Workshop - Mythical Mini Mosaics

Actaeon's hounds, worked in tesserae

Workers lifting a Roman townhouse floor under Dyer Street in 1849 found a mosaic where a man's own hunting dogs turn on him, the tesserae coloured to show blood at the wound. It shows Actaeon, torn apart by his hounds after Diana caught him watching her bathe, one of the darker myths worked into stone at the Corinium Museum.

Mythical Mini Mosaics takes children aged 8 and up into the galleries first, alongside the museum's 4th-century Orpheus mosaic from Barton Farm, reckoned the oldest of the nine known Roman Orpheus floors found in Britain, before everyone sits down with coloured glass tiles to build a mosaic of their own myth to take home. All materials and instruction are provided.

The Corinium Museum holds Britain's largest collection of Roman mosaics outside London, and for one morning children get to make one instead of just looking at it through the glass.

Thursday 27 August 2026 · Corinium Museum, Park Street, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 2BX · Starts 10:30am