The Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology is a museum of ancient

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

archaeology, primarily that of ancient Greek civilisation but with smaller collections of Egyptian, Etruscan and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

items. It contains one of the most important collections of

ancient Greek pottery Ancient Greek pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it (over 100,000 painted vases are recorded in the Corpus vasorum antiquorum), it has exe ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. The museum is part of the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

's University Museums and Special Collections Services (UMASCS), and is located in and works closely with the university's Department of

Classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

. The museum is situated on the university's Whiteknights Campus, about from the centre of the English town of

Reading, Berkshire Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, southeast England. Located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers Thames and Kennet, the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway serve the town. Reading is east ...

. The museum is open to the public and entry is free.

Collections

Hasselmann Painter's oinochoe boy on horseback 51

The museum houses a collection of material from the Greek and

Greco-Roman The Greco-Roman civilization (; also Greco-Roman culture; spelled Graeco-Roman in the Commonwealth), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were di ...

civilisations of the Mediterranean, most notably Greek and Etruscan

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain, ...

s and

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terra ...

s. Other exhibits include prehistoric pottery, metal and stone artifacts of Greek and Roman dates, and a collection of Egyptian antiquities, ranging from the Pre-dynastic to the Roman period. These include

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...

and

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pink ...

artefacts and

jewellery Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry ( U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a w ...

, a funeral boat and a mummified cat's head.

History

The museum was created in 1922Introduction to 'The Ure Museum: a Retrospective' (26 October 2005)
Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, 7 August 2006. Retrieved 21 November 2011. by the first Professor of Classics at the university,

Percy Ure Percy Neville Ure M.A. (10 May 1879''A Short Biography of Professor Percy Ure Commemorating 100 Years of the Classics Department Collection 1909–2009.'' Reading: Sally Fox, 2009. – 3 April 1950"Deaths", ''The Times'', 5 April 1950, No. 51658.) ...

, although it contains an earlier donation of Egyptian antiquities made by

Hilda Petrie Hilda Mary Isabel, Lady Petrie (née Urlin; 1871–1957), was an Irish-born British Egyptologist and wife of Sir Flinders Petrie,Margaret S. Drower, 'Petrie' Sir (William Matthew) Flinders (1853–1942)', Oxford Dictionary of national Biograph ...

in 1909 to the then ''Reading University College''. The collections have grown through the generosity of various donors, and are recognised as the fourth largest collection of Greek ceramics in Britain. The museum is named after Professor Ure and his wife, Dr

Annie Ure Annie Dunman Ure (née Hunt, January 3, 1893 - 13 July 1976) was an English archaeologist, who from 1922 to 1976 was the first Curator of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology. She and her husband Percy Ure conducted important excavations at Rit ...

, who was the museum's first curator. The current

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

is Professor Amy C. Smith.

Visiting

The museum is open to the public Tuesday to Thursday between 09:00 and 16:30. It is on the ground floor of the north wing of the university's ''Edith Morley'' building, near entrance 5. Admission is free.

References

External links

Museum's websiteMuseum's official TwitterMuseum's official InstagramUniversity of Reading University Museums and Special Collections Service
{{authority control Archaeological museums in England Ancient Greek culture Museums of the University of Reading Museums of ancient Greece in the United Kingdom Egyptological collections in England 1922 establishments in England Museums established in 1922