Egyptian archaeology in multiple realities: Integrating XR technologies and museum outreach

Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 27 (2022) e00249 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/daach Egyptian archaeology in multiple realities: Integrating XR technologies and museum outreach Sara E. Zaia a, *, Katherine E. Rose a, Andrew S. Majewski b a Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 04138, USA Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University/ Harvard Museums of Science & Culture (HMSC), 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 04138, USA b A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Keywords: Museum outreach AR/VR/XR Archaeogaming Educational engagement Education Virtual reality Egyptian archaeology We present a study of the general public’s experience with virtual, augmented, and mixed reality representations (XR) of Egyptological collections at the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East based on 3D models of objects. Our research presents potential strategies for the development of more interactive experiences to enhance education, preservation of cultural heritage, and archaeological scholarship. Furthermore, we provide a discussion of the advantages and limitations of incorporating and maintaining XR technologies as foundational tools in museum outreach. We argue that when equipped with proper training of facilitators, allocation of resources to maintain technology, and adequate preparation across staff and departments, virtual technologies in museum programming have the potential to enrich visitor experience within the existing museum environment by diversifying the modes of interaction between individuals and objects, engaging multiple senses, cementing memories, and igniting intellectual curiosity. 1. Introduction Museums constitute and are constituted by interactions between diverse stakeholders: visitors, educators, staff, researchers at various levels of experience, and many more. Tangible and intangible elements also serve as active participants in this exchange of ideas. These include the physical objects in museum collections, the information displayed and tailored to the public in galleries, the research agendas of specialists, the museum’s online presence, and activities used by museum educators in outreach contexts. Outreach activities in recent decades have been increasingly influenced by the explosion in popularity and usability of virtual technologies such as virtual reality, due to recent technological advancements. However, critical engagement with the impacts and efficacy of virtual technologies in museums by museum professionals and scholars remains limited. How do virtual technologies impact the traditional learning environment of museums and how can these technologies be best used to engage audiences? What are the strengths and limitations of integrating virtual technologies in museums? These questions are the guiding framework for this article and we will address them throughout our sections. First, we provide an overview of the state of the art and the studies focusing on the strong relationship between XR and learning. We also highlight relevant literature regarding object engagement and introduce how the materiality of virtual experiences relates to museum outreach. Next, we present an overview of educational programming and existing virtual offerings at Harvard University’s museums. Following this overview, we present the results of a pilot study applying virtual technologies to ancient Egyptian collections at a large public outreach event. This pilot study was initially presented at the ASOR (American Society of Overseas Research) 2019 Annual Meeting. Lastly, we present reflections on the experiential advantages and logistical constraints of implementing outreach programs in museums with virtual technologies. We stress the importance of considering the labor and financial requirements of maintaining public interfacing virtual technologies and activities and offer suggestions to any museum or educational institution considering developing similar outreach initiatives. When equipped with proper training of facilitators, allocation of resources to maintain technology, and adequate preparation across staff and departments, virtual technologies in museum programming have the potential to enrich visitor experience within the existing museum environment by diversifying the modes of interaction between individuals and objects, engaging multiple senses, cementing memories, and igniting intellectual curiosity. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S.E. Zaia), [email protected] (K.E. Rose), [email protected] (A.S. Majewski). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.daach.2022.e00249 Received 15 April 2022; Received in revised form 31 October 2022; Accepted 3 November 2022 Available online 12 November 2022 2212-0548/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. S.E. Zaia et al. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 27 (2022) e00249 2. Virtual archaeology: state of the art to recreate the colors of the sculpture of a sphinx to be compared with how it looks today.3 UCL Petrie Museum developed a tour guide app, with maps of the museum’s floors and descriptions of the artifacts, as well as an app available through the computer at the museum (Makeover app). The app doesn’t provide an AR experience but allows the user to virtually manipulate the objects.4 The Egyptian Museum in Cairo created a database of 3D models of more than 120000 objects that can be brought to life in any classroom thanks to an AR app developed by EON. The museum also hosted a 7days trial on 141 people of the VR app developed by Ramy Hammady as a part of his Ph.D. research at the University of Staffordshire, called “Museum Eye”. Using a Microsoft HoloLens AR headset the visitor was guided by a hologram of King Tut that explained the artifacts in the Egyptian Museum.5 Although the trial received positive feedback the app has not permanently been adopted by the museum as of yet. VR tours allow people to visit archaeological sites from their homes. One example is Experius VR’s Nefertari: Journey to Eternity (available for free on Steam6). This is a VR reconstruction based on photogrammetry that allows the viewer to take a real-world virtual tour through the ancient Egyptian queen’s tomb, and also features interactive elements that share details of the site’s history, art, and construction. The COVID-19 pandemic forced museums to find virtual, alternative ways to offer visits. Museums such as the Museo Egizio of Turin and the British Museum in London designed virtual tours of their galleries, based on real photography.7 The Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East (formerly the Harvard Semitic Museum) used Matterport to provide online tours. The experimentation with XR technologies went as far as including the app PokémonGo during museums and cultural heritage visits. Some institutions embraced the app and integrated gameplay into visitors’ experience (the city of Basel for its medieval town, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, the National Museum of American History, and Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian), and tourism websites give tips on where to find Pokémons in the city (English Heritage, GoProvidence). Specific Pokémon hunting tours of archaeological sites have also been created (Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Valley Forge), and while some scholars (Colleen Morgan, 2017) support the use of the app in archaeological sites as “(the app) adds a new element of interest, an unexpected juxtaposition of cartoon characters in a solemn (potentially boring) place” other scholars shared their concerns as the app distracts from the archaeological heritage and drives people away from the real world, creating “zombies walking on the streets” as defined by journalist Dawn Q. Landau,8 mentioning also the fear for future monetization of such operations. Another concern regards the disrespect of playing in sacred sites (holocaust and memorial sites). According to Reinhard (2017b), the enthusiasm toward Pokémon Go and Cultural Heritage was