Download ebook FREE - Allemandi

Fig. 1.
Herne, Museum for
Archaeology: installation
skull fragments (photo
by Stefan Brentführer).
The walkway serves as a time line leading us to the many major and
minor stories of past which can be discovered left and right of the
walkway. The most important information and finds are directly
beside the walkway. At some places models and reconstructions
assist the visitor to interpret the traces of the past. Multimedia terminals,
listening stations, and flipbooks offer detailed information
on selected subjects.
Brightly lit tents line the way through the excavation site. They
imitate the protective shelters found at excavation sites. Just one or
two archaeological objects are in the centre of each of these excavation
tents. Here, the visitors are invited to deal with one topic with
all their senses. Each of the six excavation tents lining the walkway
deals with one theme, which is characteristic of a time period, such
as the propaganda of the Romans or life in medieval cities.
Four excavation tents can be reached only from the central, open
space in the middle of the exhibition. They are small, exhibition
units closed in themselves and features four basic aspects of human
existence through all ages and beyond all borders climate, time,
writing, sexuality. One as well deals with the theme death. Inside
the cube the visitor is confronted with the question, why people
began to cremate their dead 3,300 years ago.
In the thematic cube “Evolution” two skull fragments are shown at
first glance are unspectacular to say at least (fig. 1).
Once they are embedded in a space-generating subject composed of
outsized X-ray pictures of the skulls of a member of homo sapiens an
25