Teece Museum of Classical Antiquities

12/09/2026

Thank you so much to the children from Diamond Harbour School who sent us these hand-made thank you cards.

The students recently visited the Teece for a lesson in Ancient Egypt, a subject about which they almost knew more than we did! It's clearly provided some great inspiration for their illustrations.

If you are interested in an educational visit to the Teece Museum you can find out more on the Schools section of our website.

10/09/2026

Did you know you can use ancient artefacts to learn about geometry?

Part of what we do here here at the Teece Museum involves finding new and innovative ways to share the Logie Collection.

Recently our team had the pleasure of testing out a new lesson on ancient geometry at Halswell Primary School. A special shout out to the amazing akonga who road tested our new activities!

In this lesson, children learn about geometric shapes by looking at ancient artefacts and then consider contrast and perspective. Next, students discover how the ancient Greeks and Romans used geometry to map the world around them, including the stars, before trying their hands at mapping a constellation.

This new lesson plan, written by Maddy Finch, will be available to download for free from the our website soon. In the meantime check out all the great free resources on the schools section of our website.

08/09/2026

On Saturday a group of Teece volunteers had the privilege of spending the day at Okains Bay Museum researching and cataloguing items from their collection. The trip is part of a partnership with the Okains Bay Museum where our volunteers get to work closely with objects they otherwise wouldn’t encounter in their work with us here at the Teece. It also has a positive outcome for Okains Bay Museum as they benefit from the research our volunteers undertake and can use this information for their online catalogue and exhibitions.

This year marks our third volunteer day at Okains Bay with a number of our volunteers coming back for their second or third trip!

A huge thank you to the team at Okains Bay Maori and Colonial Museum for welcoming us and allowing us to work so closely with their collections.

04/09/2026

Have you ever had a chat with one of our gallery hosts? Absolutely vital to the running of the Teece, our cohort of knowledgeable hosts are responsible for welcoming visitors to the museum and ensuring the security of artefacts on display. Behind the scenes, they also help us with routine processes on the regular, from outreach programs to collection management and exhibition changeover.

As part of their work, they come along to regular training sessions. For our most recent session, they completed some online UC training modules and examined some artefacts from the store, thinking about different ways in which they can help visitors engage with artefacts. Next time you're in, have a chat to the host on duty and see if they can help you look at an artefact in a new light!



Image credits:
1. JLMC 13.53, Bottle, Iron Age Cyprus, ca. 850-600 BCE.
4. JLMC 162.76, Vase in the form of a Hedgehog, Naucratis, Egypt, ca. 550-500 BCE.

02/09/2026

Event alert! Presented by Classoc & the UC Teece Museum, the annual Great Greek Pot Painting night is almost upon us.

Be inspired by the amazing ceramics on display in the Teece and put your creative talents to the test to paint your own Greek pot. You don’t have to be the next Andy Warhol (or Berlin Painter for that matter) to take part – just come ready to give it a go, enjoy good company, and take home your very own potted Greek masterpiece.

$13.50 + GST general public, free for current UC Classoc members.

Light refreshments will be provided. Seats are limited so make sure you register!

WHEN: Thurs 24 Sept, 7pm - 9:00pm. Doors open at 6:45pm.

WHERE: UC Teece Museum 3 Hereford St, CHCH.

Get tickets on Humanitix - The Great Greek Pot Painting Night 2026 hosted by UC Teece Museum. Teece Museum of Classical Antiquities, 3 Hereford Street, Christchurch Central City, Christchurch 8013, New Zealand. Thursday 24th September 2026. Find event information.

26/08/2026

Each year we get to listen to a range of fascinating speakers at Careers in Heritage. There are so many pathways into the arts and heritage sector, and there are so many different roles to for students to consider as they plan ahead. Huge thanks to each of our guest speakers for 2026 (and their organisations!), who generously shared their time and their stories with the students.