limited to the summer of 2016 except for the two days events organized by the city of Chester (UK) in 2017.9 The success of virtual experiences lies in their immersion component. Immersion is the act of delving into something, it might be something physical, such as plunging your body into water, or metaphorical, such as becoming immersed in a project or an audio-visual environment. The expansion and development of computer technology into various disciplines continues to revolutionize the social sciences. While archaeology may be presented to some audiences as a traditionally analog practice characterized by dirt, trowels, and handwritten notes, many endeavors over the past decade have brought the discipline into a new frontier of virtual technology. Drones, photogrammetry, and 3D imagery represent just a fraction of the methods employed by researchers globally to record and analyze archaeological data. The infiltration of spatial computing technologies into museums and educational spheres allows audiences to experience the past in different and increasingly immersive ways. These technologies, such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR) are collectively referred to as XR. Here, “X” acts as a variable to enable an easier shorthand compared to the previous listing of “AR/VR/MR”1. XR technologies are closely tied to the development of Archaeogaming a discipline that focuses on the study of archaeology and its representation in videogames. Video games involving archaeologyinspired narratives have significantly grown in popularity over the last few decades. Egyptological motifs have been popular since the 90s, as exemplified by the success of the Lara Croft Tomb Raider series. Capitalizing upon the popular appeal of Egypt-themed adventures, more companies have been assigning Egyptological motifs to their stories and environments, such as Ubisoft’s 2017 critical and popular smash hit Assassin’s Creed: Origins. More recently, indie developer Rune Skovbo Johansen announced the Indiana Jones-inspired virtual reality puzzle game Eye of the Temple, released in October 2021. This game allows users to move, duck, and dodge their way through a temple and collect artifacts with a bullwhip through a VR headset and the game’s innovative locomotion methods. The potential of video games in educational environments has drawn historians and archaeologists to explore further possible applications (Reinhard, 2017a, 2018). In the latest years, professional organizations such as the Society of American Archaeologists (SAA) and the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) have offered multi-year workshops, sessions, and webinars on the intersections of archaeology, video games, and virtual technologies (Rassalle 2021). While some adventure-based video games and apps with archaeological influences depict the discipline as an antiquated form of treasure hunting or puzzle-solving, several recent attempts employ XR technology supporting specifically developed apps creating a gaming environment for educational purposes (Anderson et al., 2010; Beale and Reilly, 2017). These projects portray the discipline differently, with more accurate archaeological and historical narratives. For example, the Before Egypt app displays 3D interactive models of ancient Egyptian artifacts from the Predynastic Period (University of Liverpool2). The app was designed to accompany the collections of Predynastic artifacts of the Garstang museum at the University of Liverpool. It can be used within the museum space but the archive of high-resolution 3D models of artifacts can be consulted at home as well. The archive of 3D models is collected in SketchFab, on the Garstang Museum of Archaeology page. Palma and Perry used an AR application to interact with the physical replicas in a virtual environment and to see the appearance of the original cultural heritage artifacts in the Museum. It has been demonstrated that interacting with physical objects mapped in the VR experience increases the realism and engagement of the user (Palma et al., 2021; Hoffman 1998, Yoshimoto, 2017). The MET Museum in New York developed an AR app named Chroma 3 (https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2022/chroma/ch roma-ar). 4 https://www.ucl.ac.uk/3dpetriemuseum/. 5 https://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2018/april/researchercreatestutankhamunh ologramguideforcairomuseum/. 6 https://store.steampowered.com/app/861400/Nefertari_Journey_to_Ete rnity/. 7 https://virtualtour.museoegizio.it/https://www.britishmuseum.org/collec tion/galleries. 8 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pokemon-go_b_11199526. 9 https://playfulcity.net/go/pokemon-report/cities/chester/. 1 Schulze, J. How Virtual Reality Works. UCSanDiegoX (CSE165x), Lecture 1 2019. 2 https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/it/app-directory/before-egypt/. 2 S.E. Zaia et al. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 27 (2022) e00249 According to Jeremy Bailenson in his 2018 book, Experience on Demand, virtual technology is designed to make the viewer disappear into the experience and the psychological effects of such an immersion in a VR environment can be profound and long-lasting. VR feels real, and its effects on us resemble the effects of real-world experience. Consequently, VR is better understood not as a media experience, but as an actual experience. As Bailenson argues, “VR is an experience generator” (2018: 46). Experience is something that occurs in reality and involves “actually doing” something (2018: 5). As humans, we value experiences because we know that first-hand exposure to facts or events is the most powerful and effective way for us to learn from and navigate the world. Sara Perry’s work focuses on the emotional aspect of immersion. The EMOTIVE-Project (Palma et al., 2021; Dolcetti et al., 2021; Perry et al., 2017) works from the premise that cultural sites are highly emotional places. They are the seeds not only of knowledge but of emotional resonance and human connection. The project (2016–2019) focused on developing emotional storytelling to be integrated into the visit to archaeological sites (i.e. Çatalhöyük) (Perry et al., 2020; Katifori et al., 2020). Immersion may explain why XR experiences are so attractive to some, over other more analog activities such as reading or crafting. The XR experience drags the user into another reality. Furthermore, Bailenson argues that virtual reality is also “perfect for things you couldn’t do in the real world” (2018: 250). The interactive nature of immersion in a virtual game world, more importantly, engages the audience. In addition to XR technologies, video games also aim for maximum immersion. While immersed in the computer-generated reality of playing video games, players are experiencing real-world emotions and physical reactions, such as excitement, increased heart rate, sweating, and so forth. Furthermore, because of the required decision-making and cognitive processes involved, such as puzzle-solving, the immersion aspect is intensified (Bailenson 2018: 28). While video games and virtual technologies can be considered separate but related categories of simulated-world experience, we assert that they should be considered part of the same analytic category because they both actively engage the viewer/user in a similarly immersive way. Technological advances provide for increased means of engaging various audiences in the experience of archaeological heritage. This is particularly pertinent in the realm of museums, which blend physical and visual learning styles by bridging the past and present. As we will discuss in the next section in more detail, many museums aim to blend object-based learning with virtual technologies in new and different ways. Through hands-on learning, students build a connection to objects and can interact with them and understand their relationship to other concepts (Kirsch, 2012; Kirsch and Maglio 1994). As Pollalis et al. argue, “3D models offer a high degree of realism as well as the ability to zoom and spin visual representations without physical constraints and with familiar control features, and head-worn AR devices provide a fully visually immersive