As part of the “Museums for 10” manifestation on World Museum Day on May 18, 2023, at the Coal Mining Museum in Senjski Rudnik, we hung out with elementary school students from nearby Resavica.
About twenty fifth-grade pupils of the “Vuk Karadžić” Primary School in Resavica visited the exhibition “Manasija Monastery – six decades of research and protection”, where they learned about the role of museums in raising awareness and preserving cultural heritage, and the magical journey of archaeological finds from from small fragments to the exhibits in the museum display case.
With the presentation entitled: “Archaeological puzzle – dishes as evidence of medieval migrations”, the students were introduced to the virtual archaeological world in which they were presented with the most common finds that archaeologists encounter in the field – parts of ceramic vessels. To the eye of an ordinary observer, mostly uninteresting, parts of dishes represent the basis for the chronological determination of the site. It was explained that archaeologists, based on the shape, ornamentation, color, texture, degree of purity of the clay and the type of its additives, determine whether it is pottery from the period of prehistory, antiquity, the Middle Ages or whether it is a vessel of a more recent date (so-called folk ceramics). In the end, the participants of the workshop, with the help of archaeologists, got the opportunity to get involved in the process of restoration of ceramic dishes, and they were very successful in that.
We owe a great deal of gratitude to the collective of the Coal Mining Museum, the school management and the extremely creative and committed pupils of “Vuk Karadžić” Primary School in Resavica for yesterday’s meeting.
