National Museum of History to go digital to attract more visitors

Twenty national treasures at the Vietnam National Museum of History in Hanoi will be introduced to the public via a virtual gallery in June at the latest with support of digital technology.

The Vietnam National Museum of History has applied digital technology into its exhibitions. (Source: VNA)
The Vietnam National Museum of History has applied digital technology into its exhibitions. (Source: VNA)

This is the museum’s very first effort to develop itself into a digital museum in the coming time.

It takes a long time to prepare for an online museum due to a large number of exhibits, said director of the museum Nguyen Van Doan, adding that information about the objects must be studied carefully as well.

“We have to spend one year on digitalising the information about the 20 national treasures”, he said.

The museum’s 3D virtual exhibitions have been popular with visitors since 2013, featuring Oc Eo Culture, Dong Son Culture, Buddhist heritages, and Vietnamese ancient lamps, among others.

Actually, the technology has created new vitality for museum activities, which have long been considered as less innovative and not attractive.
However, the technology is out-of-date now, and the museum needs to do something new, Doan said.

According to Vice President of the Vietnam National Cultural Heritage Council Nguyen Van Kim, the museum will become more attractive to visitors if excellent visual effects are put in place and sound scientific information is provided.

Kim suggested the museum restore ruins that are normally difficult to imagine such as the Ly Dynasty’s Palace in the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long.

Currently, the Vietnam National Museum of History is preserving about 200,000 objects and materials of Vietnamese cultural history, among which there are nearly 110,000 antiques and 20 national treasures from prehistory to 1945.

There are rare and valuable collections representing the history and culture of Vietnam such as: archaeological artifacts from Early Paleolithic Age to Metal Age, a collection of Dong Son Culture, a collection of Vietnamese traditional glazed ceramics, bronze items of the Le - Nguyen Dynasties, Champa stone sculptures, a collection of foreign ceramics originating from China, Japan, India and Southeast Asia.

In the historical period from the mid-19th century to the present, there are more than 80,000 documents and artifacts relating to the Revolutionary history, the Communist Party of Vietnam, President Ho Chi Minh and leaders of the Communist Party of Vietnam.