Britain helps to recreate ancient tombs of Egypt
Egypt-UK, Local, 7/17/2002

British architects and engineers are helping to replicate in minute detail ancient tombs and monuments of Egypt because the originals are too remote or too delicate to cope with the seven million tourists who descend on them each year.

Temperature fluctuations, humidity, rising water tables and earthquakes are also threatening sites such as the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings, which was closed permanently in 1988 because of subsidence.

The 36 million (British pound) Desert Valley project is using the most advanced British laser technology and 3D scanners to make exact facsimiles of sites of international importance, constructing them in three isolated desert valleys near the new National Museum at Giza.

They are expected to attract millions of tourists in the same way that the Altamira replicas of caves and drawings dating from 18,000 BC have become the third most popular tourist attraction in Spain since completion last year.

The scholarly nature of the Egyptian project and its dedication to conservation set it apart from a theme park. Entry charges for visitors will be invested in maintaining the originals.

The reconstructions will be concealed beneath artificial mounds of natural stone to create an environment similar to the originals and they will be lit by rays of the sun directed into the chambers.

The project, which is expected to open in 2005, involves the same conservation artists as Altamira, Adam Lowe of Britain and Manuel Franquelo of Spain. Lowe said that technology has already advanced. The facsimile (for the Egyptian project) is 2,500 times a higher resolution than Altamira. Accuracy was down to a fraction of a millimetre.

The tombs, created with 3D laser scanners, photographic digital technology, high-resolution routing machines and pigment printers, will make them indistinguishable from the real thing. Every detail of the paintings and carvings in relief will be recreated. The site will be surrounded by a landscape reproducing the vegetation of the ancient Nile Valley, including papyrus marshes. Archaeo-botanists from Cambridge University are involved in this aspect.

The British team also includes J. Wernick and Associates, the engineers for the Millennium Wheel in London. Aidan Dodson, of Bristol University, is among academics acting as consultants. The project is being designed by the British architect Michael Mallinson, a museum specialist who has worked on conservation in Egypt since the 1980s.

John Larson, head of sculpture and inorganic conservation at the award-winning National Museums and Galleries of Merseyside, a pioneer in the use of laser technology, applauded the scheme. He said the situation could not continue. When the originals crumble into dust, he said, "everyone says what a pity it went."

He added: "They don't think what they're saying. It's a selfish attitude, that I can only appreciate these things in their original state. What we're trying to do is replicate things that are falling to pieces. They won't be there for the next generation to see."

The project is being led by the financier and benefactor Ahmed Bahgat in partnership with the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Ministry for Culture. It will be announced at an international conference at the Hunterian Institute in London tomorrow.

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