Archaeological Open-Air Museum

MAMUZ is the new name that combines the Lower Austrian museum of prehistory Niederösterreich Asparn/Zaya and the museum centre Museumszentrum Mistelbach to create a centre of experiences and knowledge covering 40,000 years of the history of the human race. Using the example of its archaeological open-air site, the museum of prehistory MAMUZ aims to...

This article is a summary of a presentation held at the conference in Mistelbach in 2015, “Archaeological Reconstructions and Tourism”. The conference topic leads us to a more consistent approach to reconstructions and tourism. All who work in the heritage sector know that all types of museums have a great influence on the tourism sector...

For many archaeological open-air museums (AOAMs), volunteers are an essential and highly visible component of an effective institution. Volunteers bring museums to life with meaningful interpretive contacts, and offer institutions the opportunity to broaden their mission and complete tasks that may not otherwise be possible...

As the manager of the Ancient Technology Centre (ATC) in Dorset, England, like many of you, I consider regularly what it is that we actually do. What services do we provide? How are we regarded by the public, by the education sector, by the children we teach, and by those who pay to come through our doors.

The purpose of Universal Design is to increase people’s opportunities to participate in society through the design of products, services, methods of communication, buildings and built-up spaces that are accessible to as many as possible. Many will suffer from some form of disability at some time in life, either temporarily or long-term...

OpenArch Special Digest 2015 Issue 2
***This article summarises the main issues that were faced in running a group of reconstructed Iron Age roundhouses as an educational and visitor resource at St Fagans National History Museum from 1992 until 2013. Plans to build a new Iron Age farmstead at St Fagans are then outlined along with the steps...

OpenArch Special Digest 2015 Issue 2
***Over the years my personal research interests have focussed on the less tangible elements of the past, such as gender issues, perishable material culture, and the sensory worlds of the past, but all of these have been underpinned by a longstanding appreciation of the role experimental archaeology can play as...

OpenArch Special Digest 2015 Issue 2
***Ten years ago, the results of investigations from one of the most important protohistoric settlements of the Po Plain in Italy lead to the construction of a large archaeological park. A project which, today, represents a core reality in the dissemination of experimentations...

The museum of prehistory Urgeschichtemuseum (MAMUZ) in Asparn an der Zaya looks back on a long tradition, starting in the late 1960s, when the province of Lower Austria’s prehistoric collection found a new home at the freshly renovated palace Schloss Asparn. While the palace was being set up as a presentation area for the collection items...

OpenArch Special Digest 2015 Issue 2
***What does a Stone Age village or Stone Age house look like? (Almost) every person that we happen to randomly meet can answer this question with (subjectively recognized) certainty. Since the research of the 19th century, the knowledge people assume to have is based, not lastly, on images or...