The technology brings the era
of the ancient Egyptians to life US Egyptologist George
Reisner oversaw 40 years of excavations on the Necropolis
impossible to study in its entirety. To do so would involve bringing together information and objects that have been scattered throughout the world, listing, classifying and documenting them. The task is massive. And yet, a good start has been made.
EXCAVATIONS
In 1904, Egyptologist George Reisner began work on the Giza Necropolis. During 40 years of excavations, he unearthed thousands of remains and works of art and left a thorough cata- logue of his explorations, with 45,000 photographic glass plate negatives, tens of thousands of pages of diaries, manuscripts, and reports, countless maps, diagrams, notes and copious correspondence. George Reisner’s death in 1942 and
the Second World War eventually put an end to the mission, and the fruits of the expedition archives were sent home to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA), USA, along with all the reports and other materials. This immense resource remained
practically unused until the beginning of the 1970s when the MFA’s cura- tor, William Kelly Simpson, returned to Giza for new excavations. Continuing Reisner’s work, he embarked on sys- tematically logging the mastaba tombs in a monograph series. The task was a daunting one, as fi nding the infor-
AM 1 2013 ©cybertrek 2013
mation about a given mastaba on the ground was very diffi cult. Moreover, seeking remote access to the archives, for example by foreign students, was practically impossible. And the fragility of certain media, such as the famous glass plate photographs, complicated their transport and handling.
DIGITISATION
In 2000, thanks to the support of the Andrew W Mellon Foundation, the MFA was able to launch a major project. Technical progress and the democra- tisation of digital technology made it possible to initiate the Giza Archives Project, involving the digitisation of both the immense Reisner collection and selected data scattered among uni- versities and museums worldwide. The challenges were manifold: a
gigantic task of digitising the available records, entering data, establishing coherent cross-indexing and construct- ing a database to facilitate search by various criteria. It took years of dedi-
cated work to complete the digitisation of the Reisner expedition archives. The next task was to provide the simplest and most effective access possible to the archives, whether for university researchers or the public looking for more on the wonders of Giza. The Web was the preferred solution, and the website of the Giza Archives Project was put online. Several modes of searching the database catered to the needs of all types of users, along with explanatory videos.
Read Attractions Management online
attractionsmanagement.com/digital 29
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96