Romania

RETOLD is a project implemented through the Creative Europe program of the European Union, whose main purpose is the creation of standard documentation tools to be used in open-air museums. Along with creating documentation, craft documentation is an important component of the project that is the subject of this article...

In this article, we share our enriching experiences during internships at two prominent Archaeological Open-Air Museums in Europe: preHistorisch Dorp in the Netherlands and Butser Ancient Farm in the UK. Motivated by our passion for experimental archaeology, we embarked on this journey to contribute to the development of this field in Romania.

At the end of March 2023 the second face-to-face meeting of the partners from the RETOLD Project was organised in Sibiu. The host was the ASTRA National Museum Complex. The meeting took place in the Open-Air Museum of Dumbrava Sibiului, one of the largest open air museums in Europe that comprises over 400 traditional dwellings...

Open-air museums host much cultural heritage data. You can find them in archival records, photos, video, and the minds of people. These data are at risk of being lost. This is where RETOLD comes in, a European Project (Creative Europe Program) with six partners working together on a solution.

The origins of the European RETOLD project, led by the international association EXARC, lie in a concern to preserve the heritage generated by archaeological open-air museums through the creation of a standardised system for collecting, digitising and disseminating knowledge (memories) of the processes of building reconstruction and handcrafted objects. The project has a duration of four years ...

In Romania, in recent years, numerous cultural events and projects have been developed to reconstruct some aspects of everyday life from the past, or to promote archaeological sites (Ardeleanu, 2012, pp.72-73). One of these sites is the Porolissum Archaeological Reserve (Sălaj County). It includes an important prehistoric centre (with discoveries from the Neolithic Age, Bronze Age, Hallstat, and...

Experimental archaeology, as an educational means, has become a particularly useful practice in museum institutions in Romania, although there is no tradition in this field. Here, we present activities of the History and Ethnography Museum in Târgu Neamţ, where several experimental archaeology workshops were organised for pupils aged between 9 and 12 years. Participants were introduced to the prehistoric technologies...

Like in many other European countries, during the past 15 years, Romania has seen an increased interest by archaeologists and history enthusiasts towards the reconstruction of artefacts and certain phenomenal aspects of the past...

The publication in 1979 of the John Coles’ book Experimental Archaeology can be called the vademecum of the experimental archaeology. Many particular experiments have been published since then, such as A Bibliography of Replicative Experiments in Archaeology (Graham et al. 1972) and...