About the project

For a short-term exhibition project in December 2011, we were asked by Prof. Dominik Bonatz to create an exhibition about the ongoing archaeological excavation at Tell Fecheriye in Syria, aimed at a wide, general audience.

Since the exhibition took place in a Globetrotter store in Berlin, the challenge was to find an easily accessible way to present this rather specific topic to a very mixed audience, consisting predominantly of families with children.

We therefore decided to not only present scientific information, but an entire archaeological experience; we designed and constructed a life-sized, accessible excavation trench that visitors could enter to learn about stratigraphy, while for children, we created a colourful illustration that showed the many different tasks performed during an excavation. Additionally, some great prizes awaited the winners of an archaeological quiz game for kids.

The exhibition was complemented by photographs taken by Maximilian Leitenbauer, a young photographer, who accompanied the excavation team to Syria and documented the living conditions of the Syrian excavation workers on-site.

Visitors who wanted to learn more about the excavation project, or who wished to contact the project’s website could do so by studying the accompanying information material. The exhibition architecture was constructed as a modular system so that it could be easily stored and re-erected at a different location.

Literature

• Bonatz, D. in print: Tell Fekheriye in the Late Bronze Age. Archaeological investigations into the structures of political governance in the Upper Mesopotamian Piedmont.