Padua University, at the Dept. of Cultural Heritage: Archaeology, History of Art, of Music and Cinema is one of the few Italian universities to have an official Laboratory of Experimental Archaeology and this last matter as a study course.
It is called L.A.S.eR.T. (Laboratory of Experimental Archaeology and Research on Ancient Technology), and at present is directed by Massimo Vidale and Ivana Angelini. We have wide a semi-open, covered space with three different potter's wheels, a good set of all the necessary tools, a wide collections of waste material from copper melting, glass making, flint knapping material used in our classes to help students to understand which kind of residues they should expect, when dealing with an ancient workshop, and "alphabetize" our students in a basic dimension of materiality. For 2021/2022 we are going to have seminars on flint knapping, build pottery-firing kilns, smelt copper from malachite and start an innovative experimental project dealing with the manufacture of amber beads.
