Registration is now open for the CIPA Nepal Heritage School in Pokhara, October 6–10, 2025. This international training focuses on 3D surveying and modelling for cultural heritage, offering hands-on experience with experts in a stunning Himalayan setting. Early bird rates apply.
The Swedish Cyprus Collection, formed during the 1927–1931 Swedish Cyprus Expedition, is being digitally preserved using AI and robotics. A 2024 agreement between Sweden and Cyprus enables the creation of digital twins to protect, research, and share this cultural heritage.
On June 18 in Beijing, China and Italy launched a cultural partnership to advance digital heritage. Institutions from both countries signed a memorandum to collaborate on exhibitions, VR projects, and digital museums, strengthening ties through technology and shared cultural preservation goals.
Michelle Duong and Joe Kallas will be stepping down as team leads of the CIPA Emerging Professionals Leadership Team and are excited to announce that Margarita Skamantzari and Yogender Yadav will be taking on the role of Co-Chairs starting in January 2025. We encourage all members of the CIPA EP community to support and collaborate with our new Co-Chairs.
CIPA Heritage Documentation is excited to announce our newest Sustaining Member, Overhead4D. With their extensive experience and passion in the field of documentation, we welcome Overhead4D with enthusiasm and thank them for their support.
The ICOMOS 2024 Annual General Assembly and Scientific Symposium were held in Ouro Preto, Brazil, from November 9–12, organized by ICOMOS Brazil. CIPA was well-represented by members, including President Prof. Fulvio Rinaudo, Comm. III co-chair Em. Prof. Andreas Georgopoulos, and EP members Margarita Skamantzari, Renata Cima Campiotto, and Fabiane R. Savino.
Lower-Saxony is located in North-West Germany, East of the Netherlands and ending in the North Sea. This region is known for its wetlands and bogs, which represent today only about 5% of its total surface. These were and are mainly made of peat also called also turf, which is a deposit soil formed by the partial decomposition of vegetal matter in wet acidic conditions. Left in the sun for drying, peat was used as a fuel for cooking and heating.
By: Minna Silver
This spring, exactly after 10 years from the Arab Spring and now during and despite the pandemic, there has been a spectacular move of Egypt’s great pharaohs from the Old Egyptian Museum in Cairo to the modern Grand Egyptian Museum in the Golden Parade of the Pharaohs. The parade was broadcasted by Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and indeed undoubtedly it will boost tourism to the new Grand Egyptian Museum which inauguration is expected to happen in June 2021.
One could now this spring follow the televised once in the lifetime procession of mummified pharaohs while a symphony orchestra and singers were playing and Egyptian dignitaries were attending the feast. Dimitri Tomkin had once composed Land of the Pharaohs and a special peace Pharaonic Procession which, for example, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra had recorded. We could now from distance enjoy a real historical procession and have change into the world of lockdowns at our homes.
Such famous pharaohs as the female pharaoh Hatshepsut and pharaoh Ramesses II, proceeded in specially modified vehicles in the streets of Cairo while the orchestra was playing pompous music and the vehicles transported the pharaohs to the better equipped Grand Egyptina Museum in Giza. It is fine that the ancient Egyptian finds including mummies will get the best laboratory treatment in the museum. The mummy of Tutankhamen, perhaps to us the most famous pharaoh, has been returned to its tomb which from the archaeological ethic point of view is an appropriate gesture.
Soon after the spectacle, the world was hearing about extraordinary findings when Dr. Zahi Hawass’s announced the discovery of the lost city of “the Rise of Athen” or “the Dazzling Aten” in Western Thebes next and across the Nile from Luxor. The city dates from the time of Pharaoh Amenophis III (ca. 1390-1352 BC) and his son Amenophis IV (ca. 1353-1336 BC), the latter later known as Akhenaten. The city was apparently used by successive pharaohs Tutankhamen (ca. 1334-1325 BC) and Ay. Pharaoh Akhenaten had created a new monotheistic religion known Atenism which the name of the lost city refers to. He also built the city for Aten in Amarna situated between Cairo and Luxor. From the palaeopathological and DNA examinations, Akhenaten has been identified as having been the father to the boy king Tutankhamen’s.
Some archaeologists have reacted to the discovery of the city that it is the most significant archaeological find made in Egypt since the tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922. The city was discovered when Hawass was looking for the so-called mortuary temple of Tutankhamen. The unearthed finds now consist of buildings, pottery, tools, jewelry and tombs. It seems to have partly served as an industrial centre of pharaohs, but only parts are exposed and the future can bring more new information of the nature of the city. It is claimed that the discovered city is the largest ever known in ancient Egypt.
In this digital age, there are numerous new ways to save the sites and finds from deterioration. The replica of Tutankhamen’s tomb has been produced by FactumArte to people to visit and save the original tomb. The unwrapping linen shrouds and wrappings of mummies have developed digitally. Now there are algorithmic ways to virtually unwrap mummies without actually opening them. We can see inside the wrappings: jewelry and shabtis, little anthropomorphic and magic statues set under wrappings. The director of the Egyptian Museum in Turin introduced the new invention of digitally unwrapping mummies at the GEORES conference in Milan in the spring of 2019.ByB
Detection and Documentation of the Great Wall of Gorgan
by dr. Abbass Malian
The Great Wall of Gorgan or the Red Snake (which owes its name to its red color bricks), is a historical wall that extends from the Caspian Sea to the top of the Alborz Mountains. Almost all of this wall is now gone, leaving only small parts of it buried underground. The Great Wall of Gorgan, with a length of about 200 km, the construction of which took more than 90 years, is the longest historical monument in Iran and the largest defensive wall in the world after the Great Wall of China. The historical wall of Gorgan dates back to the Sassanid period. Archaeologists have dated it to the 5th century AD.
