I. N. Elkhawas / I. S. El-Sayed Ebada
(Universität Menoufia, Egypt)
In 332 B.C., Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea and made it the capital of the Ptolemaists. By 250 B.C., Alexandria became the largest city on the Mediterranean basin. Fort Qaytbey stands at the tip of the western arm of the Eastern Harbor of Alexandria. This Fort was built in 1480 by the Mameluke Sultan Qaytbey. It was erected supposedly on top of what’s left of the ancient Pharos Lighthouse, one of the vanished wonders of the ancient world. Fort Qaytbey is still standing in spite of earthquakes, the British Navel direct bombing during Arabi’s revulsion in 1888, and the bombing by the Germans during World War II.
This paper reports on an effort to digitally document the current state (2004) of Fort Qaytbey. This is being achieved by mixing digital photography and Virtual Reality techniques. The aim is to provide an online representation of the monument. This online application would allow the user to have a virtual tour in and around the monument. The user will also have the option of clicking on selected parts of the monument to display some detailed real digital images of the current state of the building. This technique not only allows fast and acceptably accurate representation of the undocumented architectural heritage, but it can also achieve this goal in an inexpensive manner. Thus, utilizing the above mentioned technique would be cost-compatible with the current economic situation in Egypt. The economics of this technique is especially important given the huge number of undocumented architectural heritage in the country. keywords: Fort Qaytbey, architectural heritage, digital documentation, virtual reality, Alexandria-EGYPT.
