Historic Buildings

Barra and Harris Unearthed: developing place-based digital heritage interpretation in the Hebrides

We want to achieve meaningful, impactful and longer lasting community and visitor engagement with archaeological heritage in Barra and Harris. We want to create new and exciting ways for people to engage with archaeological heritage, transporting them back in time through multi-sensory archaeological experiences. We will do this by creating place-based, digital interpretation at six archaeological sites across the two islands. These will be accessed via a free mobile app which launches life-sized, interactive, augmented reality (AR) reconstructions of archaeological sites, tethered to original landscape locations. Reconstructions will contain multimedia interpretive content co-produced with community stakeholders including text, interactive maps, 3D artefact models, audio, and animation. A multimedia travelling exhibition will bring these experiences to wider audiences. This ambitious project builds on learnings from the Uist Virtual Archaeology Project, applying them to new islands with different interpretation challenges with continued, successful core principles of community collaboration and pushing interpretation boundaries.