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The Melka Kunture Virtual Museum

The Museum
The Melka Kunture Museum


The realization of this Virtual Museum is one of the main objectives of the Culture 2000 project “From the Past to the Present in Ethiopian Prehistory. An Interactive Museum for the Archaeological Park of the Early Palaeolithic site of Melka Kunture”.
The Melka Kunture Virtual Museum is designed for students, educators, keen on prehistory, and the general public to enhance their understanding of the site of Melka Kunture and of the African Prehistory. The archaeological record is inserted in a large framework which contains geological, paleontological and palaeoanthropological information.

Tukul 3
Tukul 3, an internal view

Tukul 4
Tukul 4, detail of the exposed materials from Gombore I

Organisation

The Melka Kunture Museum consists in two parts:

Four museal structures (Tukuls), where you can explore:

1. the most important East African prehistoric sites and the protagonists of the African Prehistory (Tukul 1);

2. the geological aspects of Melka Kunture and the principles of Geology and Volcanology related to them (Tukul 2);

3. the history of the Human Evolution (Tukul 3);

4. the archaeological, paleontological and palaeoanthropological records from Melka Kunture (Tukul 4).

The Open Air Museum.

Part of the area of Melka Kunture has been transformed into a natural-archaeological Park where both the archaeological and environmental features of the site can be visited.

Butchering site
Open Air Museum, the Butchering Site

The Open Air Museum consists in two areas:

1. At the locality of Gombore II a Middle Acheulean site was excavated and preserved in situ for an extension of more than 40 m2.
This paleosurface is extremely rich both on faunal remains and on lithic artefacts. The site is preserved by a wooden construction of a large roof built in local style.

2. The second area prepared for visitors is the so called Gombore II Butchering Site. More than 250 casts of paleontological and lithic remains found during previous excavations have been positioned on the paleosurface.

© 2007, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Archeologiche e Antropologiche dell’Antichità. Università di Roma “La Sapienza”.