Archaeology & History

Virtual tour offers trip inside Egyptian tomb

By T.K. Randall
April 19, 2020 ·  5 comments

A still frame from the virtual tour. Image Credit: The Giza Project at Harvard University With travel abroad now practically impossible thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, thousands of incredible historic sites around the world have been sitting completely empty.

Not all is lost however, as the lockdown has prompted tourism boards to create and share free virtual tours online so that people can enjoy these sites from the comfort of their own homes.

This week the Egyptian Tourist Board opened up the tomb of Queen Meresankh III to everyone with a free virtual tour that enables you to walk around its interior from your Internet browser.

The tour, which benefits from 3D modelling courtesy of Harvard University, offers high-resolution imagery of the tomb and you can walk around to explore everything using your mouse.The tour also includes detailed textual descriptions of all the tomb's features.

Unearthed in 1927 by Harvard archaeologist George Andrew Reisner, the tomb belonged to Meresankh III - the granddaughter of Cheops who built the Great Pyramid of Giza.

You can check out the tomb for yourself - here.

Perhaps in the future, virtual tours like this one - and in particular those that are designed to take advantage of virtual reality technology - will become a very popular alternative to visiting in person.

Source: The Guardian | Comments (5)

Tags: Virtual Tour, Egypt