From detective hunts, decoding secret messages, and fortune telling in Ancient Rome, to piracy on the high seas and uncovering outrageous fibs, this year’s Cambridge Festival of Ideas is packed full of family-fun events!
Starting with Little explorers: people of the arctic on 16 October at the Polar Museum, intrepid explorers under 5 are invited to discover the Arctic and the people and animals that live there.
You’ll even have the chance to become Polar explorers and get hands on during The Polar Museum’s family day, Living in the Arctic, on 21 October. Live reindeer will be making an appearance!
During the first weekend of the Festival, the Cambridge Archaeological Unit opens its doors for its hugely popular Prehistory and archaeology day on 21 October, allowing you to step back in time!
You can get hands-on with rock art, spear-throwing, archery, and pottery making; even bake bread the prehistoric way.
Marvel at displays of metal-smelting and flint-knapping and get a bit messy with wattle and daub. Join this hugely popular event and inspire your inner archaeologist.
Instead of archeology, maybe detective work is more your thing?
Script detectives: decoding ancient writing (26 October) offers you the chance to have a go at ‘breaking’ the code of ancient writings and also have a go at writing their own secret messages in ancient scripts.
For more codebreaking fun, there is also Codes in clay on 28 October. You can visit the Codebreakers and Groundbreakers exhibition, and then create their own secret, coded message in clay.
The exhibition celebrates two remarkable intellectual achievements, the result of teamwork across different areas of study and the brilliance of some beautiful minds: the breaking of the Enigma codes, the most famous of war codes, and the decoding of the Linear B script, Europe’s oldest readable writing system.
To pre-book call 01223 766766 or book online here: www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk
Reindeer images courtesy of Real Reindeer Ltd.
