Herculaneum, a new type of museum

This summer, an entirely virtual museum opened its doors in Italy.  Dive into a buried ancient city thanks to a new level of scenography.





















Last July 9th in Ercolano (Campania, Italy) the MAV, Museo Archeologico Virtuale (Virtual Archaeological Museum in Italian) was inaugurated. The first of its type, this museum transports the visitor into the ancient city of Herculaneum such as it was just before the great eruption of Vesuvius in the year 79 A.D.  This “time travel machine,” like its creators nicknamed it, is an immersive experience in which technology and knowledge are fused together to create a living, unique cultural experience for the visitor.

Initiated six years ago, this 5000 sqm museum has been constructed inside of a former school just two steps away from the actual archaeological site. The exposition occupies a 1500 m² floor where some 70 installations including completely illusory holographic projections, atmospheric simulators, projections of smoke and fumes, tactile interactive screens and local audio broadcasters combine to allow the creation of immersion and suggestion.

Images, textures, lights, sounds, voices and perfumes are generated and coordinated to recreate the location and the ambiance in the most-complete fashion what it had been like to be inside of the ancient city. Among the show sequences included in this one-hour program you will find the discovery of mosaics revealed by the actions of visitors on the screens, the public baths where aromatic perfumes and oils of the time can be experienced, the commercial street markets which are voice-activated by visitors conversations, and the final scene of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The main attraction is without a doubt the “Cavern,” a room illuminated inside with all of the walls screens onto which are projected the most-detailed of reconstructions of the era, interior courts and streets.







Having dove deeply into this ambiance, the visitor is then allowed access to all historic and cultural information the museum has to offer. To personalize the experience, the visitor gets at the entrance to return a RFID badge from which are recorded the guest’s age, nationality and level of archaeological knowledge. Using new software now available, management can adapt the language and content of the information communicated to each visitor. Finally, the biggest scenographic challenge for the museum was to install as discreetly as possible the new technology and conceal its integration into the elements of the ancient city.

The cost for all of the technology equipment of the new MAV, assembled and programmed by the Naples-based company Capware, added up in effect to 2 million euros of a global budget of close to 10 million euros, financed collectively by European funding, funds from the region of Campania, by the province of Naples, and by the City of Ercolano (present name of Herculaneum).

With this project, the public promoters associated with the concept designer Gaetanno Capasso of Capware have achieved complete recreation of numerous original historic sites in the region, and have rejuvenated a city affected by many difficult social issues. Waiting only for the technological success to surpass the economic success, the Capware company is already proffered similar new projects elsewhere in the world.