The Gallo-Roman Museum of Tongeren is preparing a new permanent exhibition (2026). The new exhibition will outline the human settlement of the region - the territory of the Roman civitas Tungrorum - from the earliest prehistory (approximately 500,000 years ago) to the end of the early Middle Ages (approximately 900 AD). The focus will be on the daily life of 'ordinary' people.

In the new arrangement, the museum aims to focus on objects with significant narrative potential that illustrate important aspects of human life in the past. The museum calls such representative or 'interesting' objects 'focus objects'. They are a diverse selection of objects that are best suited to describe daily life of people in the past. The museum aims to thoroughly and comprehensively document these 'focus objects' in preparation for its new permanent exhibition.

In this project, we were ask to research these ‘focus objects’ for the Roman period. These ‘focus objects’ include a wide range of archaeological objects, ranging from ceramic objects, metal utensils, jewelry, etc. For each 'focus object', the museum seeks to answer the essential questions: Who used it? For what purpose? How? Where? When? Under what circumstances? These object biographies will then be used by the museum as source texts for panel texts, audio texts, guided tours, etc.