On Tuesday, the US Embassy in Cairo, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, and the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) celebrated the implementation of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities’ (MoTA) Central Information System: Data Rescue, Training and Needs Assessment Project.
The celebration took place at the Coptic Museum in Cairo, and was attended by senior officials and figures, mainly the US Ambassador Herro Mustafa Garg, Dr. Mohamed Ismail, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Rafik Mansour, and ARCE Executive Director Dr. Louise Bertini.
During her speech, the US Ambassador highlighted the cooperation between Egypt and the US in the field of heritage, archaeology, and cultural properties. She expressed that the US assisted Egypt with more than $140 million to support cultural tourism and conserve monuments and masterpieces spanning the full range of Egypt's long cultural heritage.
Garg added: "Embassy Cairo also supports Egypt's endeavors for capacity building, documentation and registration of objects, site management, conservation and restoration, and most recently, a focus on adaptive re-use of Egypt's extraordinary cultural sites. Today's celebration falls squarely into this realm- using the Cultural Property."
On her side, the Deputy of the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Yomna El Bahar expressed that she looks forward to enhancing the cooperation between the US Embassy and the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
On the project, the Director of the Coptic Museum Gihan Atef told SEE News that the project started as a fund from the US. It aims to upgrade the means of the restoration, documentation, and database services. One of the selected museums for such upgrade is the Coptic Museum due to its historic and cultural value to be one of the biggest and unique museums dedicated to era between the Greco-Roman period to the beginning of Christianity in Egypt.
Atef added that the Coptic Museum's staff was provided with required devices and servers for digitalizing and upgrading the museum's database to be connected with the central database.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Rafik Mansour told SEE News that the US is interested in protecting and preserving the cultural heritage of Egypt. In the same time, the interest in the Egyptian heritage is considered a support of tourism, which is a vital factor of the Egyptian economy.
US supports Egypt with $150 million, and this proves US keenness in assisting Egypt to protect its heritage, asserting that Egypt's heritage is a universal heritage.
He added that since Egypt and US signed the agreement on Cultural Property Protection, US authorities returned 5000 artefacts that were illegally smuggled into the US.
The latest presented fund by the US targets the digitalization. This aid to Egypt to upgrade the process of documentation and digitalization of the first 5 museums in Cairo symbolized US request to the Egyptian culture, and heritage.
The project started in 2007, and it was funded by the US to create a database for the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, and an office for documentation and preservation, according to Deputy Director for Research and Programs at the American Research Center in Egypt Yasmin El Shazly.
El Shazly added that the project was expected to be extended to 2011, but it was stopped due to the events in 2011. The database system and servers were not updated which threatened the recorded data. So, an updated version of the system needed to set a more accurate detection and record for the whole antiquities in all museums across Egypt. The GEM, and NMEC had their own records. So, the new project will connect minor databases to a one major one.
She concluded that the latest project included training several museum staff for such systems, and the digital documentation and recording. The first phase included five museums: the National Museum in Egyptian Civilization, the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, the Grand Egyptian Museum, and Museum of Islamic Arts, and the Coptic Museum.
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