The Databank of Eastern-European Egyptology.

Sergey V. Ivanov
Centre for Egyptology Studies of the RAS, Moscow
Phone: 925-2509
E-mail: serge_ivanov@mtu-net.ru

Since 1997 Centre for Egyptology Studies of the RAS participates in the project “The Databank of Eastern-European Egyptology”, which is initiated by the Gnosarch Foundation (Switzerland). The aim of this project is analysing and cataloguing of Egyptian antiquities kept in the museums of the former USSR, ARE and some European collections.

The project is based on the computer program “Text and Context”, which is being developed since 1988. It represents the new form of a catalogue, allowing not only to describe an object on a high scientific level but also to perform a detailed analysis of a monument in comparison with other sources. In 1991 “Text and Context” was adopted as the main inventory system in the Basel Museum of Cultures (Switzerland). The other participants of the project are the Egyptian Museum of Turin (Italy) and the Institute of Egyptology and Coptology of the Munster University (Germany), which add the Databank with the information of Ancient Egyptian titles and input different written sources.

The work of the CES RAS enriched the Databank with the data of just unknown in the West Egyptian collections of the former USSR’s museums – of Voronezh, Kazan and others. In the nearest future the system will also include the monuments kept in Ukraine (Kiev, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Khersones), Latvia (Riga), Lithuania (Vilnius, Kaunas) and Estonia (Tallinn, Tartu).

At the moment the Databank contains information of more then 10000 monuments kept in different collections of the world and it represents to be a unique manual on all branches of Ancient Egyptian history and culture. It is non-commercial program, which is applied between its participants. We also plan to publish the Databank in Internet and thus to let thousand of Egyptologists to get its information “in one place” without additional expenses of time and money.