Eternal Egypt
For those who dream of exploring the riches of Egypt's ancient past, a new Web site makes that dream a virtual reality
Finding a professional archaeological Web site displaying Egypt's 7,000 years of history was, until just two weeks ago, a far fetched dream. But the launching of "Eternal Egypt" has made virtual access to Egypt from across the globe possible. A web display of a collection of 3,600 objects collected from different Egyptian museums -- including the Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, Coptic and Islamic Art museums -- will grant visitors information on every era of Egyptian history.
By visiting www.eternalegypt.org surfers will enjoy a virtual reconstruction of Tutankhamen's tomb as it looked the day Howard Carter discovered the chamber in 1922, when the young king lay surrounded by his treasures. They can examine the face of the Sphinx as it looked 2,000 years ago, when its nose was still intact. And they can view the Lighthouse of Alexandria prior to its destruction in the 14th century.
Eternal Egypt combines the most important locations, artefacts, people and stories from Egypt's history into an interactive multimedia experience. The result of the mutual cooperation between the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) and the IBM Corporation, the project was funded by a US$2.5 million IBM-donated grant of technology and expertise from the Research and Services teams in the United States and Egypt. The Egyptian government contributed a team of experts who developed the rich content of the system.
"This partnership has joined one of the world's oldest civilisations with the latest innovations in IBM technology," said Minister of Communication and Information Technology Ahmed Nazif during the press conference held on the occasion of the launch. He added that the outcome represents the richest information and media resource on Egyptian cultural history available on the Internet today. Three years in the making, the project has so far produced multimedia animations, 360-degree image sequences, panoramas of important locations, virtual environments, three-dimensional scans, real-time photos from web cameras and thousands of high resolution images of ancient artefacts that weave together more than five millennia of Egyptian culture and civilisation.
"Bringing Eternal Egypt to light was a real challenge," said IBM Project Manager John Tolva, who describes the site as a virtual museum without walls. Through five robotic cameras located in the Giza Plateau, Qait-Bey citadel, Mediaeval Cairo and the Luxor and Karnak temples, web viewers can be transported to modern-day sites while virtual reconstructions show Egypt as it once was. "The new technology has made it possible to see Egypt in a way that we never imagined before, to see our country as it was thousands of years ago," said Fathi Saleh, director of CULTNAT. "This collaboration has produced the means to make Egyptian cultural heritage known worldwide -- not just the era of the Pharaohs, but our entire heritage."
An innovative interactive map and timeline guide Eternal Egypt visitors through the country's cultural heritage, while a "Connections" function permits visitors to explore the complex relationship between the objects, places and characters of Egypt's past. Tolva explained that the Eternal Egypt project includes three individual components focussed on the collections inside the walls of prominent museums all over Egypt, historic sites throughout the country, and a virtual museum open to anyone in the world with access to the Internet. These components are all based on an interconnected set of artefacts, places, and characters that form a complex content database.
The virtual museum includes handheld digital guides that go beyond traditional audio devices to offer in-depth text, images and animation to increase the understanding of the artefacts. Digital guides also enable visitors to take thematic tours of the museum or to explore it by room, artefact or picture. Audio narration for the digital guide is in three languages: English, French and Arabic. The audio is based on IBM's advanced synthetically-generated text-to-speech technology that has never before been applied to Arabic.
The second component of the project, Tolva continued, is the mobile access guided tours of the Temple of Luxor and the Pyramids of Giza, enabling visitors to access the same information available on the handheld digital guides and the Eternal Egypt Web site through their cell phones while touring various locations. The technology allows visitors to take preset tours or to download information to match their desired location.
Sabri Abdel-Aziz, head of Ancient Egyptian antiquities at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, believes that the newly created Web site is a good means to promote Egypt as a tourist destination. "It is a great opportunity for Egypt's visitor to explore in depth the different archaeological sites," he said. "Two or three weeks are not enough to tour Egypt. So navigating through Eternal Egypt will encourage tourists to repeat their visit to Egypt."
Deputy Director of CULTNAT Eglal Bahgat said that Eternal Egypt is the richest Web site available to those who are interested in collecting information on Egyptian civilisation. It also serves as a professional source for students and travellers wishing to explore the cultural heritage of a country renowned for its splendid ancient civilisations. Despite still being in its infant phase, the site has amassed an incredible number of hits and has been highlighted in newspapers and magazines around the world. For the hundreds of thousands of people around the world for whom visiting Egypt is a life-long dream www.eternalegypt.org has virtually made it come true.
