The University of Chicago Oriental Institute Virtual Museum has recently opened its doors. The unique aspect of this museum of "history, art and archaeology of the ancient Near East" is that it uses Apple Quicktime VR (available for both Windows and Macintosh platforms from a pointer to the Apple Computer site) to take the visitor on a moving tour through selected parts of the museum. Viewers can move about museum exhibits by simply dragging their mouse to the right or left. At this time only the Egyptian and Assyrian galleries are "open," but soon the Mesopotamian, Persian, Palestinian, and Temporary Exhibits galleries will be open as well. Each exhibit is accompanied by a complete list of artifacts on exhibit, as well as connections to other Oriental Institute sites of interest, including selected photographic archives. At present, the main drawback to the site is that the artifacts are not virtually "labeled"; that is, it is very difficult for the lay user to link the artifacts being viewed to their descriptions. However, this site is a work in progress, and planned enhancements include the embedding of URLs in the QTVR panoramic movie files, and linking text and photographs of individual objects to their images in the panoramic movie. Note that each exhibit is very large (around 900 kilobytes), and that familiarity with QTVR will help in the navigation of the site.
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