Glaser Virtual World – All About Eduard Glaser

The project is funded by the Innovationfund of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IF2019/27).

The University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (AAS) have a long tradition of research on ancient South Arabia. During the 1880s and 1890s, the Austrian scholar Eduard Glaser (1855-1908) collected a lot of objects in Yemen. His estate consists of artefacts, diaries, photographs, notes, books, and articles about this fascinating region of Ancient South Arabia. An important part of this estate is now preserved at the AAS (where it has already been processed in two earlier projects).

The artefacts are currently spread all over the world, making it extremely difficult for researchers in South Arabian epigraphy and architecture, ethnology, and history to get a full picture of what Glaser has collected over ten years on his research travels.

GlaViWo seeks to collect all available information on Glaser’s collection, store it in a single database, and present it in the most modern way available, namely in a 3D virtual world which will be dynamically created depending on the users’ requests.

This virtual open-access system will not only make research by scholars much easier but will also attract young people to the field. With this in mind, we will present an outline of the proposed project at the most important conference for ancient South Arabian studies (Rencontres Sabéennes) as a role model for presenting scientific contents, as well as at universities to pique the students’ interest in this field.

The purpose of the procect is to bring together Glaser researchers, specialists in epigraphy and philology, and experts in 3D visualisation. Having experts in each of these disciplines based in Vienna is of great benefit for science.

Project Team

Project manager: Petra Aigner Scientific co-worker: Elisabeth Cerny Head of technical development: Ronald Ruzicka

Illustrations Glaser Collection, Meteorological records in Yemen 1883, AT-OeAW-BA-3-27-2-10, p. 1 Glaser Collection, GL1045_02, AT-OeAW-BA-3-27-A-GL1045_02