Museum. The collection primarily consists of material from the Greek and Greco-Roman civilisations of the Mediterranean, most notably Greek and Etruscan ceramics and terracottas. Other artifacts include prehistoric pottery, as well as metal and stone artifacts of Greek and Roman date. There is also an important collection of Egyptian antiquities, ranging from the Pre-dynastic to the Roman period.