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Pharaoh Ramesses VI Tomb

352 points| EndXA | 5 years ago |my.matterport.com | reply

88 comments

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[+] staycoolboy|5 years ago|reply
That's just bonkers. So much writing on the walls! I wish the navigation was a little more like a FPS and less like Myst III, but I had to keep reminding myself: this isn't some level designer from 2000's, this is an actual tomb designer vision from 5000 years ago. Just bizarre. I wonder what it would look like illuminated by torchlight.
[+] jrussino|5 years ago|reply
In case you missed it - you can switch from the default streetview/Myst-like interactions to "dollhouse" mode and fly through with WASD/mouse/arrow keys. Not exactly FPS controls but closer. However, the gaps in the data are much more apparent that way.
[+] nsxwolf|5 years ago|reply
The gamer in me is a little disappointed by the real thing. I'm imagining Lara Croft walking down this corridor, and then, turning around and walking right back out.
[+] the_af|5 years ago|reply
I wonder why it isn't more like an FPS. I understand there's more modelling work involved, but it would totally rock. Imagine if advanced engines like Unreal were put to work for this kind of things instead of just for games.
[+] qqj|5 years ago|reply
Seeing it like this kills all mystic notions I had regarding these tombs. And I don't mean this in a negative way, it sort of opens your eyes to what this thing actually is - a conglomeration, made by many artists and engineers, pouring their hearts and souls into building something to last a millennia. Truly beautiful. That is until you remember it was all in service of some rich guy who thought he was a god, and had them build this as a monument to his supposed might. Ironically, his existence was entirely inconsequential, and merely provided an excuse for the true geniuses of the time to tunnel their talents into a magnum opus. They, together, were the true gods. Only true ideals transcend time, and any individual thinking himself a god would be wise to acknowledge that; you can become a god only if you let youself die and embody an ideal fully. Ramesses missed the point so hard it's hilarious.
[+] ciarannolan|5 years ago|reply 

  I met a traveler from an antique land,
  Who said — “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
  Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
  Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
  And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
  Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
  Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
  The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
  And on the pedestal, these words appear:
  'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
  Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
  Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
  The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
[+] dmos62|5 years ago|reply
I'm not an expert in any way, but aren't you jumping to conclusions (or rather, we, collectively) about what the builders were like, what their worldview was, etc? We don't even know when the pyramids were built, or how. There's a lot of writtings and drawings and other archaelogical treasures left behind; but still, are we at a point where we can say we understand the building, builders and their world? Maybe it's just the inner child in me that wants these things to remain a mystery forever...
[+] nine_k|5 years ago|reply
The job of Ramses was diverting colossal resources for decades to make the whole thing possible, and give all these brilliant engineers and artists the medium that will withstand millenia.

Maybe it's not the most beautiful job, but still important and not necessarily easy.

By that way, the pyramid also embodies work of all the stone cutters, animal drivers, all the way to peasants who produced food to feed all them. It was an effort of an entire country.

[+] gorkish|5 years ago|reply
While I really respect the need to preserve these places as-is, I can't help but wonder if these AR/VR/virtual presence platforms could be a great way to give us a view into how these places may have looked when they were original and all the walls were freshly carved and painted.

This coupled with the future potential for being able to offer sythesized lightfields/holographic is ridiculously appealing to me.

[+] jlengrand|5 years ago|reply
Stupid question but a serious one on my end : I would pay to get an actual guide to go through this and teach me, just like I did on travel. Would you?

It seems like between the environment, Covid and the geopolitical situations in many places it could be a way to still feel like I can enjoy some of the priceless pieces the humans have created.

[+] technotony|5 years ago|reply
Last year High Fidelity took one of these tombs and built a VR version that they had an Egyptologist doing tours in. Was pretty cool, sad that they closed the platform.
[+] acidburnNSA|5 years ago|reply
I was impressed by this when it was posted a bit ago and am still impressed.

What's funny is that right after seeing this, my neighbors were selling their house. I checked out the listing and they had this same technology for a COVID-19 walkthrough linked right on the redfin page. They got two offers within a week. Pretty shcmancy!

