Hello August! There's not long now until the weather begins to warm and spring is in full bloom. But, while there are still a few cold and grey days ahead, allow us to brighten your month with some colour, cooking and indoor events for your calendar – starting with our monthly guided tour, running this weekend! 

August Guided Tour
11.30AM Saturday 6 August
One hour, 8000 years. Join a Museum docent on our monthly guided tour of the Gods, Myths & Mortals exhibition, a collection of remarkable artefacts from Athens' Benaki Museum. This is our recommended way to experience the exhibition, with places capped to allow a personal experience and opportunity for questions.
 

Everyone's favourite historical cook, Tasting History with Max Miller has just released a new video trialing a Byzantine recipe for fried fritters that are laden with the warming flavours of honey and black pepper. Y-U-M!

This recipe is easy enough for even the most trepidatious of cooks, using just five pantry ingredients and a bit of deep frying. The team at the Hellenic Museum will definitely be giving these a go. Why not try a bite of history yourself?
 

It can be easy to forget that painting our walls, creating an artwork or purchasing clothes dyed with any colour we desire is a fairly modern privilege.

Today, you can walk into any hardware or art supply store and select from a full gamut of colour and cost. But for much of history, paint was mixed from natural agents including ground minerals, plants and insects. The available spectrum of colour was limited by these ingredients, and some were rare or dangerous to process, making them too expensive for most.

As we near our Pigments in the Past Masterclass on 20 August, we're deep diving into the historical ingredients that brought colour to ancient civilisations. Head to the blog to discover the pigments of times past, and book your seat in the masterclass.
 

A colourful new exhibition has opened at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Chroma: Sculpture in Colour is an exploration of polychromy in ancient statuary, showcasing the cutting-edge scientific methods that have been used to identify how ancient statues were originally coloured, how colour conveyed meaning in antiquity, and how ancient polychromy has been viewed since then.

Thankfully, you don't have to travel to the Big Apple to discover some of the exhibition's wonderful insights. The Met's website hosts a wealth of knowledge including in-depth object profiles, a virtual colour reconstruction of the 'Treu Head' and more.

Photograph by Mark Peckmezian for The New Yorker

In celebration of National Science Week (13–21 August) we've joined forces with the Islamic Museum of Australia to bring you two exciting kids' workshops! Explore the S.T.E.A.M. contributions of Hellenic and Muslim scholars, and discover how these two diverse cultures worked together to pave the way for modern science.

Colour, Chemistry & Culture will explore how Hellenic and Islamic civilisations coloured their worlds, and Stories in the Stars will delve into the minds of history's great astronomers as you craft your own model astrolabe.

Saturday 13 August at the Islamic Museum of Australia, 15 Anderson Road, Thornbury. Tickets $10 per workshop. Recommended for ages 7–13.