environment that replicates the scale and presence of the object” (2018: 627). Making accurate virtual versions of authentic artifacts provides an opportunity for museum curators, archaeologists, and educators to extend the range of artifacts available for teaching purposes. It also extends the spaces in which engaging educational interactions with archaeological objects and cultural heritage can occur, including virtual reconstructions of actual archaeological sites (Pollalis et al., 2018). Several scholars have noted that “as viewers interact with objects they make emotional associations with remembered experiences’’ (Pollalis et al., 2018: 627). Our study and direct observations find that this process of building emotional associations and memories through physical object interaction does indeed occur. Furthermore, this process extends to and is enhanced by visitor interaction with virtual objects. However, some scholars recognize that one potential challenge of teaching with virtual objects in museums is the concern that screens and handheld devices might distract the public from viewing the actual artifacts (Petrelli et al., 2013). As we discuss later on in this article, our study in museum outreach reveals the opposite; virtual technologies and their devices do not diminish interest in the actual artifacts. Rather, virtual technologies motivate visitors to view and learn about artifacts behind glass cases. 3. The Amazing Archaeology fair at harvard The Amazing Archaeology at Harvard Fair is a free annual event and one part of the suite of programming put on by the Education Department of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology and the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East (formerly the Harvard Semitic Museum). The event is run with no use of an internal budget or grants. The two museums are part of a larger entity, the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture (HMSC), a partnership that was established in July 2012 to develop a strong, coordinated public face for the six research museums that are within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences unit at Harvard. These museums include the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments (CHSI), the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology (PMAE)10, the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East (HMANE), and the Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH). From their mission statement, a major part of HMSC’s goal is to work “in concert with Harvard faculty, museum curators, and students, … to provide interdisciplinary exhibitions, events and lectures, and educational programs for … the general public.” In doing so “HMSC draws primarily upon the extensive collections of the member museums and the research of their faculty and curators” (Harvard Museums of Science and Culture)11. In line with this mission statement, museum educational programming includes several large public festivals, including the one we participated in and from which this study emerged. Founded in 1889, HMANE was envisioned as a teaching tool to study the ancient histories and cultures of Egypt and the Ancient Near East. The HMANE holds university collections of Archaeology and art from Egypt and the Ancient Near East. The museum is fortunate in that its current director Dr. Peter Der Manuelian embraces a vision of transforming the museum resources into cutting-edge study tools. In addition to the regionally focused permanent collection, recently the museum commissioned a custom-designed interactive exhibit that employs virtual technologies. This exhibit involves a displayed resin cast of the socalled “Dream Stela ’’, dated to the reign of Tuthmosis IV (XVIII dynasty, XIV century BCE)12. The original stela is still located in Giza, between the forelegs of the Sphinx, and tells the story of the young prince who fell asleep in the shade of the Sphinx, at the time buried by sand. According to the inscription on the stela, the sphinx appeared to him in a dream, promising to make him king if he would free her from the sand. In addition to being an eye-catching museum object in its own right, the resin cast of this stela acts as a trigger for a target-based augmented reality experience. Museum signage instructs visitors to download a free app called Dreaming the Sphinx (DtS) from Apple’s App Store or the Google Play Store (Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East). The App was developed and built by Luke Hollis, owner, and CEO of Archimedes Digital,13 an outside software company specializing in cultural heritage institutions. Archimedes Digital was recommended by the Harvard DARTH group (Arts and Humanities Research Computing) as the company developed another app for the team running the Harvard Yard Archaeology Program14. In this case, the app was not launched by a trigger but by GPS coordinates when people were standing at a specific location at the Harvard Yard excavation. The development of the app was supported by small internal Harvard grants, not specific to XR projects. 10 11 12 13 14 3 https://peabody.harvard.edu/. https://hmsc.harvard.edu/pages/about. https://hmane.harvard.edu/dream-stela. https://archimedes.digital/. https://peabody.harvard.edu/hyap. S.E. Zaia et al. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 27 (2022) e00249 Once in front of the Dream Stela visitors launch the app, aim their device (smartphone or tablet) at the stela and they can experience a selection of three different AR and VR/immersive experiences (Fig. 1). In one, a 360-degree computer-generated 3D reconstruction of the Sphinx and the Dream Stela appear as they were in Giza at several points in history. The app places the viewer within an immersive image at the base of the stela looking up, with the Sphinx looming overhead. One can spin in 360◦ to see the reconstructed ancient surroundings, including the pyramid of Khafre in the distance in the two o’clock position, the wall of the temple in front of the Sphinx’s paws at the six-o’clock position, and the rest of the scene as they physically rotate themselves around in a circle within the gallery. An onscreen slider transforms the visual model, showing how the Sphinx appeared at four points in history: Old Kingdom, New Kingdom, Dynasty XIX, and the present. The app was designed in Unity, using Vuforia as the AR rendering engine, the software development kits (SDKs) ARKit, and ARCore for the libraries to be compatible with both Android and Apple devices. The code is not open source at the moment but the future interactions of the project will not include Vuforia and all assets could be made public/ open source if other museums are interested in using the application (Luke Hollis pers. comm.). The app has just been shared with the Rosicrucian Museum in California, as the museum also houses a copy of the Dream Stela, of different dimensions. The new version of the App will start with the choice of the Museum. A second experience within the app uses augmented reality to overlay a bold outline of all the images and hieroglyphs present on the monument, making everything much more visible, especially to the nonEgyptologist. A series of hotspots appear on the stela that reveals additional information when selected. Visitors can click on these to obtain the text translation line by line, a description of the iconography, and the historical background of the monument. The third and final immersive experience the app offers is the placement of an AR-generated 3D model of the Sphinx at a reduced scale on the floor of the museum when the visitor scans a separate trigger image on the ground. They can then walk completely around the model, looming over it as if they were a giant, and examine it from all sides. Again, a slider transforms the Sphinx as it appeared at the same four points in history. All this is possible thanks to the ability of current devices to render and display 3D models, which have their genesis in video games. Other AR/VR experiences also rely on this 3D model technology. The Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East assembled a digital archive of 1124 3D scanned models (as of April 2021) of objects from Africa and the Ancient