The first example of what I have done, shows the translation of hieroglyphs from pictures of the wall painting on which the text is seen.

The translations are also SPOKEN now!

The picture that will load if you click this link, is the same as the one on the right, but is at much higher resolution, so it may take a while to be displayed.
Please be patient, and I hope you find the result worth waiting for.
To see this in action click this link below, or the picture on the right.
To return to this page, click the browser "Back" button, you will need to click it a number of times as it steps back through each stage.

Click here to see & hear hieroglyph translations:- HieroShowHear

If advertisements hide the picture, move them out of the way by moving downwards using the scroll bars on the right of the window at the top where the picture should be.

TOMB of Seti I 3D VIRTUAL REALITY MODEL

I have been creating a computer model of the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh, Seti I in the Valley of the Kings, for about 10 years.
This is why I have called my website Seti Site.
I plan soon to put my model of the tomb on the internet for others to see.

This is a photo of the right-hand wall of the burial chamber of Seti I that I took about 10 years ago. It gives an idea of the wonderful wall paintings in this tomb.

!!!! TALKING TOMBS !!!

I am very pleased to say that I have thought of a way to include the HieroShowHear method in my tomb model.

This means that as visitors "walk" through the tomb, they will be able to hear the translated hieroglyphic texts & if they wish, see the written translation.

I will add to this description of my virtual reality model of Seti I's tomb soon, and hope you find it of interest

Click here for a good description of the tomb of Seti I.

Do you Have Any Tomb Painting Photo's?

If anyone who has photo's of Egyptian tomb paintings would like to see their photo's shown in this way, I would be very pleased to do this for them.
The easiest way, if you are able to use a scanner to make a BMP , JPEG or GIF file of the photo is to send it to me as an email attachement.
If you have the translation of the hieroglyphs in the picture and send that to me as well, it will take me less time to create the HieroShow or HieroShowHear! for it.

I would be very glad to get any pictures you have of the tomb of Seti I, and as I have the translation of some of the hieroglyphic texts already, then I will be able to do those very quickly.
I will also be very pleased to put these pictures in my computer model of the tomb of Seti I, if you will allow me to. This will help me to complete more of the tomb, and you will be able to see them in the tomb when I put it on the web.

Click here to send me email to johneg4@lycos.com.

This is the right hand side of the head end of the sarcophagus of Seti I. By clicking the link below the blue drawing, you will see and hear the translation of part of the hieroglyphs at the top, right hand part of the sarcophagus. I have placed the blue drawing of the hieroglyphs over that part of the sarcophagus to try to show how it looked when the original blue inlay was still in the inscriptions.

If you click on these words, you will find a very interesting report on the sarcophagus of Seti I and the Soane Museum in London, that was in the Al-Ahram newspaper.

I would be very pleased to get emails from anybody who would like to say anything about what I have done so far and my plans for the future

Click here to send me an email to johneg4@lycos.com

This is the Chapel of Thotmosis III which is in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Very soon the translation of the hieroglyphs will be written and spoken, in both Arabic and English.

This is a picture of the pharaoh Horemheb with the goddess Isis from his tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

Note: You may need to adjust the width of your browser window to get the translated text columns to line up with the hieroglyph columns.

Click here for a good description of the tomb of Horemheb

PHARAOH SPEAKS!
I have managed to persuade the pharaoh Horemheb to start talking, so far with my own voice, which does not sound much like an ancient Egyptian! I will then try to find an ancient Isis to say her words!!
By having different voices for each character in a painting, pharaoh, god, goddess etc., this should make it easier to know who is speaking and to follow the story.

As I am creating this website in an internet cafe in Cairo where silence is more rare than the gold of the pharaohs, I am afraid the quality of the sound I have recorded is very poor. I hope to be able to make much better sound recordings soon, without music in the background! Until then please forgive the poor quality of the sound.

New feature

I have been thinking of different ways to adapt this HieroShowHear technique.
One method, which I have just made work, is to make it so that if a user "clicks" on the figure of the pharaoh, god, goddess or other being in the painting, then all the text which applies to that being is displayed and spoken.
So now, if you click on the body of the pharaoh, the figure on the left, when the mouse cursor turns to a hand, then all his words will be spoken and written in the right hand bottom of the page.

This feature could be useful for people who would like to hear and see all the words of the figure in the painting first. They could then, if they wished, try to work out which column of hieroglyphs each line of text came from. When they have decided, they can click on that column and the translated text will appear in the column below as before. They will then be able to see, and hear, if they are right.

NEW!!!
I am now working on a way for internet viewers to get a good idea of what it is like to use my full 3D virtual reality Egyptian tomb models, without having to download large files.
A simple version will use one computer and a mirror! and a more advanced system will use two computers, without a mirror.
I hope to be able to do this quite soon, and will put news about it here.
The picture on the left is of the back wall of the burial chamber of the tomb of Seti I, with part of the ceiling that shows the figures of gods that the Ancient Egyptians believed could be seen in the night sky.

NEW IDEA FOR TOMB MODEL

With my tomb model I have made it so that in a tomb corridor, for example, the two walls are projected on screens either side of the visitor with an overhead projector. The visitor walks on a small treadmill and the "walls" move past him at the speed he walks. This gives a good feeling of walking through the tomb.
I have always tried to make it as much like walking through the real tomb as I can.
To add the talking hieroglyphs feature, I didn't want the visitor to use a mouse as this will of course seem like using a computer.
I have now had an idea that makes it more normal.
I will change the mouse to look like a torch, that one might use in a tomb that is not lit very well, and change the mouse cursor so that it looks like the light from a torch. When the torch light is on the hieroglyphs that the user wants to hear, he will just press the torch on/off switch. I should be able to make it so that the "torch light" moves to the same place as you point the "torch", so this will seem as if pressing the torch switch makes the hieroglyphs speak.
I can't wait to try this! It might even be thought that this is a modern version of "The Opening of the Mouth Ceremony"!!

Click here to got to Seti Site Homepage

Click here to see a small section of the sarcophagus of Seti I which I am trying to make talk!

GOOD NEWS!
I have had some great help with the hieroglyph translations from a man staying in the same hotel as I am here in Cairo.
His name is Harold M. Hays and I am very grateful for his help. I have made the changes to the sarcophagus page of my site, and it is now much better.

3D SPEAKING MODEL OF THE SARCOPHAGUS
I will be building a 3d model of the complete sarcophagus using this method to allow the translation of the hieroglyphs to be seen and heard. I will then put this in my model of the burial chamber of Seti I, so that "visitors" will be able to walk around the sarcophagus and hear the translations as they do so. This may well take some time to finish, but I am looking forward to completing it.