PROCEEDINGS | Scientific Symposium
This claim , which should be also extended to other categories of indoor museums in addition to art museums , such as archaeological ones , is not valid for archaeological sites , because , from a communicative point of view the function of resonance and evocation is different ( Cecconi , L . and Olmetti Peja , D ., 2004 , p . 137 ). Obviously , archaeological sites , for their luck and ours , have not undergone any kind of displacement , at least as far as architectural and spatial structures and undamaged decorative elements are concerned . These are , in fact , still visible and accessible to the public in situ ( Vaudetti M . et al ., 2013 ; Ruggieri , M . C . and Germanà , M . L ., 2013 ) unlike movable objects found in situ and later transferred to museums .
A museum object , as French philosopher Jean-Louis Déotte ( 1993 , p . 397 ) claims , is by nature “ définitivement décontestualisé , délocalisé , abstrait , suspendu ” ( definitively decontextualized , delocalized , abstract , suspended ). For this reason , if we want archaeological finds , uprooted and decontextualized from their original context and subject to various processes of subtraction , to restart to dialogue and communicate significant messages when they acquire the new status of museum object , it is necessary to structure them according to the so-called archaeology of contexts and , therefore , insert them in a narratve and reconstructive dialectic ( Rauti , I ., 2001 , pp . 43-80 ). Obviously , this above all implies the overcoming of old , stale , dusty exhibition and layout modalities , which have unfortunately become a prerogative of archaeological museums . This overcoming can be achieved only by stitching back together connections now lost ( historical , social , environmental , geographical , productive , functional , relational ). All this can be done in accordance with different levels of reading and interpretation of the message of which the museum object is bearer .
The intention , as Maria Clara Ruggeri Tricoli says , always remains not to limit oneself to showing objects but to interpret and present them in such a way to render them useful in forming concepts in the mind of the visitor ( 2004 , p . 46 ).
Re-establishing these connections in the field of the museum means , in other terms , making explicit a whole series of inherent themes which are found in the finds themselves , but absolutely not evident , which otherwise would remain hidden , because of a scarcity of interpretive codes , from most of the visitors experience with the sole exception of experts in the sector in question .
If for cultural communication , like Virgilio Vercelloni ( 1994 , pp . 64-65 ), we mean a slow process of communication which beginning with an eloquent synthesis allows the subsequent deepening in any direction … which assumes a rigorous science sufficient to satisfy not only the beginner but also the specialist and it is evident that this approach from the epistemological point of view takes for granted a communicative structure which has been conceived from a museological viewpoint and planned museographically , structured and displayed under several levels of interpretation and decoding and in such a way to always be intelligible to the different sectors of the public who visit the museum .
An exemplary case in which museographic display and museum education are strictly correlated , and we can say nearly speak the same language is that of the “ Crypte archéologique du Parvis Notre-Dame ” in Paris , created and displayed in the 1970s by the municipality under the parvis of the cathedral to accomodate urban remains , from Lutetia Gallo-Roman to the19th century city . Remains brought to light during the excavations , carried out under the direction of the Antiquité historique de l ’ Ȋle de France , undertaken between 1965 and 1973 for the construction of an underground car-park adjacent to the cathedral , but only opened to the public in 1980 .
The casual rediscovery of the ancient route , seven metres wide , of the rue Neuve Notre-Dame , opened by the Parisian Diocesan bishop Maurice de Sully at the end of the 12th century with the aim of facilitating the transportation of materials necessary for the construction of the cathedral , was the opportunity for evoking the fundamental phases of the town planning history of the Ȋle de la Cité and for reconfiguring this ancient asset . Because the urban route had been buried for more than seven centuries , the underlying ancient archaeological layers were preserved intact . Despite , as claimed , in a rather low profile style by
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