Near East. They are accessible on Sketchfab - a public hosting and sharing site for 3D models. The HMANE page on Sketchfab can be found at the following website: https://sketchfab.com/hmane. Making such an archive public on Sketchfab is consistent with the Director’s vision for embracing the latest technologies to increase public engagement and bolster teaching within the university and beyond. As a result, the digital collections are available to scholars and people who cannot visit the museum in person, and objects are available for classes lectures, and student projects. The Amazing Archaeology at Harvard Fair has been running annually every Spring since 2013. Previous scholars have presented their work involving Paleolithic and Neolithic sites in Africa & Europe, Iron Age excavations in the Balkans and Iceland, Maya Classic Period research in Mesoamerica, Post-conquest studies in the American Southwest, Colonial Period New England, and New Kingdom excavations in Egypt and Kush, to name a few. The goal of this festival is to attract new external audiences to the museums and to facilitate one-to-one conversations between archaeology researchers and the broader community. A further goal, in line with the larger mission of supporting Harvard students and researchers, is to provide an arena for such scholars to hone their ability to engage with the public and to observe the reaction of visitors to different engagement strategies. Specifically, it provides a space for engaging in a fun and memorable way within an informal museum setting, and for sharing academic passions in conversations with the non-scientist in a way that is both easily graspable, yet leaves a lasting impression. Producing this event takes close to six months of extensive planning and coordination. The event is free for the public and voluntary for the scholars at the conversation tables. All the software and devices used (except for the DtS app) at the event are free or inexpensive. The organizers invite about a dozen presenters whose research focus provides a diverse and representative breadth of geographical and cultural areas across the globe and throughout time to expose the general public to the full range of the archaeological studies taking place at the university. Presenters design a “Conversation Table”, a physical place in the museum where they can focus on one or two main points of their research and engage with the visitors. Such a table is organized around a “hook” – an artifact or activity to catch the visitor’s attention, draw them over, and provide something material to act as an ice-breaker for initiating conversation. Typical examples of these have included hands-on artifacts from the Education Department’s teaching collection, museum artifacts on loan, laminated maps and illustrations, and multimedia experiences including live demonstrations of 3D model creation, 3D printing, and AR and VR experiences. Over a 4-h period, the festival draws crowds of between 300 and 800 people. The typical museum-festival audience is mostly families with children in grades K-12. The Amazing Archaeology at Harvard Fair, however, tends to draw more adults than other events that the museum organizes. For the archaeology presenters, the day is an overwhelming and engaging whirlwind. They typically have time for short, one to 5min interactions with individuals or small family units. Direct observations by one of the authors who is also the event producer have revealed that archaeology projects involving technology (such as GPS mapping, 3D scanning and printing, and aerial drones) are especially interesting for the visitors. It is our educated guess that this heightened interest in technology is due to the fact that the visitor is given the opportunity to interact with virtual technologies they told us they heard about but never tried first-hand. Furthermore, such technology offers increased engagement by providing a reaction to a visitor’s action (i.e. touching the screen). In fact, the authors have observed that visitors engaging with XR technologies react as excitedly as if they are observing a magic trick. During the COVID pandemic, the scheduled in-person annual Archaeology Fair was canceled. To maintain the continuity of the event, the museum reconfigured it into an online, virtual version that ran in the Fall of 2020. Each presenter reworked their original conversation table into a presentation that could be broadcast over the internet. Presenters created short, 7 to 9-min videos of themselves explaining the high points and exciting discoveries of their research with the aid of a PowerPoint Fig. 1. A young visitor playing with the Dreaming the Sphinx app in the HMANE galleries. By holding up an iPad, the AR is triggered and overlays new information onto the stela on display. 4 S.E. Zaia et al. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 27 (2022) e00249 companion trigger-object called the Merge Cube15 (Fig. 3). Majewski was introduced to the Merge Cube at one of the events of the Boston AR/ VR meeting where representatives from the company gave away some samples. The product is now $25, an affordable price for any institution. Both products are developed and maintained by Microsoft partner Merge Labs, Inc., an educational software company. The “Merge Cube” is a black foam cube six inches on each side that is patterned with unique clusters of small silver symbols, different on each face. When the cube is viewed through the Object Viewer app on a device, the pattern on each side triggers a 3D model of the artifact to be overlaid onto the cube in AR. When the cube is rotated in the viewer’s hand, a different face is scanned, and a different orientation of the model is displayed, creating the illusion of holding an actual rotating object suspended within a case. Although one does not have the tactile experience of the actual object itself, there is nevertheless an engaging tactile element as the viewer controls the object in space. The second XR experience with the Taweret figurine involved virtual reality and allowed visitors to “teleport” around a larger-than-life-size 3D version of the artifact within a VR “room”. This was accomplished using a free app called Sketchfab and a physical stereoscopic viewer called the HOMiDO Mini VR glasses16 (Fig. 4). The glasses are a simpler and more convenient to use version of the Google Cardboard, very popular a few years back. Sketchfab is a hosting site for 3D models, similar to the way Flicker and Pinterest are hosting sites for 2D images. Sketchfab also exists as a standalone website in addition to its app version, and is also a social media platform for 3D model creators to connect and share their work (Fig. 5). The company has a strong division dedicated to preserving cultural heritage through the archiving of 3D models of heritage sites and artifacts from museums around the world. The mobile app has several modes, including a simple 2D mode where the viewer can interact with a computer model of an artifact on their device screen by tapping, swiping, pinching, and zooming to rotate the object. The user can enlarge, shrink, or move the object allowing it to be examined on all sides. In the VR mode, which we used, a split-screen stereoscopic pair of images is displayed on the device screen and the artifact is placed in the center of a virtual “room” that has a grid for a floor. A stereoscopic viewer is needed to complete the immersive 3D VR experience. Many commercial stereoscopic viewers exist for viewing immersive 3D content on smartphones. The majority require the user to place their device within a small, box-like holder equipped with a pair of lenses, similar in size to the classic View-Master toy. Free cardboard versions of these stereoscopic viewers exist, the most notable being the Google Cardboard device.17 These viewers are a bit bulky and can be cumbersome to place the phone into position. Devices are at risk of slipping out and becoming damaged in a fall. Viewers are not tailored to specific phone models and a common problem is a misalignment between the pair of images and viewing lenses. To mitigate these hindrances, we opted to use a lightweight clip-on stereoscopic viewer - the HOMiDO Mini VR