The beginning
The heritage of Egypt commands an exceptional international importance and enjoys highly captivating worldwide attraction – as it incorporates the many aspects of human civilisations, and records its development over the ages, together with locally and internationally valuable and viable natural resources of renowned beauty. The cultural heritage of Egypt in particular has the singular distinction of its spectacular, and almost miraculous, colourful continuity over the span of some 7000 years.

It is therefore, only natural and logical that such an immense wealth of cultural and natural resources would be worthiest of preservation, as well as receiving the most accurate and thorough documentation, which called for the urgent need to establish a specialised national institution to carry out this honourable and pleasurable task. Thus, the Centre for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT) of Egypt, was created.

The 1st of January 2000, marked the launch of CULTNAT, as an integral part of the National Action Plan implemented by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), which is the national body entrusted with the role of leading the e-Revolution in Egypt and steering the country, safely and confidently, into the IT age, and the most advanced digital world. The Centre became affiliated to Bibliotheca Alexandrina in February 2003 by the Presidential decree 360/2002, while retaining the status of being sponsored and supported by MCIT. Moving to its new premises in the Smart Village on October 1, 2003, CULTNAT was officially opened on September 16, 2004.

CULTNAT has a mission to document various Egyptian tangible and intangible cultural and natural heritage. This involves the implementation of a national plan of action towards the documentation programme making use of up-to-date information technology, in collaboration with national and international organisations. It also aims at increasing public awareness of Egyptian culture using the available media as well as building capacities of professionals in the field.

CULTNAT’S programmes
CULTNAT is implementing the MCIT strategy in documenting heritage under the section of e-Heritage and is conducting 10 programmes as follows:

I. The archeological map of Egypt The overwhelming number of sites, monuments and artifacts scattered all over the country and the ever-increasing pace of urbanisation around archaeological sites as well as environmental hazards, make the task of archeological site management real challenging. The need for documentation, protection and restoration of sites for future generations has become vital that could be best achieved with the availability of an extended archeological Geographical Information System (GIS), which gave rise to the archeological map of Egypt project.

The archeological map of Egypt offers three consecutive levels of information. The first is the national one, allowing the user to zoom into different regions and/or select sites based on certain criteria. At the second level, a detailed map displays the site and its components and their basic information. The third level portrays the in-depth data of the selected monument and displays a plan of the structure and an overview image. For some of the monuments, a 3-D model is displayed with a possibility of a virtual visit. A wide variety of products are also being produced, e.g. archeological atlases and maps of different governorates.

II. The architectural heritage of Egypt
Having witnessed a major building boom since the 1860s that extended to the 1940s, a number of Egyptian cities have a modern core contrasting sharply with the old medieval one and featuring a unique architecture combining European styles with local influences and materials. Yet public awareness of this heritage is still not fully formed.

The purpose of this project is to document the 19th and 20th century architectural heritage of Egypt, starting with the downtown area of Cairo as a pilot project and continuing with more parts of Cairo and other cities. The project comprises, among other features, a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with an easy to browse database that includes extensive photographic documentation and serves a variety of users ranging from decision makers to architects and historians. The project also constitutes an unprecedented systematic digital approach and a series of thematic CD-ROMs, books, guides and other publications are produced.