Eternal Egypt Portal, 24/02/2004

A ceremony at the foot of the Giza Pyramids on February 24, 2004, officially inaugurated "Eternal Egypt", pioneering new project providing several new multimedia means for users to access Egypt, both as seen thousands of years ago and in real time. The ceremony was attended by Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Dr. Ahmed Nazif and Hans Ulrich Maerki, the general manager for IBM Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Dr. Fathi Saleh, Director of the Center for Documentation of Culture and Natural Heritage (Cultnat) and Mr. Sabri Abdel Aziz representing the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).

The Eternal Egypt project featured an unprecedented level of cooperation between the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology and the Ministry of Culture on one side and IBM on the other side. A contract signed in May 2001 cleared the path for cooperation between IBM, the Ministry of Culture (represented by the Supreme Council of Antiquities), and MCIT (represented by the Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage, with the corporation participating in the project by developing new technologies specific for the project and providing expertise from its research centers in the US and Egypt.

One aspect of the Eternal Egypt project is the Digital Guide, already available to visitors at the Egyptian Museum. A portable computing device, the Digital Guide provides users with textual information supported by 2D high resolution images and multimedia representations on much of the museum's collection, the available information are in three languages, English, Arabic and French and supported by an innovative text-to-speech technology in the three languages
Along the same line, visitors with cellular phones supporting GPRS technology can now access virtual tours at the Luxor Temple and Giza Plateau.

IBM's Research and Services teams in both the United States and Egypt, spearheaded by Paula Baker, offered the technical expertise and equipment for the web portal's construction. On the Egyptian side, Eternal Egypt was put together by a team from CULTNAT, led by Strategic Manager Dr. Reem Bahgat and executed by the Content Manager Eman El-Shabouri, IT Manager Mohamed Farouk and Imaging Manager Ayman Khoury.

Eglal Bahgat, the Deputy Director for CULTNAT and Project Manager from CULTNAT, explained that the new website is designed for everyone, "from children to researchers". She also expressed her belief that the glimpse at the artifacts and wonders of ancient Egypt "will stimulate tourist interest".

Eglal Bahgat, the Deputy Director for CULTNAT and Project Manager from CULTNAT, explained that the new website is designed for everyone, "from children to researchers". She also expressed her belief that the glimpse at the artifacts and wonders of ancient Egypt "will stimulate tourist interest".

The government initiatives of IT Clubs and the PC for every Home have boosted the rates of internet access among Egyptians. These projects and the falling cost of internet service have encouraged an expected 6.5 million Egyptians and a total of 25 million Arabs to be online by the end of 2005. This growing number of Arabic speakers online, whether Egyptians exploring their own rich past or Arab travelers contemplating a visit to Egypt, did not go unnoticed. The site is also fully available in English and French; therefore, it is a trilingual site. Audio narration in any of the three languages is also an option.

The portal's engineers were fully aware that Eternal Egypt, as a historical record of the past five millennia, in the words of El-Shabouri "covering all the cultures in Egypt", could be overwhelming in the amount of information at the casual user's fingertips. Accordingly, besides featuring a standard search mechanism, the website helpfully offers a guided tour to the first-time visitor, to lead them through the story of the Pharaonic, Graeco-Roman, Coptic, and Islamic civilizations in Egypt.

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the portal, however, is likely its intricate map of the historical connections between the various artifacts, sites, historical personalities, and stories displayed on the website. For example, clicking a picture of the gold mask of Tutankhamen yields 17 choices, as diverse as "New Kingdom" (the piece's time period), "Winged Scarab" (an artifact found in the same tomb complex), "Valley of Kings" (its location), and "Quartz/Rock Crystal" (some of the materials in it). Each of these options in turn opens onto a myriad of other connections.

Other ways to exploring Egypt through the website include following an interactive map and timeline to piece together an understanding of the country's history.
Another creative application of technology in the virtual reconstruction program. While 3-D images of artifacts and historical sites in their current state, sometimes damaged by the ravages of time, are of course available, viewers can also enjoy virtually reconstructed, highly realistic images. This presents complete images of national treasures such as the Sphinx with some high-tech plastic surgery, or the Lighthouse of Alexandria, leveled by an earthquake over 700 years ago, in their original form.
"The new technology has made it possible to see Egypt in ways we never imagined - to see our country as it was thousands of years ago," said Dr. Fathi Saleh, Director of CULTNAT.
Also offering a view of Egypt's most famous historical sites in their present condition, next to the vibrant modern Egypt, Eternal Egypt incorporates live web-controlled cameras. These web cams, allowing internet visitors to see Egypt in real time, are located at the Qait Bey Fort in Alexandria, the Giza plateau by the Pyramids, the mosques of Islamic Cairo, and the Karnak Temple in Luxor.
According to El-Shabouri, the CULTNAT team plans to update Eternal Egypt on a monthly basis. The website is located at:
www.eternalegypt.org