Emblematic toys from Ancient Greece and Rome are displayed in the virtual rooms of the Museum and can be viewed on mobile devices, PCs or VR headsets.

From the dolls collection at the Art & History museum in Brussels to the toys held in the Louvre, the Greektoys museum has a repository of selected items from the most important European museums, while the creators of the project are constantly working with cultural institutions in order to increase this collection.

Each artefact has been accurately produced by 3D scanning (photogrammetry), thereby offering a high-quality 3D experience. The collection is laid out in virtual rooms so that visitors can go over the collection more easily.

At the moment this 3D content is organised in:

Room 1. Ancient pottery with toy representation.

Room 2. Figurines and Dolls.

Room 3. Baby toys.

Room 4. Dexterity toys and games.

Discovering the collection

Navigating through the collection is very easy and intuitive. Choose and click on the model you want and just use the mouse or the touch screen to turn around and see the object in detail. In the description there is specific information about the provenance of the object, the registration number in the original collection and the technique used for the creation of the 3D model.

In the right bottom corner of the viewer, you will see four symbols, click on them and play with the extra functions provided. The button with the question mark needs no explanation, is just the symbol for help; clicking on it you will find extra information about control navigation on the screen. The gear icon stands for settings; here you can change the quality of the model from SD to HD. The third icon is the “model inspector”, where you can see a lot of technical characteristics like the geometry of the model, textures, rendering, lighting, etc. The final icon represents a virtual reality headset. With the help of a VR headset you will immerse yourself in virtual reality experience in a simple and affordable way.

The Museum story

In 2011 Sofia Pavlaki and Luis Santos created the educational animated series “Greektoys” with characters inspired by ancient toys. During the making of the series, they realised that the value of museum artefacts such as toys are not widely recognised by the public, in comparison to the great achievements of the art and architecture of classical antiquity. Since then, they have travelled all over Europe collecting information and digitalising these toys. Thus, the idea of displaying this content in an online virtual museum flourished and today the project has the support of museums and other cultural organisations that help and give them access to their collection.

To visit the museum yourself click on the link below:

GREEKTOYS MUSEUM