The Workshops of the Exchange will relive the ancient techniques of production and manufacturing of tools used by our progenitors and now treasured in the showcases of the archaeological museums, a testament of the material culture that accompanied the evolution of mankind.

The Workshops reenact the anthropological and material culture of ancient times, by means of the reproduction of the techniques used to craft everyday tools.

Experimental Archaeology is the scientific discipline that deals with the material and anthropological culture of our ancestors, with the trial of techniques, practices and the instruments of our predecessors in their everyday life.
The Experimental Archaeologist is an artisan with specific knowledge of history, archaeology, archaeometry, materials and experience. By combining practical and theoretical skills, the experimental archaeologist’s objective is to reproduce the operational chains to obtain ancient objects and tools, to increase the understanding of way of life of our most ancient forebears.

The relational element

During the workshop, the typical relation of subordination between teachers and participants established in traditional taught classes changes. Everybody becomes a protagonist, an experimentator who makes hypothesis of reconstruction, who observes and analyses, who handles objects and tools, who applies, reinvents or reproduces, who reflects on results and errors through the stages of human cultural and social evolution.

The interactivity

Differently from a museum, where the object can only be observed, during the workshop it is analyzed and reassembled, developing those manual skills which are sadly not used anymore today, since all the tools we use every day are already defined. A material journey through the most ancient part of our history. All these activities, with their raw materials (stone, bone, tendons, skins, clay, metals) will be presented to the visitors, to experiment in first person these ancient jobs, which contributed to the evolution of mankind : from lytic technologies to bone and horn with the manufacturing of tools; the advent of clay, containers, idols, writing tablet; the refined technique of production of vases and their decorations in Greece, 500 years before Christ; the magic of metallurgy, instruments, techniques, myths and tools such as mastic tree oil to create everyday objects and jewels; glass past; the ignition of fire; prehistoric paintings; and also clay for Middle Ages architectural production.

With the scientific coordination of Mauro Cesaretto