The BA Completes the Digitization of Dar El-Kotob Arabic Papyri
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Alexandria—
The BA Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT) completed the electronic digitization of a collection of Arabic papyri. Dr. Fathi Saleh, Director of CULTNAT, stated that the Center issued a book recording all what has been documented, in addition to a CD including a database for the collection of 700 Arabic papyri that were documented by Dr. Grohmann, in cooperation with the Egyptian National Library and Archives (Dar el-Kotob).
CULTNAT has signed a cooperation protocol with Dar el Kotob to document the most important papyri and manuscripts amounting to 3739 unique papyri reflecting the history of Egypt.
CULTNAT digitized more than 90 million documents in Dar el Kotob. In the next four years and with the use of the latest audiovisual technology and employing more than 600 trained fresh graduates, around 25 million documents will be stored in the database, and 50,000 document will be digitized and published on the internet.
It is worth mentioning that CULTNAT aims at documenting Egypt's tangible and intangible heritage, in an attempt to revive Egypt’s past and enlighten the way for future generations by using state of the art technology.
It is worth mention that the Center has launched new significant programs and projects including Luxor Heritage Center; Eternal Egypt; Horus; and InfrArt Sonic. At the international level, the Center carried out the following projects: the Cultural Heritage of Mediterranean Countries (Unimed); Documenting Architectural Heritage of the Mediterranean Countries; Documenting Defence Systems in the Mediterranean Coasts (SID-LIM); and the INFOMAN project to preserve Arabic manuscripts that are distributed among Euro-Mediterranean countries.