|
A virtual museum can also offer experiences impossible in a real-world museum. You can get up close to exhibits. You can unscroll handscrolls and turn the pages of illuminated manuscripts. In one place, you can see exhibits normally scattered throughout the world.
Why choose the 'silk road'?
The overland trade routed between Europe and the Far East (and all places in between) are the stuff of legends, but they also facilitated a spread of cultures that was reflected in adaptations of art and design. Admittedly this was between periods of slaughter and destruction, forced migration and enslavement. But when there was peace, trade flourished and exchanges intensified. These were the hey-days of the silk road. Moreover, when land routes were blocked, trade in spices, textiles, ceramics and glass continued by sea. The last days of the overland silk road spanned the period roughly between 1200 and 1500 CE. This is where the museum begins.
What do you hope to achieve by the museum?
The world of today immediate visual access to images of conflict. Apocalyptic commentators talk in terms of clashes in civilisations, often cast in religious terms – Buddhists, Christians, Hindu, Jews, and Muslims – both Shiite and Sunni. Our reactions become cauterised; we do not understand; we don't try to understand.
The virtual museum allows us to stand back from our preconceptions and prejudices and to appreciate a distant culture, admittedly often an elite culture, from a past in where our emotions are less involved. It will allow us to see how different cultures portrayed themselves and their surroundings and how the art and artefacts influenced each other in form and decoration.
| 
.jpg)