glasses, which attach directly to the user’s phone. To get a 360 view of the object and “move” around it within the VR space, the user holds their phone to their face and looks through the lenses, and must physically turn their head and body to place a set of crosshairs, called the reticle, onto the particular grid square they wish to “teleport” to (Fig. 6). Tapping the screen with a finger makes the scene jump to that location, and the object is now viewed from this new vantage point. The third and final XR experience of Taweret was another augmented reality experience and also employed the Sketchfab app, but this time using the “AR mode”. Visitors were able to look through the iPads we provided as if they were “magic windows” and see a “holographic” presentation or other digital media. After their videos aired, each presenter joined the stream for a live 15-min interactive Q&A session with the audience. The entire virtual program ran for 1.5 h and had a total viewership of 157 individuals, bringing the excitement of archaeology into the homes of people in lockdown, and potentially inspiring the next generation of future archaeologists. From the end-of-program survey, we learned that for 95% of viewers this was their first experience with the festival. Their responses were overwhelmingly appreciative and enthusiastic, and the majority expressed a strong desire to learn more about archaeology. After the event, the museum recognized the public outreach value of these video assets combined with the opportunity to engage directly with an archaeology scholar. As a result, the concept was re-packaged into a currently ongoing program offered for free to K-12 schools and teachers around the country. This program is now called the Archaeology Speakers Bureau and visits by individual presenters are offered to the public under the product title: Virtual Classroom Visit with a Harvard Student Archaeologist (Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University). As of Spring 2020), it has served over 185 schools and 3126 students, in the United States and Canada. For a more in-depth discussion of how museums are responding to the pandemic by bringing their collections into online spaces, see Clerkin and Taylor (2021). The authors provide a detailed survey of recent and long-term projects such as virtual galleries, digitized collections, and social media activities from museums around the world including HMANE. 4. The AR/VR “conversation table”: methodology To analyze the effects of virtual technologies on traditional museum learning environments, we designed a pilot study based on an XR “Conversation Table” (Fig. 2a and b). Specifically, we aimed to evaluate whether or not activities centered around XR technology would further engage people with the museum’s collection, or detract from the traditional gallery displays and information, as per Petrelli et al.’s (2013) claim. We chose to conduct our study at the 2019 Archaeology Fair within HMANE because of the public-focused outreach nature of the event itself. We hoped to produce an example of an application of XR technologies in museums for future use as a tool to enhance regular public visits beyond this particular event. Before the experiences at the 2019 Archaeology Fair documented in this paper, one of the authors was involved in several other museum-based pilot experiments utilizing AR. During the event, we provided visitors with three unique, immersive, and interactive XR experiences using free software. The selected experiences are the result of Majewski’s personal research. His interest in technologies applied to the Museum environment led him to connect with groups and people sharing the same interest and present the latest news in the field. He discovered the technologies used during the Amazing Archaeology Fair during these meetings. The experiences offered at the Museum utilized a 3D model of the same artifact on display in HMANE’s collections. The 3D models of the museum artifacts are hosted on the Sketcfab museum page and are free to access. The artifact we selected was a 7 cm tall faience figurine of the ancient Egyptian goddess Taweret (902.17.6). The object was recovered in tomb 34 in Thebes and is dated to the late period (c. 664 - 332 BCE). Taweret, whose name means “the great (female) one” is the most common form of the hippopotamus goddess. She is attested since the Old Kingdom and is often associated with the goddess Hathor. She was believed to be the protector of women and children, and patron of childbirth. In the HMANE, the object is tucked away in a case located in a corner of the gallery with other statuette artifacts and is otherwise easily overlooked. The first XR experience of Taweret employed augmented reality to allow visitors to “hold” a life-size “holographic” version of the artifact in their hands and to rotate it in 360-degree space to examine all sides, just as they would if they were holding the actual figurine. This was accomplished using a free app called “Object Viewer” and a physical 15 16 17 5 https://mergeedu.com/cube. https://homido.com/mini/. https://arvr.google.com/cardboard/. S.E. Zaia et al. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 27 (2022) e00249 Fig. 2. a and 2b. Visitors at the AR/VR Conversation Table. Two of the authors (Rose and Zaia) are facilitating and demonstrating how to use the different available devices. In Fig. 2a, the case holding the statuette of Taweret (circle) is visible in the top right corner. (Double-column image). Fig. 4. The Homido VR Glasses are positioned on the mobile device and ready to be used. the Education Department of the Museum and were reused during this event. These immersive XR experiences are still relatively new for the public. It is only the recent developments in visualization technology and spatial computing that has allowed powerful AR and VR experiences like these to be consumed by anyone with a recent model smartphone, and in many cases CREATED on them. While visitors were engaging with the virtual technologies, we conducted informal interviews which involved two main questions: “Have you heard of XR tech?” and “Is this your first time using it?” The purpose of these questions was to gauge the level of audience familiarity with XR technology in general, evaluate their impression of integrated XR tech in museums, and formulate preliminary conclusions regarding the accessibility of XR tech in education contexts. While a formal sheet (Appendix 1) was developed and available on the conversation table the nature of the event prevented the systematic collection of data. An initial attempt to methodically collect the visitors’ responses was made but not sustainable for the entire event. We decided to include our questions during the explanation of the XR experience but abandoned the systematic recording of data. It is to be underlined that the priority of the event and the personnel involved were to represent the museum and our academic departments, present the current research, and provide a superior visitor experience. Moreover, distributing a direct questionnaire was Fig. 3. Visualization of the 3D model of the statuette of Taweret through the Merge Cube. The Merge Cube is held in one hand while viewing it through a mobile device’s camera. The 3D augmented reality model appears on the screen of the mobile device and can be rotated as if it was really held in the visitor’s hand. version of the figurine that we virtually “placed” on the floor of the museum by tapping the iPad screen (Fig. 7). This gave the illusion that the Taweret statue was occupying real space within the room. To help the visitors better see the details of the artifact, we took advantage of the power of XR tech to give them a “magical” experience of the object: we enlarged the computer model of the 7 cm artifact to the size of a 1m statue. We then physically guided the visitors - still looking through the iPads and seeing the museum gallery around them - to walk closer to where the AR image of Taweret was anchored on the floor. They then realized that the image on the iPad screen grew in size just as if they were walking towards an actual object occupying real space in front of them. To see the details on the back of the projected AR Taweret model, we guided them to walk behind it, again as if it was an actual physical presence in the room. We then left them to walk around the AR artifact and examine it on their own. The iPads and iPods already belonged to 6 S.E. Zaia et al. