Visualization of the archaeological exposition in the context of making knowledge available to the child visitor

At the beginning, the Zvolen municipality and the local branch of the Archaeological Institute of the Slovak Republic offered to cooperate on the realization of a permanent exhibition of monuments from the Empty Castle. Until now, this our most extensive castle area has not had a museum exhibition that would correspond to its historical importance. It was a challenge tailor-made for our department. However, our ambition from the beginning was to involve students in the project. Compared to their previous bachelor's exhibitions in the Ponitrian Museum, a new dimension of creative museum work stood before us: a permanent exhibition, aimed at the widest spectrum of visitors, providing the most up-to-date scientific knowledge, but in a way comprehensible to a lay audience.

Soon, our work unexpectedly expanded to include another exhibition. An international archaeological symposium dedicated to the Younger Bronze Age was held in nearby Hriňová in June. Therefore, the exhibition 'Chosen in the Bronze Age' (1) was to be realized for its participants.

Part of the fifth-year students and several third-year students decided to take on the project. It was clear in advance that we had a difficult task ahead of us - to design one temporary and one permanent exposition of a specific, highly professional nature. Work partly remotely, so to speak. The theoretical foundations of the scenario were created during joint working meetings at the department and also individually in the students' free time.

We started from the spatial layout of the dedicated exhibition rooms in the baroque building of the Old Town Hall in Zvolen. The historic interior offered an attractive and suitable environment. Although its arrangement was non-standard, this was balanced by the appropriate design of showcases, their arrangement and the overall organization of the show.

The intention of the Zvolen municipality was to have an exhibition accessible to visitors to the city center, where they could either expand their knowledge and view the findings after a tour of the Deserted Castle, or (in the opposite guard) they would be inspired to climb the castle in the Old Town Hall. First of all, it was necessary to 'sift' information about the location through an imaginary sieve of the limits of understanding of the lay public. We chose a partly chronological and partly geographical approach, that is, we divided the showcases and panels according to the parts of the castle grounds and according to the stages of settlement. Thus, the basis of the technical scenario of the exposure was created. Other ideas were then applied to this skeleton, and as part of the finalization, elements aimed at the child visitor were also applied.

The premises (one room approx. 7x7 m and the other approx. 3x5 m) did not provide great possibilities for the implementation of a separate section for children, therefore we had to integrate all activities of this kind into the entire exhibition. The students gradually came up with ideas on how to diversify the children's tour, or how to interest them or entertain them in a suitable way, while their adult escort looks at the exhibits and reads the information. Not only the premises, but also making the exhibition accessible without a lecturer made it difficult and limited the possibilities of realizing individual ideas. We therefore had to incorporate those that could be placed and used without the involvement of specialized personnel and also without significantly disrupting the uniformity of the exhibition space.

In the end, it was possible to carry out two activities for the child visitor. The first was a simple puzzle. This is an element that our students regularly use in their exhibitions in Nitra. Considering the focus of the exhibition, we chose a motif typical of the Deserted Castle. It became a depiction of a dragon on a medieval book binding found at the site. This motif occurs quite often in connection with the castle and has become a sort of unofficial logo. At the same time, its rendering corresponds well with the period that is most captured in the exhibition (12th-15th century). Due to the expected intensive use, the puzzle had to be made of durable material, plywood proved to be the ideal solution. The dragon motif was engraved into it by burning it with a hot metal tool. The finished product was cut into fifteen parts of different sizes and shapes, but with rounded sides so that its assembly was not too easy and fast (Fig. 1). For folding, we set aside window sills in the modest spaces of the exhibition, which are wide enough to assemble the puzzle and at the same time are naturally lit from the street (2).

This way, children can diversify their tour of the exhibition with simple fun, while getting to know the most famous artistic motif from the Deserted Castle.

The second activity for children, which was not originally planned, was offered by the exhibition hall itself. The scenario of the exhibition envisaged the course of the tour to the left of the door along the wall with windows to the street and then continuously further to a smaller room or alcove. In the center of the larger room, we placed a tall four-story showcase with the most valuable finds. During the installation, the corner of the larger of the two rooms, right behind the entrance portal, remained empty after the final placement of the showcases. When viewed from the inside, it was the space to the right of the door, where the showcases would be tucked away. That's why the creation of an 'archeosandbox' was started here. It is a low wooden box 1.5x1.5 m filled with sand, in which shards of broken replicas of medieval vessels and a few metal objects, also imitating archaeological finds, are hidden. Here, the children also have the basic equipment of an archaeologist for picking up artifacts and cleaning objects (broom, spatula, shovels, brushes, during the opening, also a dustpan...). Thus, an attractive space was created where young visitors can practically try field archaeological work, enhanced by the excitement of discovering the unknown (Fig. 2).

A part of the visualization, although no longer exclusively for the child visitor, eventually became an artistic addition to the exposition in a smaller room, i.e. a niche with an illusory painting, imitating a view into a furnished room in the castle interior, together with paintings depicting the panorama of the castle in the Middle Ages and again using the motif of a dragon from bookbinding. Despite the original concerns about the stylistic incompatibility of the Baroque vaults and the medieval elements of the painting, the resulting effect was 'moved' to a satisfactory level by indicating the medieval architectural elements (Gothic window, Romanesque columns) in the painting, thus achieving the effect of an authentic medieval space enclosed as if by a cross-vault field (Fig. 3).

It should be noted that this entire "upgrade" of the exhibition space could not be realized without the extremely creative commitment of students with an art education.

The realized exhibition was already verbally appreciated by the lay and professional public during the opening ceremony. In order to further evaluate the methods and means used, it will be necessary to find out the opinions of the visitors, which we would like to do in the near future.

Author: PhDr. Pavol Šteiner, PhD. Department of Museology FFUKF in Nitra Used literature: Šteiner, P.: Students of museology and the 'conquest' of Zvolen. Our Time 2/2013, p. 14. ISSN 1338 - 3272 Šteiner, P. - Ozimy, A.: Archaeological discoveries from Zvolen's Deserted Castle. Museum 2/2013, p. 31, 32. ISSN 0027-5263

Notes: (1) Šteiner, P.: Students of museology and the 'conquest' of Zvolena, p. 14 (2) Šteiner, P. - Ozimy, A.: Archaeological discoveries from Zvolenské Pustý hrad, p. 32

Description of the images: 1: Jigsaw puzzle with a dragon motif (photo L. Jančeková) 2: Archaeopieskovisko (photo author) 3: Illusive painting in the niche of the exhibition space (photo author)