Heritage buffs can now experience the cultural artefacts in the National Museum of Archaeology from their own homes thanks to an ambitious partnership with Google Arts and Culture.

Launched today, the digital platform has been a year in the making and includes 10 complete exhibits and more than 160 individual items, as well as digital tours (similar to Google Street View) of the whole museum, which are also available in Virtual Reality.

The museum’s collections are available to view online alongside historical information, while some have been digitised with advanced gigapixel cameras capable of capturing a level of detail beyond that available to the naked eye.

Giorgia Albeltino, Google Arts and Culture director of public policy, said at a launch event this morning that the goal of the platform, which includes more than 1,400 museums and archives worldwide, was to democratise access to culture.

Apart from serving as a showcase, she said, the platform helped to promote cultural tourism, with more than 30 per cent of people looking up cultural information about potential destinations online prior to their visits.

Russell Muscat from Heritage Malta added that the partnership would also benefit conservators and heritage professionals who now had additional tools to study and interpret the museum’s collections.

He expressed hope that the partnership could be widened beyond the archaeology museum, encouraging other institutions to come on board.

“Giving our cultural treasures this additional exposure will not only help the country from a marketing perspective but help us showcase important cultural artefacts which are often unfortunately neglected,” he said.

Culture Minister Owen Bonnici highlighted the importance of ‘future-proofing’ the country’s cultural heritage and said the partnership with Google opened countless possibilities in the sector.