Mariana Diniz, Senior Archaeologist
14/07/2020
The Past is for all! Exhibiting Kofun period through digital and physical ways.
Be-Archaeo project set itself a very ambitious goal as part of the outcomes of the
scientific hard work to be done during the four years’ project´s duration
(2019 – 2022): transfer to large – and international - audiences’ trough digital
and physical experiences the results obtained in field and lab work done on
Tobiotsuka kofun and Shimane prefecture area.
Social networks as the Be-Archaeo website but also Facebook, Instagram,
Youtube are some of the ways Be-Archaeo team found to connect with all those
interests in Japanese kofun period (c. IV-VII century AD) in Japanese archaeology
and in Archaeology and Archaeometric sciences!
But besides those digital links – today more important than ever -
a high-impact final exhibition is in close cooperation between Be-Archaeo and
our Japanese colleagues from Shimane Prefecture being prepared to be held in Shimane Museum of Ancient Izumo (SMAI) in Izumo and then brought up to Museum of Eastern Art (MAO) in Turin.
Towards the final exhibition, a long process has to de develop from the first story-telling draft to visits to the exhibitions’ rooms in order to check the area to be used and all the facilities available, to design the thematic exhibition, select artefacts and create digital tools, prepare all set-up details and communication strategy, many steps that are part of the work in progress to which Be-Archaeo team is fully committed.
Using interactive digital and IT tools Be-Archaeo final exhibition will combine real artefacts and raw materials that were used to build those monumental stone and earth structures where the dead’s deposited inside the stone chamber goes along with weapons, stone and metal adornments and fine pottery all taking part of a complex funerary ritual displayed to highlight those personage social statuses.
What is the Be-Archaeo project? What is the kofun period? How did a kofun look like? And from which materials was it made? What is this finding? From where this artefact came? How old is this piece? Who has used it and for what purposes? How was it made? How was the landscape in the past? How can we ensure heritage preservation?
To answer this and so many other relevant questions that Be-Archaeo exhibitions visitors will do a large, international and multidisciplinary team was brought together from the West and the East - archaeologist, chemists, physicists, computer scientists and IT researchers, geologists, geophysicians and mineralogist, petrologist, pedologists, and soils chemists, geneticists, biologist, veterinarian and archaeozoologist, material and conservation scientist, anthropology, linguistic, museology and Art History researchers, archaeomagnetic and thermoluminescence researchers, journalists, documentarists, cameramen, web designer and drama scholar researchers, herbarium curator and last but not least administrative staff – to pursue a common goal – retrieve, examine, understand, storage and communicate outstanding scientific knowledge to other scientist and general public wherever in the world.
It’s really hard work and a great challenge to get together data from so many scientific sources!
Mariana Diniz

