Museum Night – Back by Popular Demand!
Friday, May 11th, 2012
This month for one night only, the Dorchester Museums will come alive, offering visitors an opportunity to explore the exhibits after dark and see our town’s unique attractions in a whole new light.
Museums Night is now in its third year, and it’s become a firm favourite event among locals and visitors alike. The 2012 evening (held on May 19th) will involve each of the town’s six museums as well as the Roman Town House, with advance tickets just £8.
So what should you look out for this year?
Terracotta Warriors Exhibition
The Terracotta Warriors Exhibition is a fascinating celebration of the weird and wonderful world of China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang di, who is credited with unifying the nation and in whose honour the famous carved warriors were created as part of an elaborate tomb.
It is the only dedicated Terracotta Warriors museum outside of China, and it features full size replicas of the terracotta figures themselves, which have been carefully recreated in incredible details by expert craftspeople. The story of Ancient China and the Warriors is told in the museum through a dramatic mix of audio and multimedia, creating a memorable experience for all ages.
Dorset County Museum
While it no longer houses the stunning Ancient Egypt exhibition that attracted record numbers of visitors at the end of last year, there is still plenty to discover at the County Museum. Among the most popular items are the thousands of artefacts relating to the social history of Dorset, including everything from simple agricultural tools to a complete steam traction engine.
Elsewhere in the museum, the iconic and beautiful Victorian Hall offers the rare opportunity to actually walk on genuine Roman mosaic, an almost perfectly preserved relic of Dorchester’s time as a thriving Roman town known as Durnovia.
Roman Town House
If the County Museum whets your appetite for Roman history, you simply have to go and visit the Dorchester Roman town house at Colliton Park. It’s the only example of a fully exposed Roman house in the UK, and one of the best preserved of all the Roman sites in the country.
The house was built for a wealthy Durnovian family in the fourth century AD, and it was only re-discovered in the 1930s during an archaeological dig. It’s a great example of real-life history, and definitely worth a look on Museum night
