To do justice to Egypt’s rich civilization, a unique display system has been developed at the Centre for the Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage CULTNAT. This system is called’ ‘Culturama’, an abbreviation for ‘Cultural Panorama’. .
This system comprises nine projectors, projecting onto nine continuous (adjacent) screens and controlled by a computer system. The screens are 18m long, arranged in a semicircle, with room for about 40 spectators.
The show normally starts with one of three timelines, shown over the nine screens: the Pharaonic era (from 3000 BC to the birth of Christ), the Coptic and Islamic era (from the birth of Christ to AD 1800) and the modem era (from AD 1800 until today).
The timeline depicts the portraits of the kings in chronological order. You can click on a certain King or Pharaoh, his image is enlarged and you get a short synopsis about him. You can click on his figure again and either a collection of his artifacts are displayed or his tomb or a temple or other landmark associated with him. A third click gives you a panoramic or 3D view of the chosen item or site.
You can spend anything from a few minutes to several hours using the system. You can admire ancient documents in full size. An example is the ‘Rhind’ Mathematical Papyrus that is kept at the British Museum and is 5m long. Written in about 1500 BC, this papyrus offers solutions to mathematical and geometrical problems.
In Culturama, you can look at the whole papyrus enlarged up to three times (I5m long) with the 87 problems that it contains translated into Arabic or English.
One can also investigate the ‘Book of the Dead’ papyrus, which is 25m long and also kept at the British Museum, with its various colorful scenes, such as the ‘judgment’ scene, the ‘declaration of innocence’ scene or the ‘unification with the gods’ scene. The accompanying Hieroglyphic texts are translated into many other languages. .
Culturama is patented worldwide and has won several awards. It exists now in eight different places around Egypt. To cater for the international demand, two portable Culturama systems have been created. They have already visited seven different countries and are due to visit many more.
