Grubtime Natter at Manchester Museum

09 Jan 2020

A series of lunchtime talks at Manchester Museum to accompany Beauty and the Beasts exhibition

Scarabs, Moths and Spiders – find out more about some of the stories of the creatures featured in Beauty and the Beasts at Manchester Museum – have your lunch and meet new people in these informal lunchtime talks.

Book your free ticket by emailing mcrmuseum@eventbrite.com

Wednesday, 15 January

12.30pm-1.30pm

Protection and Becoming: The Egyptian Scarab in Art and Fantasy The scarab beetle is synonymous with Ancient Egypt in Western thinking – weird, slightly creepy; a beauty – and a beast. This informal talk by Dr Campbell Price, Curator of Egypt and Sudan will review the scarab in ancient Egyptian art and religion, and its popular reception in some 20th Century sources.

Wednesday, 19 February

12.30pm-1.30pm

‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: bugs and our feelings about them’.

Most of us like butterflies, respect bees and even try to take care for them, but what about cockroaches, fleas or scorpions? Are we prepared to see any good or beauty in them? Dr Dmitri Logunov, the Museum’s Curator of Arthropods, will talk about insects and other minibeasts, their alien beauty and perfection, and our attitudes towards them.   

Wednesday, 18 March

12:30pm-1:30pm

Flying High: Why the Egyptians Loved Flies Flies can carry diseases, suck our blood and are generally really annoying.  But the ancient Egyptians seemed to love them!  They wore pendants in the forms of flies, had drawings of them in their tombs and even used them in medicines.  Taneash Sidpura, PhD student at the University of Manchester, will discuss the possible reasons behind this.