- Bojana Rimbovska, Community Liaison Co-ordinator, Risingholme Learning
- Chloe Cull, Pouarataki Curator Māori, Christchurch Art Gallery
- James Tapsell-Kururangi, Director, The Physics Room Contemporary Art Space
- John Owens, Exhibitions Designer and Project Coordinator, The Arts Centre
- Morgane Merien, Science and Curatorial Communicator, Canterbury Museum
- Madeleine Finch, Assistant Curator, UC Teece Museum
- Shaun Hickland, Archivist, Catholic Diocese of Christchurch
- Sally O’Connell, Local History and Heritage Coordinator, Waimakariri Libraries
- Suzanne Richmond, Heritage Advisor (Planning), Christchurch City Council
- Tristan Wadsworth, Principal Archaeologist, Underground Overground Archaeology

If you missed the event, don't despair! You can listen to each of the presentations by searching up the Careers in Heritage playlist on the Teece Museum YouTube channel, or by visiting the UC Careers channel.

21/08/2026

Brin's Picks: 'The Odyssey' (2026), film, directed by Christopher Nolan.

Hello, I'm Brin Edwards and I volunteer at the Teece Museum.

In 'The Odyssey', Christopher Nolan has produced a very faithful adaption of the remarkable story of Odysseus (Matt Damon) from the 2,800-year-old epic poem written by Homer.

In this movie, Christopher Nolan has created a true masterpiece, but to get to the best of it, it really pays to have a basic understanding of the characters and source material. In this retelling the characters are very complex, and yet very human, which makes them relatable.

We see Odysseus in his decade-long quest to return to his wife and home in Ithaca after the Trojan War. He needs to navigate all manner of obstacles and perils to make his way home. Meanwhile, in the palace of Ithaca, his Queen, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), has problems of her own. However, she holds firm to the belief that Odysseus is alive and will return to her and their son, Telemachus (Tom Holland, aka Spiderman).

The movie was filmed in various atmospheric locations across six countries, including Sicily, Greece, Morocco, Scotland, and Iceland. If you are a fan of Greek mythology, you will love this movie. I enjoyed it so much that I have already seen it twice and plan on buying the DVD when I can.

I highly recommend this movie.

- Text by Brin Edwards

Pictured is a replica lekythos after an original from the British Museum (1837,0609.72, Lekythos, Vulci, ca. 480BCE). Part of our Cast Collection, we use it when teaching about Odysseus. Slightly different from Nolan's depiction, you might only recognise this scene if you've read the epic poem! Here, we see Odysseus strapped to the belly of a ram in an effort to escape Polyphemus' cave, an act of 'metis' (Μῆτις): wisdom and cunning.

18/08/2026

One of the roles of the Logie Collection is to support academic teaching and learning, which means that every so often some of the artefacts get to go on field trips!

This semester we took a range of Corinthian objects to Ilam campus for CLAS208 tutorials. This course is focussed on the Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean World, and their tutorials for that week were all about how to engage in 'relative dating'. This means sorting artefacts into a series based on clues they give us about how they were made and the style in which they were decorated. For example, in Corinthian ceramics, examining the style and attention given to decorative rosettes is one way of estimating the age of the artefact.

16/08/2026

Read on for more info about this month's session of Coffee & Classics.

When: Tuesday, 25th August, 10am
Where: UC Teece Museum, doors open from 9:45am.
To attend, please RSVP to [email protected]

This month Associate Professor Patrick O'Sullivan will take a dive into classical reception through pop culture with his talk “Hit and Myth: Odysseus, Homer and Responses to Nolan’s Odyssey.”

Patrick O'Sullivan is a graduate of Melbourne and Cambridge Universities, has won awards for his research, held Visiting Fellowships at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, and has twice been voted Top Lecturer in the College of Arts at UC. He teaches Latin and Greek language and literature at all levels as well as courses in translation on myth, art, philosophy, and ancient athletics. He has published widely on Archaic and Classical Greek culture from Homer to Aristotle with a focus on the pre-Platonic era, as well as on Latin literature, Greek and Roman art, and their ancient and modern reception.

This is an invitation event for PhiloLogie or Classoc members and UC students, but guests and new members are welcome to attend!