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 27 (2022) e00249 this was their first direct experience using it, and they were thrilled by it. Furthermore, additional conversations revealed that they were excited to continue playing with the other models from HMANE’s collections on Sketchfab after their visit, outside of the museum, and they wanted to share this experience with friends and family. Fig. 5. 3D model of the statuette of the goddess Taweret in Sketchfab. This exact model was loaded on the devices available at the AR/VR Conversation Table during the Amazing Archaeology Fair event. Many more models are available on the HMANE Sketchfab page: https://sketchfab.com/hmane. discouraged from the Museum’s direction, as it posed a potential conflict with the museum’s larger exit-interview survey by competing for the visitors’ time. The overwhelming majority of responses to our informal interviews confirmed that visitors were indeed familiar with XR tech but Fig. 7. The augmented reality version of the Taweret statuette is placed on the floor of the museum and was viewed through the “magic window” created by the iPad. Fig. 6. The 3D model of the statuette of Taweret viewed in a virtual space, not inside the museum, through the stereoscopic view created by the Homido VR glasses. 7 S.E. Zaia et al. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 27 (2022) e00249 5. Results before or is this your first time?” The respondents reveal that for most of the visitors, it was their first time. Museum professionals must also acknowledge the challenges of utilizing XR technology. Running a quality XR experience requires strong wireless internet connectivity throughout a museum gallery space and consistent coverage. XR experiences also require that the visitor or the museum have powerful models of recent devices. Many of the 3D models that underlie XR experiences are large files. These files are typically produced with photogrammetry or designed in computer modeling programs like Maya or Blender and are powered by the Vuforia engine for delivery. Visitors need devices with the latest chip architecture that can handle the speed and processing power necessary for a good experience. Our experiences in HMANE and PMAE have shown that relying on the visitor to come in with the required hardware device - the “BYOD (bring your own device)” approach - does not work. In a 2019 informal examination during a pilot XR experiment during a different museum festival, it was revealed that this approach excludes almost 50% of the visitors from participating in the experience due to having outdated devices incapable of handling the software necessary for the AR experience. Another limitation to employing XR technologies in museums, especially on a regular, ongoing basis, is that they are time and staff intensive. This is true regarding staff time for training, active facilitation, and device management. Of these, training and maintaining a contingent of staff, including museum volunteers, is perhaps the biggest hurdle to regular deployment. XR technologies, at this point in time, are still so new for the general museum visitor that they require active facilitation to be maximally effective and enjoyable. This newness, so important in creating a high engagement factor, is a double-edged sword in this respect. It is worth mentioning that this facilitation includes using the actual required hardware & software as well as navigating the AR experience itself. Facilitation is especially needed if a museum tries the BYOD approach and requires the visitor to download and install a necessary app before being able to participate in the experience. The downloadand-install step has proved to be a significant hurdle. Experiments with provided printed instructions describing how to download, install, and run a required app have shown that the process involves too many steps and is too lengthy for the typical. This is even the case when the process is facilitated by a volunteer. Training the volunteers to assist with downloads and installation is a further resource consumption for the museum. Having the museum provide the devices is the solution to this impediment. But this solution comes with a new set of challenges. The museum must purchase, configure, and develop a system for maintaining the devices. Furthermore, additional staff resources are required for setting up an anti-theft tracking system and for developing procedures for loaning them out. Facilitation is also critical at this stage to help the visitor both navigate the AR experience and to conceptualize the intended impact of the experience. Almost without exception, visitors staring at a 3D object on the screen begin to interact with it from their usual 2D mindset, touching the object on the device’s screen to interact with it by spinning, rotating, pinching, and zooming, missing the intended goal. This issue is especially apparent with the SketchFab AR fabrication of Taweret where the virtual object is placed on the floor of the gallery using an iPad. Getting the visitor to realize they are involved in an illusion where the object they are looking at on-screen is intended to occupy a physical space in the real 3D world is a critical leap in becoming engaged in the experience. Having a facilitator is crucial in overcoming this major hurdle. It is often necessary for the facilitator to physically hold the visitor by the elbow after handing them the device and guide them through the museum space around the object while describing what they are seeing. The facilitator needs to articulate to the visitor that if they want to see all sides of an object, they do not swipe with their finger on Our observations suggest that access to various virtual technologies increased visitors’ engagement, especially with those artifacts available in both physical and digital formats. Visitors were even more interested in the objects on display in the galleries after discovering that they were interacting with the digital form of a real artifact, located in the same room, only a few steps away from them. For example, many visitors asked to be shown the physical artifact of Taweret in the case directly next to our table, immediately after their session playing with the XR technology. We found that playing with a digital version of an object actually makes visitors want to see the real artifact in person. Virtual technology allows educators to subvert the traditional spatial constraints of museums by incentivizing visitors to view objects and information panels that might otherwise be overlooked based on their location and accessibility in busy galleries. Furthermore, upon viewing the real artifact behind the glass case, visitors expressed increased interest and questions regarding the purpose and significance of the artifact, ancient Egyptian religion, and Egyptology in general. Providing a virtual version of an artifact in the museum increases the focus on the actual artifacts on display and harnesses intellectual curiosity. Creating a broader sensorial experience through different XR tools cements memories and knowledge. The opportunity to “play” attracts visitors with the promise of fun, alternative, and entertaining museum experiences. We especially noticed this when we projected a 2-m-tall digital version of the 7-cm artifact in the middle of the gallery floor. A quick online review of museums offering XR experiences shows the trend to hire contractors or professional software developers to create customized, museum/gallery/exhibit dedicated XR apps (Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute, The Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, The National Museum of Finland in Helsinki, and more). More institutions also choose to offer headset-enabled VR experiences over AR ones. There are exceptions, such as The Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, but the AR app was commissioned and customized for the museum. Our review also revealed