Public Funding for York Archaeological Trust For Excavation and Research Limited

At JORVIK Viking Centre visitors come 'face to face' with the Vikings, they tour the reconstructed Viking-age city and encounter the sights, sounds and smells of life over 1,000 years ago. Now, York Archaeological Trust (YAT), who discovered the remains of the Viking city and created the ground-breaking museum 36 years ago, are working to create the same interactive experience for on-line visitors. From discussing a lunch menu with a Viking, and learning useful Old Norse phrases, to being instructed on how to nålebind a sock and trim your hangerok with home-made tablet-weaving. These are just some of the interactive activities that JORVIK's new on-line museum wants to provide, alongside the opportunity to discuss with specialists in-depth and evolving research and discoveries, such as African influenced Viking casserole dishes or forensic investigations exploring fingerprints found on ancient pottery. YAT wants to create a new style of online museum that is not just centred around images of objects, academic information, worksheets and lists of facts; live interaction will be at the core of the offer, as it is at the physical version of JORVIK. Virtual visitors will have the chance to engage fully with the smallest of objects (a frog skull for example) to ask and get answered 'how did that get there?', to the most unique of objects (a Viking coprolite) to find out what stomach complaints that Viking was suffering from. The physical JORVIK museum contains fascinating evidence of life in Viking-age England, 1,000 years ago, and YAT wants to find a way of bringing that excitement to everyone's computer screens, so that real virtual tourism can thrive, and be economically viable, in the future. To understand if these initial ideas can have the impact and developmental potential envisaged, YAT's newly designed Viking Festival in February 2021 - now reformatted due to the Covid-19 restrictions as a hybrid live / virtual event - 'That JORVIK Viking Thing' - will test some of the digital content and scope created in the original phase of our project. Using the extension for impact funding YAT will work alongside the live-streaming team from York-based Pilot Theatre to broadcast Viking craftspeople demonstrating their artistry from their own workshops, host real-time Q & A sessions with specialists, academics and Viking re-enactors, so that simultaneous live, virtual and screened audiences can participate, and offer exclusive access to daily releases of our 'JORVIKanory' sessions with authors including Terry Deary (Horrible Histories) and Francesca Simon (Horrid Henry) reading from her new Viking themed children's books, plus many more unique visitor experiences, culminating in a whole week of new digital interaction with the Vikings.