Archaeological artefacts that can be admired in museums bear witness to earlier cultures. However, they only tell a small part of the rich and compelling story behind them. With the help of state-of-the-art technologies, stories from the past of important archaeological sites in the Danube region were digitally reconstructed for the exhibition, which visitors to the Archeology Museum can experience a virtual journey through time.

A virtual journey through time

Often the testimonies of the past still slumber deep under the earth or have long since been destroyed. Archaeologists from nine countries have set themselves the task of bringing the rich and culturally diverse archaeological heritage of the Danube region back to life virtually using excavations, written records and finds. Special exhibition rooms, like this of the Archeology Museum, ist transformed into a virtual reality space, in which journeys into the reconstructed past worlds are possible using the latest technologies. Visitors can take free guided tours using touchscreens, videos and VR glasses to get an impression of fascinating archaeological sites from a wide variety of epochs from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages in the Danube region looked like. In addition, an insight is given into how these reconstructions came about and what remains of the archaeological sites today is shown.

Exhibition curator of the Archäologiemuseum Sarah Kiszter "New technologies, such as VR glasses, give us the opportunity to experience virtual time travel and to convey information, for example about architecture or handicraft techniques and rituals from the past, to visitors in a playful way. The good thing remember: You can have fun while doing it!”

Barbara Porod, exhibition curator: "The use of VR in conveying cultural heritage has very great potential for the future, especially the possibility to visit places that are not allowed to be entered for the protection of the monument."

A transnational project

The project "Virtual Archaeological Landscapes of the Danube Region" (Danube's Archaeological eLandscapes) is funded by the Interreg Danube Transnational Programme. The main goal of the project is to make the archaeological heritage of the Danube region, especially the archaeological landscapes, regionally, nationally and internationally more visible and thus more attractive with the most modern technologies. The exhibitions will be shown in parallel in eight countries. In addition to the Archeology Museum of the Joanneum Universal Museum, locations are the Slovenian National Museum in Ljubljana, the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest, the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest, the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, the Regional Museum of the city of Vršac (Serbia), the Regional Museum of the city of Rousse (Bulgaria ) and the East Slovak Museum in Košice.

Archaeological artefacts that can be admired in museums bear witness to earlier cultures. However, they only tell a small part of the rich and compelling story behind them. With the help of state-of-the-art technologies, stories from the past of important archaeological sites in the Danube region were digitally reconstructed for the exhibition, which visitors to the Archeology Museum can experience in a virtual journey through time.

[Photos: Universalmuseum Joanneum/J.J. Kucek]
Travel into the past with VR glasses,