that no other museum developed XR experiences using the Merge Cube or the HOMiDo glasses. Perhaps because they are mainly considered “classroom tools”, developed for use primarily in K-12 classrooms, or personal recreational use at home. 6. Deploying XR in museums: advantages, disadvantages, and future implications Integrating XR technologies in museums certainly have its advantages and positive outcomes, but the process is not without challenges. Perhaps one of the greatest strengths is that XR produces a high engagement factor. “Engagement” by visitors in a museum is one of the main goals museums strive to achieve, however, this term is elusive to define in a way that satisfies everyone. Museum forums and discussion boards wrestle with the attempt. Due to the lack of consensus, perhaps “engagement” is best left like the classic courtroom definition of “pornography”: something too subjective to define, but one certainly knows it when one sees it. It’s intuitive. For anyone observing a museum visitor involved in an XR experience, especially for the first time, it is clear based on their expressions and reactions, that their engagement factor is intense. They display the delighted enthusiasm of someone participating in a magic show. It has been documented that when visitors are in this state of engagement, the learning that follows comes quickly, naturally, and is retained for a long time (Bailenson 2018). Furthermore, XR technologies complement the traditional objectbased learning environment in museums. Even though the objects are virtual objects, they still engage the visitors in many ways similar to physical objects, and they have the added benefit of being a new kind of object experience for many people. It should be highlighted that it is this novelty that greatly contributes to making them so highly engaging. Informal in-museum interviews conducted at HMANE and PMAE during the Amazing Archaeology Fair asked visitors, “Have you ever tried AR 8 S.E. Zaia et al. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 27 (2022) e00249 the screen, but rather, can walk around the object. Facilitators must remind visitors to envision the object as occupying actual physical space in front of them. The museum has progressed into training volunteers to deliver facilitated-AR experiences. The training can be a challenging task as many of the museum’s volunteers are retirees, who might not be familiar with the latest technologies, and might need some extra time. When considering the pros and cons of deploying XR in museums, one should also include a brief discussion of the pros and cons of using free apps versus custom-designed, directly-commissioned software, like HMANE’s Dreaming the Sphinx app. Although limited in their functionality, free apps like Object Viewer and SketchFab that permit users to upload their own 3D models are far more efficient in terms of both time and money compared to customized apps commissioned by museums from professional software developers. The history of the development and implementation of HMANE’s Dreaming the Sphinx app illustrates this. Essentially, custom apps are resource-intensive across three metrics: time, monetary cost, and staff cost, involving many different museum departments. DtS took a full two years to go from conceptualization in 2016 to its first functional debut beta-version in the App Store in the Spring of 2018 and fell within the typical $10,000 to $20,000 cost range. The live 1.0 version was made available to the public in the summer of 2018, three months later. Once the app was released, many museum departments and multiple staff became involved: Exhibits, Education, PR & Marketing, Visitor Services (VS), and IT. The museum needed to announce the app’s availability to the public on its website and across its various social media platforms, with the frontline visitor staff trained in verbally promoting it, as well. The Exhibits Department created signage throughout the museum, in stanchion sign-holders as well as the official text panels within the gallery near the actual artifact it augments. Staff promoted the app secondarily at the VS desk. The IT Department purchased, configured, and maintained dedicated iPads, and the VS team created a tracking and borrowing system. Education Department members were trained to use it with the public, and the training of additional live app facilitators began. After all this, adoption by the public began with slow momentum, with a 6% iPad borrowing rate for the first year, but quickly almost tripling to 17% in the Fall of 2019, confirming that offering the visitors to borrow the equipment was the correct strategy to involve them with XR. The HMANE is constantly working to improve the experience of the visitors in the museum. The DtS app is monitored and periodically updated with new content. A limited number of iPads are available for request at the entrance of the museum as we realized that providing a working device running the last version of the app encourages visitors to use XR devices and play with the app. The person landing the device is also responsible for explaining the visitors how to use it and will be available for assistance. Despite these initial hurdles, the efforts proved to be well worth the investment. There are clear advantages of customized apps over free apps. The DtS app is constantly updated and maintained, and new, customized functionality can be added at any time. In fact, at the time of this writing, the new 2.0 version with added features and content is pending release. Additionally, the museum is always in full control of the app’s functionality through direct contact with the developer. Not having full control over an app’s behavior and essentially being at the whim of a company’s developers, is without question, the biggest impediment to using free apps. It is the rule, rather than the exception, that free apps will change their interface and even their basic functionality. They sometimes even stop working altogether if the developers do not keep pace with the evolving operating systems that are rolled out by the phone manufacturers every few months. Furthermore, even when updated, any live facilitators must then be retrained if an app’s functionality and interface are changed significantly, further increasing the staff/time cost to the museum. Given our experiences and observations, we recommend that interested museums consider the strengths and constraints of implementing similar virtual technology and apps for users. An important clarification must also be made: free apps hosting 3D models don’t necessarily provide unrestricted access to all content (3D models). For example, in addition to hosting models on the open-access SketchFab, HMANE made all their 3D models of artifacts downloadable for all users. This is not the case for all museum collections on the platform. This level of content sharing has implications for the democratization of information access and ownership. Under the conditions set by HMANE, the cultural heritage collections are accessible and experience-able for all users with access to the internet and computing devices. Museums are custodians of collections and do not own them. This notion should extend to virtual collections and digital versions of artifacts as well. Gatekeeping of digital and virtual data should be strongly discouraged by communities of scholars and museum professionals. During the Amazing Archaeology Fair, we introduced tools that are usually not available for visitors, such as the HOMiDO Mini VR glasses or the Merge Cube. Although such technologies have had a positive impact on the visitors they are too challenging across many fronts to employ as stand-alone self-facilitated visitor experiences. Challenges include avoiding thefts (the HMANE made an attempt that was discarded as it impacted negatively the Merge Cube usability). