Imagine exploring an ancient Egyptian fortress during the Middle Kingdom, 12th dynasty reign of Pharaoh Sesostris III, without ever leaving the comfort of a learning center.
This kind of experience will soon be accessible through virtual reality to students, scholars, historians, archaeologists, architects and anyone who is interested in past civilizations. William Riseman, an architect and historian, working in collaboration with the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, has taken significant steps toward this educational system of the future with the virtual reality recreation of the Fortress of Buhen, submerged under Lake Nasser since the construction of the Aswan Dam in 1964.
Sense8's WorldToolKit software was used to create the realtime virtual reality experience from a complex 3D Studio model of the fortress at Buhen. The model was derived from archival information supplied by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts' Egyptian Department.
The museum provided archaeologists' hand-written field diaries, progress photos of the excavations, excavation reports, stratigraphic data, topographic survey plans, building plans, epigraphic renderings and hieroglyphic translations. This information ensures that the Buhen model is historically accurate and therefore a valuable educational and research tool.
Also assisting Mr. Riseman in Project Buhen were Eben Gay of ERG Engineering Inc. and Donald Sanders of the J. Paul Getty Trust Art History Information Program.
Buhen was located near the ancient Nubian-Egyptian border and served as a center of commerce and defense for nearly 2,000 years. During that time it was occupied by Egyptians, Kushites and the Meroitic peoples, making it an important example of multi-ethnic economic and social cooperation. The fortress, first constructed at the end of the Old Kingdom circa 1950 B.C., extended along the west bank of the Nile for more than 450 feet. Within the 10-foot thick, 30-foot high walls, the site included an enormous military complex, administration buildings, storehouses and settlements.
A participant in the virtual reality tour of Buhen first floats down the Nile in an authentic river boat, disembarks at a dock near the fortress, and then walks inside through passages, along paths and past the buttresses, ramparts, battlements, drawbridges and other architectural elements that comprised this ancient fortification. The viewer is guided by an animated Egyptian scribe/instructor and is further educated by special kiosks that display maps, actual excavation photographs of the Buhen ruins and additional relevant information about the vicinity.
Riseman plans to later make these kiosks interactive windows through which the virtual traveler can access databases from international archives or portal to other ancient virtual environments.
WorldToolKit is an application development software environment for virtual reality and 3-D graphics simulation applications. It is a cross-platform development system that includes virtual reality and function libraries, plus powerful end-user productivity tools. WorldToolKit is available for the Sun SparcstationZX and 20 SX.
For information, call 415-331-6318.