2022
A goodly group of Manchester Local Guides met on a bright spring Saturday afternoon to explore the newly refurbished Manchester Museum. Manchester Museum is a part of the University of Manchester - and as such displays artefacts from around the world, through history, and across science. Whilst it is definitely still connected to the academic world, it is very much accessible to those of us who are less academic. In fact it's been made even more relevant to the public after its recent total refurbishment. It's also a museum up to date with modern thinking, ideologies and research.
After gathering around a starter cup of tea (how British) in the museum cafe, we moved into the museum itself.
The first stop was the current specialist exhibition based around Egyptian history, and allowing us access to many of the Egyptian treasures in the university's collection. Mummies, gold and an obsessive belief in the afterlife are all central to our image of ‘Ancient Egypt’. The exhibition allowed us to see just how important they actually were to the Egyptians, and how long they survived after the last of the Pharaohs. The exhibition also explored expectations of a life after death during the relatively little-known ‘Graeco-Roman’ Period of Egyptian history – when Egypt was ruled first by a Greek royal family, ending with Queen Cleopatra VII, then by Roman emperors (between 300 BCE and 300 CE). Wealthy members of this multicultural society made elaborate preparations for the afterlife, combining Egyptian, Greek, and Roman ideals of eternal beauty, and we had an astounding glimpse into the depths of their beliefs. (This paragraph includes an adaption of the advertising literature for the Golden Mummies Exhibition.)
After the tour of the Egyptian exhibition, we separated into different groups, as we all had different interests, and explored the rest of the museum - although we kept meeting each other as we went round. In fact the museum was so engrossing that we all stayed right to closing time and were almost the last people to leave.
Although the MeetUp officially finished at that point, we were enjoying each others' company and the spring day, that we went for a pub snack, and onto a music event at a local venue - Victoria Baths - which is probably a location for an entire other MeetUp; watch out for it.
An album of photos of the MeetUp contributed by members of the group can be found here. Thanks and credit to all the photographers.
This event was organised by Google Local Guides, Manchester. We are an active group of Local Guides who try to arrange several face-to-face MeetUps during the year. Everyone is more than welcome to join us. Keep searching Manchester LG in Local Guides Connect for details of past and forthcoming events.
@PeteMHW Great recap as always! And a pity that I wasn't around to join in as it looks like a ton of fun! Incidentally, I've been to the Manchester Museum recently for a visit too and hoping to post a few videos online and to share to Connect too!
By the way, you should join this museum challenge!!
