Matthias PACHER
(MAMUZ, Mistelbach, Austria)
Keywords: Archaeology, Reconstructions, Tourism, Events
Abstract:
The studies of prehistoric and ancient historic technologies and archaeological experiments have a long tradition in Asparn/Zaya. Since the archaeological open-air site has existed, importance has often been attached to clarifying historical questions using practical experimental arrangements.
MAMUZ is the new name which combines the Lower Austrian museum of prehistory Urgeschichtemuseum 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 and the collection of objects from prehistory to the middle ages of Lower Austria, the museum of prehistory MAMUZ aims to show how strategic measures between the two apparently contrary – but actually closely connected – areas of archaeology and tourism can lead to effective academic and also economic cooperation.
The museum has been regularly expanded in its fifty-year history with the addition of prehistoric architectural models and, since the redesign in 2014, it has displayed the exemplary prehistoric residential, farming and trade buildings in combined village-like structures and setup a modern an unique presentation of the archaeological objects in the exhibition halls of MAMUZ.
In addition to basic academic research, the museum of prehistory also fulfils an important cultural and educational mission. To develop creative products within the European cultural landscape, results are presented in archaeological research in an entertaining way using educational methods suitable for a museum so that the general public can understand these results. Public events with re-enactments, for example, play an important role for the archaeological open-air site in MAMUZ Asparn/Zaya to make the didactic approach of the museum’s presentation of prehistoric and ancient times more fun.