Promoting Heritage

http://www.algomhuria.net.eg/egyptian_mail/m5/
This article will be on the Egyptian Mail's website for the next week, after which it will be replaced, so it has been reproduced in full below.

``His 50-year-old dream was to witness with his very eyes the application of the latest technologies in every aspect of the lives of future generations. Hala Fawzy of the Egyptian Mail shared a day in the life of Dr Fathi Saleh, the Director of the Egyptian Centre for Documentations of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT) at the Smart Village, where he narrated the whole story of this dream and how it has come true. "I am lucky," Professor Saleh said "I used to be the Professor for Ahmed Nazif and some of the ministers in the new Cabinet. It was not a professor-student relationship, rather it was firm ties among colleagues with the same visions and dreams."

Dating back seven millennia, Egypt's cultural and national heritage has great national and international value."This valuable wealth includes archaeological sites, architecture, arts, folklore and things of natural beauty. It all needs to be accurately and purposefully documented," stressed Saleh."Hence, the establishment in 2001 of CULTNAT, that was originally under the umbrella of the MCIT, backed and still supports its activities," he said, adding that CULTNAT operations began in one small room in the old building of the MCIT in Ramses Street, downtown. "But now we've got a fabulous digitised building in the Smart Village." Armed with an engineering background, Saleh, who was Egypt's Cultural Attache in Paris and to UNESCO, started working hard to make his dream come true.Despite the official duties which give Saleh little time to do anything else, he couldn't escape from the world of academia. He still teaches computer engineering at Cairo University. "I want the present generation to witness the new IT revolution that is taking place in Egypt, but I also want to remind them of their valuable heritage," he explained.CULTNAT's objective is to document the various tangible and intangible elements of Egypt's heritage in cooperation with the national and international organisation, using the most up-to-date IT.

CULTNAT is currently implementing nine programmes, some of them funded by international organisations.Documenting Egyptian archaeology has been a real challenge for all the workers on the concerned programme. "This is not a time-limited project, it's a lifetime's work," explained the Professor."The monuments and artifacts scattered all over Egypt and the increasing pace of urbanisation around the archaeological sites are making our job tougher, turning it into an endless task."For this reason, we have decided to draw an archaeological map with detailed information about these monuments." From the 1860s till the 1940s, Egypt witnessed a building boom, with the construction in stark contrast to more modern buildings. "The public's awareness of this heritage is still not fully formed. Creating a massive database of structures built in the 19th and 20th centuries is a must to serve users, ranging from decision-makers to architects and historians," said Saleh.

He added that a similar geographical information system for Egypt's flora and fauna would be useful for natural history and environmental studies researchers, as well as environmental NGOs."Users can get books and CD-ROMs about various Egyptian protectorates and Pharaonic plants, birds and mammals from CULTNAT's library or any of its affiliates," explained Prof. Saleh.

Another challenge CULTNAT is to help with the never-ending task of documenting Egyptians' daily customs and traditions which shape their folklore.

A library has been designed that will include a local folklore thesaurus called Meknaz, in addition to a series of books and Web sites about Fatimid Cairo and the holy fasting month of Ramadan."Meanwhile, a national action plan for folklore documentation is also being prepared," Saleh stated.In the course of its research, CULTNAT has discovered that copies of rare songs, dating back to the golden days of Arab music in the 20th century, haven't been well preserved. In fact, much of this wealth has been lost and the little that remains is in jeopardy. "We have developed a plan for creating an Arab music system that includes compiling lists of Arab artists' works and documenting information about composers, lyrics, singers and rhythms," explained Saleh. "Photographers from all over the world who lived in Egypt in the 19th and 20th centuries have left us some of the most memorable photography ever made."

CULTNAT has gathered the collections of famous photographers from national and international museums, as well as private collections, and they are being copied onto CD-ROMs.

"The purpose of this programme is to make these rare collections available for researchers, curators and lovers of old photos, electronically and in printed form."The CULTNAT building boasts a state-of-the art micro-gallery that contains several booths displaying information about the projects and activities of the centre.

In 2004, CULTNAT celebrated the launching of the 'Eternal Egypt' Web site, in cooperation with the Supreme Council of Antiquities, of which Saleh is a member. "CULTNAT is proud of this Web site, which covers Egypt's different civilisations," said Saleh, who admitted that the road is very long and the centre is just a step on the way to promoting Egypt. CULTNAT is currently affiliated to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. ``