Yorescape takes students on virtual tours of historical sites around the globe. At each stop, experts explain what students are seeing; closed captions are also available in many languages. Students can even roam around historically accurate 3D reconstructions.
Some options include visiting Tenochtitlan in ancient Meso-America, the Giza Plateau in Egypt, the Acropolis and the Agora in ancient Athens, and the entire city of ancient Rome, all seen from the air. Currently 17 virtual tours to iconic sites are available, with more coming soon. Students can explore freely, using virtual joysticks to move around the space and see small details up close; or they can be accompanied by a digital tour guide. The voiceover tours are led by historians and archeologists.
The virtual tours run on devices ranging from smartphones and PCs to VR goggles. Whatever the device, the content is the same. Here’s a taste of what students will see.
Students can also visit the virtual museum, which is open around the clock, easily accessible from all over the world, and in continuous development. So far, more than 750 sculptures, monuments, and furnishings from Greek and Roman antiquity are exhibited in interactive 3D. In the future, the museum will also present works of art from other cultures and times.
To get an idea of the quality of the virtual museum’s collection, click or tap the red highlighted area in the online museum map. There you can discover ancient sculptures from the Farnese collection in 3D for free. Among them, you will find such famous masterpieces as the Hercules Farnese.
The Yorescape virtual exploration software was developed by Flyover Zone. A taste of what Yorescape has to offer is free. An individual subscription with full access to the platform’s features is currently $29.99 per year. An institution-wide subscription with tiered pricing is based on the size of the school.
You can see the virtual museum’s entire collection without a subscription. What you will see is a 2D thumbnail image of each object along with related metadata (information such as the object’s name, material, dimensions, current location). However, a subscription for $19.99 per year provides full access to more than 700 interactive 3D models for personal or classroom use.