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum could deliver the same XR experiences in virtual formats. Merge Cube representatives distributed free, printable and foldable versions of their product for school children that could make their own paper merge cube to use with one of the many apps available (K-12 classroom teachers and students are the company’s main target audience of the company). The museum could use the paper version of the Merge Cube during the virtual festival upon the permission of Merge Cube. A facilitator was still needed to instruct the construction of the cube and the use of the connected app. We believe that while the number of museums offering XR experiences increases some of the VR weaknesses absent in AR will lead museums to prefer AR over VR in the not-so-distant future. Some challenges, such as sanitization, arose during the pandemic. VR experiences in public places decreased considerably during the pandemic as sharing the same headset, which often covers the nose, didn’t feel safe for the consumers. Moreover, maintaining headsets and constantly updating the software is unsustainable in the long term. The return on investment – in terms of offering a “new” or “cutting-edge” experience will decrease. The diminished novelty is driven by the economic affordability of devices that enables people to purchase their headset and use it at home. Safety should also be mentioned. The Frank Lloyd Wright Museum created an experience that only worked when the visitor remained seated. The dedicated app shuts down if the motion sensor in the headset detected the person standing up. This is to avoid falls due to disorientation during the experience and the possibility of tripping over the cord connecting the device to the computer. As many people report the importance of social experience in visiting museums (Falk et al., 1998, Packer and Ballantyne, 2005), we anticipate an increased loss in desirability regarding full headsets XR experiences. Headsets do isolate the user and are inherently anti-social as they confine users in their own world, not shareable with the group. On the other hand, the AR experience, if not headset delivered, increases social interaction. The possibility of using hand-held devices, such as phones and tablets, makes AR the best-suited conduit for enhancing a museum visit with XR technology and is poised to be the most successful. AR is perfect to visualize the past, as it allows the visitor to overlap the virtual scene with their surroundings. The ability to enhance information directly upon an artifact is invaluable and the delivery medium, the light, hand-held devices, will promote AR museum experiences over VR. 7. Conclusions Our study suggests that the use of multiple XR technologies complemented the traditional museum visit and was well received by our audiences and amplified their learning experience. We found that for visitors, having the opportunity to manipulate, interact with, and view 9 S.E. Zaia et al. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 27 (2022) e00249 Authorship statement All persons who meet authorship criteria are listed as authors, and all authors certify that they have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content, including participation in the concept, design, analysis, writing, or revision of the manuscript. Furthermore, each author certifies that this material or similar material has not been and will not be submitted to or published in any other publication before its appearance in the Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy. Authorship contributions Please indicate the specific contributions made by each author (list the authors’ initials followed by their surnames, e.g., Y.L. Cheung). The name of each author must appear at least once in each of the three categories below. Category 1. Conception and design of study: Zaia,Rose Acquisition of data: Zaia, Rose, Majewski, Analysis and/or interpretation of data: Zaia, Rose, Majewski. Category 2. Drafting the manuscript: Zaia, Rose. Majewski Revising the manuscript critically for important intellectual content: Zaia. Category 3. Approval of the version of the manuscript to be published (the names of all authors must be listed): Zaia, Rose, Majewski. Fig. 8. Virtual reality (and Augmented Reality) has gone virtual. An Ushabti (see the real, miniature object in the case next to it) emerges into real space in a “magical” or “exogenous” experience as a giant statue. This experience can also be perceived through online platforms, like Zoom, thanks to the implementation of XR technologies that are now integrated into the web. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. the same object in and through multiple tools increases engagement, curiosity, and consequently attention during their museum visit. The results of our direct observations support Bailenson’s (2018) assertion that actions do indeed engage memories of real-world experiences. Interacting and playing with tools and virtual objects increases visitor focus and ability to remember and appreciate the significance of artifacts. We reaffirm that virtual versions of artifacts are not substitutes for or detractors of original artifacts, but are alternate versions with their own unique set of properties that enhance learning experiences in different ways. We remark that the addition of a storyline, such as in the “Dreaming the Sphinx’’ app (more in the upcoming 2.0 version), further increases the intellectual investment and participation of the public thus stimulating memories. Overall, during the Amazing Archaeology Fair, the use of XR technologies enhanced the visitor experience, increased public engagement, and triggered memories crucial in the learning process. We are now building on this research and working to create additional XR experiences that include more objects from HMANE’s collection. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced museums and other educational institutions to develop new ways to deliver programming and engage distant audiences. For example, remote XR experiences can now be delivered through computer screens over online virtual platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Educators, researchers, and professionals must adapt and recreate online versions of in-person experiences, including XR. While these experiences are certainly not a permanent replacement for in-person museum outreach, they have the advantage of reaching a broader geographical audience. We hope that the range of XR technologies available online will draw visitors back to museums when it is safe again to welcome them. In the meantime, anyone with access to a computer and an internet connection can explore the world through XR museum experiences. As with many sectors of today’s society, virtual technologies and experiences have officially gone “virtual” (Fig. 8). Authors contribution Sara E. Zaia: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing, Visualization, Methodology, Project administration, supervision. Katherine E. Rose: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing - Original Draft, Methodology, Andrew S. Majewski: Methodology, Resources, Writing - Original Draft, Visualization, Supervision. Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Acknowledgements All persons who have made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript (e.g., technical help, writing and editing assistance, general support), but who do not meet the criteria for authorship, are named in the Acknowledgements and have given us their written permission to be named. If we have not included an Acknowledgements, then that indicates that we have not received substantial contributions from non-authors. 10 S.E. Zaia et al. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 27 (2022) e00249 Appendix 1 Questions Y Have you heard of XR tech? (define with “AR” or “VR” if needed) • Is this your first time using it? N AR VR Observation After Sketchfab/Merge Cube AR Experience, visitors go to see a REAL object Ask us for more info References Packer, J., Ballantyne, R., 2005. Solitary vs. Shared: exploring the social dimension of museum learning. Curator 48 (2), 177–192. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.21516952.2005.tb00165.x. Palma, G., Perry, S., Cignoni, i P., 2021. Augmented virtuality using touch-sensitive 3Dprinted objects. Rem. Sens. 13 (11), 2186. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13112186. Perry, S., Roussou, M., Economou, M., Young, H., Pujol, L., 2017. 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