“The National Roman Museum is participating these days in the hackathon “ViaEgnatia2.0”, a digital marathon organized by the French Embassy in Albania, in collaboration with the Alliance Française of Tirana. The objective of the initiative is to develop digital tourism of the archaeological site of Apollonia, a rich and important city of Illyria founded by colonists from Corinth and ancient Corfu around 600 BC.
The event aims to promote innovative technologies through moments of sharing and comparison with the solutions adopted by prestigious international institutions.
The National Roman Museum, after presenting its experience in the field of technology at the service of museums, will bring its contribution as a member of the international jury that will select the winning projects on Sunday, November 22.
Participation in this event is the first step of a broader scientific and cultural collaboration that the MNR intends to realize with the Archaeological Institute of Tirana and the Albanian-French archaeological program of Apollonia of Illyria, and thereby initiate a concrete dialog with the museums of the countries of the Mediterranean basin, with which the museum shares a common culture of Romanity”.
“This collaboration,” says Director Stéphane Verger, “is a natural consequence of the particular historical and geographical role that the city of Apollonia of Illyria played in the ancient Mediterranean. A physical and cultural link connected Rome to Apollonia. From the Urbe, proceeding along the Appian Way, one reached Brindisi and from here one embarked to Apollonia or Durazzo. This was the starting point of the Via Egnatia, an ancient consular road, extended in the imperial age to Byzantium.
In Apollonia, where he stayed for his rhetorical studies, the young Octavian received the news of the death of Caesar. The imperial age saw it excel in the production and trade of bitumen collected in the Nymphaion, a sanctuary known throughout the Roman world for the wonder of a perpetual flame, fueled by the natural combustion of hydrocarbons. The rediscovery of the Apollonia site is mainly due to French and Albanian archaeologists. I remember the excavations conducted by Léon Rey in the 1920s or by Pierre Cabanes and Neritan Ceka to whom we owe, among other things, the foundation of the Albanian-French mission at the beginning of the 1990s, which continues to work to uncover the ancient splendors of this marvelous city”.
Learn more about Egnatia 2.0