[+] einpoklum|5 years ago|reply
If you turn around immediately, you'll notice the ancient Egyptian mailbox next to the metal gate... and you can now write Ramesses a nice personal letter: "I know what you're going through - I too often feel like I'm buried under a ton of bricks." etc.
[+] praveen9920|5 years ago|reply
First thought I had is, it is so beautiful, the lighting was perfect. I didn't expect the details of texture, glyphs and color from few thousand year old tomb. Pharaoh himself would be surprised to see his tomb like this.
[+] stfurkan|5 years ago|reply
I have also posted this to the earlier discussion on the same topic. I am writing the same comment here too :)

If you are interested, I am trying to build an open source database for places with virtual tour.

Website: https://gez.la

I am currently working on this alone. Anyone interested is welcome to help :)

https://github.com/stfurkan/gez

[+] justwalt|5 years ago|reply
Imagine how cool it would be if links to these virtual tours were linked from maps. Like street view on steroids.
[+] dmos62|5 years ago|reply
Really cool. Seems fully functional. What would you like help with?
[+] programmertote|5 years ago|reply
There are lots and lots of hieroglyph written on these walls. I'm assuming that the researchers have deciphered what those means (Rosetta Stone)? I really wish I could read what these means in English. That would really give a great insights about what people (maybe the pharaohs and/or rich people who can afford to build tombs like that) during that time thought was important/noteworthy.
[+] wl|5 years ago|reply
As someone who has a decent grasp of Middle Egyptian hieroglyphs, I think your enthusiasm for these texts would be destroyed by reading them. I know from experience that the quickest way to bore someone I'm guiding through an Egyptian exhibit is to start reading and translating inscriptions. The context for much of what is written is more impenetrable than the language itself. You pick up a lot of that context by necessity in learning the language but it doesn't come through in translation.
[+] mseepgood|5 years ago|reply
> I really wish I could read what these means in English.

You can buy them on Amazon. Search for "pyramid texts", "book of the dead", etc.

[+] Bayart|5 years ago|reply
The Greek graffiti are legitimately more interesting then the hieroglyphs.
[+] EndXA|5 years ago|reply
The buttons on the bottom left corner of the screen also allow you to explore options such as changing the view type and selecting different floors.
[+] caiobegotti|5 years ago|reply
It's truly impressive and jaw dropping but what's maddening to me is that what you see in there is exactly how it is in real life, i.e. the walkways are just like that and people can actually reach out and touch the walls. At least based on my visits to Luxor, very few tombs have acrylic/glass wall protections to prevent it but it's ridiculously common to see tourists in some of the tombs doing that, it's sad and revolting as hell despite such great beauty hypnotizing you.
[+] cmdshiftf4|5 years ago|reply
>At least based on my visits to Luxor, very few tombs have acrylic/glass wall protections to prevent it but it's ridiculously common to see tourists in some of the tombs doing that

I understand the sentiment, however I'm personally not in favour of modelling everything in society to account for the lowest common denominator and sterilizing everything in sight in response.

The issues you mention are nothing that couldn't be solved by advertising hefty fines and enforcing them.

[+] gadders|5 years ago|reply
You'd be surprised how many "closed to tourists" tombs you can get into with a local guide and a few notes changing hands as well (or it was easy 15+ years ago).
[+] kdamica|5 years ago|reply
This is so cool and a great use of the technology. Despite the fixed camera, the scene feels textured and alive.

I'd love it if there was a way to overlay translations of the hieroglyphics so I could get a sense of what they chose to write about here.

[+] A4ET8a8uTh0|5 years ago|reply
That was the first time I thought I may not need to visit a place in person ( not an expert; seeing it in person would be unlilely to yield a different reaction / insights ). Maybe virtual tourism could be a thing for sites like these.
[+] robotresearcher|5 years ago|reply
Beautiful and fascinating site.

The artifacts of the capture and rendering process strike me as deeply weird - they do funny things to my brain as I navigate around. I've done some photogrammetry so I understand why they exist - they have chosen to never show the holes in the mesh - but I've never seen exactly this aesthetic effect. Maybe someone could use this as a video effect like Radiohead did for lidar point clouds a tech generation ago.

https://youtu.be/8nTFjVm9sTQ (2008)

[+] mesozoic|5 years ago|reply
This is really cool! It would be awesome if there was an automatic way to export something like this to a map you can load in some high res FPS like half life 2 or a newer one.
[+] monadic2|5 years ago|reply
I can’t be the only person who finds this kind of presentation hard to navigate on a phone. It’s also why I go to my desktop to use google street view.... ideally it would degrade to something more approachable with swiping gestures and/or visual clues to controls.

Nonetheless, this is extremely cool (no knock on this specific project for the above problems) and I’m looking forward to poking around tonight.