Ever since the first archaeological excavations in the history of mankind, "cultural treasure troves" around the world have been filled with an astonishing number of archaeological findings - but unfortunately, the vast majority of them has to be kept behind closed doors in deposits and archives. All the museums in the world could not exhibit them at once, even if they wanted to. Thus, they remain hidden not only from the eyes of the public, but also from those of archaeologists, who can only resort to photographs or drawings of the objects for their work.
The Extended Reality based Ostia Forum Virtual Deposit allows not only to look at such archaeological objects, but to "take them in one's hand", explore their provenance and learn about their meaning and background. In the prototypical application, 12 virtual objects - physically stored in the actual Ostia Antica archive in Rome-Ostia - can be accessed interactively.

project implementation.

credits.

REALITAETENLABOR - TU Berlin

Project Lead, Production & Direction:
Dr. Jakob J. Korbel

Implementation:
Markus Gottschalk, Dr. Jakob J. Korbel
Technical Art & Audio:
Dr. Jakob J. Korbel, Markus Gottschalk

OSTIA FORUM PROJECT - HU Berlin

Project Lead & Curation:

Prof. Dr. Axel Gering

Archaeological 3D Models:

Steven Götz (Reconstructions), Trine Bak Pedersen, Sophie Menge, Daniel Damgaard, Jesper V. Jensen, Johannes Trockels, Niccolò Daviddi

Special Thanks: Parco archaeologico di Ostia Antica, Fergus Rüter, Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Zarnekow

project partner.

The project was carried out in collaboration between the REALITAETENLABOR and the OSTIA FORUM PROJECT.

project funding.

The project is funded by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) and the city of Berlin as part of the excellence strategy of the federation and states though the Berlin University Alliance.