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Egypt's rich cultural artifacts, reunited
Picture a tunnel stretching deep into the Egyptian desert, shrouded in shadow and mystery—a portal to a world of lost stories and ancient symbols. For centuries, Egypt’s artifacts have been scattered across museums in New York, London, and Berlin, fragmenting the cultural heritage they represent. But through the lens of Polycam, Luke Hollis and his team are reshaping how we connect with these relics, using technology to reunite what history and geography have split apart.
Artifacts like tomb carvings, statues, and sarcophagi are separated by thousands of miles, housed in different institutions across the globe. This geographical fragmentation has made it nearly impossible to experience Egypt’s ancient culture as a cohesive narrative. Museums rely on photographs and isolated exhibits, which, while informative, fail to convey the interconnected stories these relics once told together. For Luke and his team, this posed a major obstacle: how to preserve the context of Egypt’s cultural heritage in a world where physical reunification isn’t feasible.
In their search for a better solution, Luke and his team discovered Polycam. With high-fidelity scanning tools, Polycam offers a way to capture intricate details of artifacts, preserving every contour and carving and allowing for virtual reassembly, enabling historians to digitally piece together items that are physically miles apart. Luke saw this as an essential tool for cultural preservation, bridging the gap between distant artifacts and their original, unified context.
Using Polycam, Luke’s team has been scanning Egyptian artifacts from museums worldwide, creating detailed 3D models that capture the true essence of each relic. Recently, a friend in Berlin scanned a pillar with carvings related to those found on a sarcophagus at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. By linking these digital scans, the team recreated a fragment of the ancient story, allowing viewers to experience it in its entirety for the first time in centuries. This process transforms static museum pieces into part of a broader, immersive narrative.
Using LiDAR-enabled iPads and iPhones, the team captures precise, textured 3D models of artifacts, maintaining the integrity of every detail. Polycam’s 3D creation pipeline allows these scans to be digitally reconstructed, presenting artifacts in a cohesive format that honors their original context. The platform’s sharing features make it easy for anyone, anywhere, to interact with these digital models, bringing the richness of Egyptian history to a global audience.
The impact of Polycam goes beyond just creating digital replicas; it’s about fostering a deeper connection to ancient cultures. By publishing their scans online, Luke’s team has opened up a new avenue for cultural engagement, allowing people to explore the stories of Egypt’s past from their own homes. This digital approach not only preserves heritage but also democratizes access, providing an immersive experience that traditional exhibits simply can’t replicate.
Luke’s work with Polycam extends into his projects at Mused, a studio dedicated to creating immersive educational experiences. One of their standout projects, "Netherworld: An Ancient Egyptian Afterlife Simulator," integrates these 3D scans into a game where players explore the ancient Egyptian underworld alongside the sun-god Ra. Featuring real scans of the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Tomb of Ramesses I, the game combines historical authenticity with interactive storytelling, offering players a chance to solve puzzles and uncover the secrets of ancient Egypt in a way that feels as real as stepping into the past.
Luke believes that this digital approach to preservation and storytelling is a powerful way to build empathy and global understanding. By leveraging tools like Polycam, his team is not just saving artifacts—they’re reconnecting history, piece by piece. In a world where physical reunification of cultural heritage remains a slow and complex process, this digital revolution offers a compelling alternative, allowing us to experience the interconnectedness of ancient civilizations as never before.
Luke Hollis, founder of Mused, is paving the way for a new era of cultural preservation and education. Through immersive games and 3D technology, Mused is helping to document and share heritage sites across the world, blending archaeology, gaming, and digital storytelling. To learn more, visit mused.com.
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