Mesopotamian Societies Workshop – 16/07/2024

This year we were generously awarded funding from the Classical Association‘s Outreach Grant to develop a brand new Mesopotamian Societies workshop!

The workshop explores the ancient Near East with a focus on Assyria and Achaemenid Persia to expand knowledge of the ancient past beyond the curriculum. The application for this award was based upon Clare’s (one of our PG coordinators) PhD research in response to school community interest in underrepresented histories. In this way, the workshop provides the ability for learners to engage with antiquity on a global level, beyond their immediate surroundings to encourage critical thinking skills and acknowledge the diversity of human societies in line with the new Welsh Curriculum. The activities are centred around four key themes: kingship, religion and belief, medicine and identity. Through the implementation of creative activities, school learners are encouraged to think critically about ancient societies through the analysis of ancient material and communication of their understanding in a variety of mediums.

We launched one of the activities based around identity at a ‘Primary School Graduation‘ event for the ‘Passport to the City’ programme. This involved visitors making their own cylinder seals out of clay to express their identity and ‘sign’ documents. This was a very successful launch with positive feedback from all involved and a high impact as indicated through the number of engagements. The workshop as a whole was launched at a return visit from Fitzalan High School and features as an exciting end to their visit. Feedback on the day received from the year 7 learners indicated that some of their favourite parts included the activities in the Mesopotamian workshop, with the activity looking a religion and belief systems featuring prominently. Furthermore, the two members of staff who visited with the school learners suggested that the carousel of workshops were engaging and aimed well at the group who engaged with all the activities. This feedback along with the experience of the team leading the activities has helped in further development of the workshop to be used in future upon the purchase of replica artefacts. The Mesopotamian Seal activity was once again used at the ‘Being Human Festival‘ 2024, receiving positive feedback with 90% of responses indicating enjoyment and understanding.

A huge thank you goes to the Classical Association for their support in developing this workshop and running this event. We look forward to running this again in the future!