WHAT WE FEEL WHEN WE SEE AN ARTIFACT
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-12-07

Author(s): Sevastyanov, Nikolay (Saint Petersburg State University) - Kholkina, Margarita (A. P. Karpinsky Russian Geological Research
Institute - VSEGEI)

The archaeological museum is the most important channel of the cultural communication connecting archaeology with society. Unfortunately, one of the main problems of the displays in archaeological museums in Russia is their little appeal to public. Among the reasons of the current situation is the emerging trend to deny social reconstruction due to their unauthenticity, lack of artistic aspect and exceedingly rare involvement of the experts of other domains. During our research we observed different methods of prehistory archaeological display organization that might catch the interest of general public. We have also analyzed modern archaeological exhibitions and defined their strengths and weaknesses. The aim of our research was to identify the meaning of the archaeological artifact not for a specialist but for an ordinary visitor in today’s social and cultural context. Based on exhibition facilities we try to show the artifact’s properties that attract visitors’ attention such as its scarcely imaginable antiquity, the presence of ‘’encoded’’ information that might shed a light upon the historical past, the connection with the modern culture or its absence, and, finally, its esthetic attractiveness. The last-named quality is particularly important when displaying not only art objects (which speak for themselves) but also the ‘’ordinary’’ archaeological material. The social aspect of the research brought forward the decreasing visitors’ interest in artifacts’ amassment on display and in exhibition halls. That is why the individual approach, that takes into consideration the archaeological excavation context, colour, shape and presumable use of the artifact, to the way every single artifact is displayed becomes crucial.