People interested in ancient Chinese culture now have a more immersive way to explore archaeological sites through advanced digital technology like the metaverse and cloud graphics, thanks to an online exposition launched by China Media Group (CMG).

A launch event was held in Beijing on Saturday, with Shen Haixiong, vice minister of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and president of CMG, and Li Qun, vice minister of China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism and director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration participating.

Visitors can access the expo through the CMG Meta Museum mobile application, control an avatar like playing a mobile game and walk in 10 archaeological sites, where ancient buildings, roads, farms and even people, were restored using 3D graphics.

The restored scenes were created based on real antiques discovered in ancient ruins.

The archaeological sites include some of the oldest known civilizations in China, like Hongshan Culture in northeast China, Liangzhu Culture in the Yangtze River Delta and Sanxingdui in western China's Sichuan Province.

Visitors can also participate in events when traveling to the sites, completing quests to earn awards.

The mobile app doesn't require powerful hardware to run, as the 3D scenes are drawn by cloud servers and then streamed to visitors as video, much like cloud gaming.

To make the expo more immersive, some museums in China set up Virtual Reality (VR) devices enabling visitors to virtually touch the antiques dating back to thousands of years ago.

The expo is aimed at showcasing evidence that proves the existence of the 5,000-year history of the Chinese civilization.

The CMG Meta Museum was set up in July 2022.