Step Inside Ramses the Great's Ancient Egypt With Dazzling Immersive Tour - CNET

Last week, I traveled to past Egypt. It was an casual travel -- nary COVID tests, airdrome information lines oregon upwind delays. I conscionable climbed into a cinematic question chair, strapped connected a high-resolution VR headset and got swept into Queen Nefertari's lavish tomb, a labyrinth of chambers covered successful vivid floor-to-ceiling paintings depicting the queen's beingness and times. 

A loquacious apparition of Nefertari herself, floating successful midair and draped successful a diaphanous bluish gown, pointed retired notable sights with a graceful expanse of her integer arms.     

Queen Nefertari takes VR visitors done the elaborate tomb successful Egypt's Valley of the Queens built for her by her husband, Ramses II.  

World Heritage Exhibitions GIF by Meara Isenberg/CNET

The absorbing virtual-reality acquisition is portion of Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharaohs, a dazzling, tech-heavy grounds astatine San Francisco's de Young Museum that illuminates the beingness and achievements of Ramses II. More than 3,300 years ago, the celebrated pharaoh ruled Egypt for 67 years during an epoch of large prosperity and empire for the country, and the grounds has the epic Ramses II-era royal statues and golden burial masks to beryllium it. 

"The temples helium erected, statues helium commissioned, monuments helium inscribed passim Egypt and Nubia, and funerary temple and royal tomb helium built were reminders of his earthly powerfulness and closeness to the gods," Renée Dreyfus, curator of past creation astatine the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, said successful a statement. "The proliferation of his sanction led to it becoming astir a synonym for kingship."

The traveling amusement was curated by archaeologist Zahi Hawass, Egypt's erstwhile curate of antiquities, and runs astatine the de Young done Feb. 12, 2023 earlier continuing to London and Paris. It assembles much than 180 remarkably preserved past treasures from the clip of Ramses II, arsenic good arsenic hundreds of years earlier and aft him: sarcophagi, ornate tomb relics, beaded jewelry, a mongoose and cats, mummified and apt presented arsenic an offering to the gods. Some of the objects person ne'er earlier near Egypt. 

The grounds besides boasts its stock of 21st-century flourishes to marque 19th Dynasty details much tangible and accessible. Drone photography, for example, contributes imagery to a dynamic multimedia re-creation of 1 of Ramses the Great's biggest subject victories, the Battle of Kadesh of 1275 BCE against the Hittite service of what's present Turkey. 

A multimedia show astatine San Francisco's de Young Museum re-creates 1 of Ramses II's biggest subject victories, the Battle of Kadesh. 

World Heritage Exhibitions

One assemblage contains the elaborately decorated woody outer coffin of an elite artisan who helped physique and decorate royal tombs during the reign of Ramses II and his father, Seti I. Giant displays lining the assemblage walls, and suspended from its ceiling, task the coffin's elaborately painted scenes arsenic theatrically lit photograph murals. Smaller displays bent supra solid cases containing different past artifacts, to item each detail.  

In this epoch of immersive exhibits that tin steep you successful a painter's world done 65 cardinal pixels, attraction indispensable beryllium taken not to fto exertion components overshadow the art, says Thomas P. Campbell, manager and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.  

"But if done right," Campbell told me, "the tech components volition adhd adjuvant discourse and heighten the visitant experience, and tin enactment arsenic a span into art, an invitation for caller audiences to link with works of creation successful our galleries." 

Indeed, thing turns up the immediacy present similar the VR experience, which serves arsenic a tantalizing clip capsule to Egypt's celebrated Golden Age, courtesy of an HP Reverb G2 gaming headset.

I've been connected a fewer virtual-reality adventures, but nary arsenic multi-sensory arsenic this one, which transports you done 360-degree sandstorms to scope 2 monuments Ramses II built for his beloved woman Nefertari.

Comfy pod-chairs that twist, crook and shingle marque it astir intolerable to judge you're not really floating done the entranceway to the monolithic rock-cut temples astatine Abu Simbel conscionable similar the integer practice of the queen. 

As I descended the steep steps of Nefertari's famed tomb into 1 of its chambers, I thought I mightiness tumble retired of my seat and down the stairs onto the chromatic floor. I perpetually turned my caput to drawback the sights implicit some shoulders. A odor constituent adjacent delivered speedy rushes of six scents, including frankincense, lavender and gunpowder, via a tiny dispenser hardwired into the chair. Ahhh, the aromas of past Egypt.   

The cinematic question chairs successful Ramses + Nefertari: Journey to Osiris twist, crook and shingle to springiness a consciousness of movement. 

World Heritage Exhibitions

Virtual world hasn't precisely go the mainstream exertion immoderate had predicted, but with the close instrumentality and software, VR can genuinely radiance arsenic an creation form, particularly successful abbreviated experiences similar this one, titled Ramses + Nefertari: Journey to Osiris and produced by World Heritage Exhibitions.  

"The VR acquisition serves an acquisition purpose, and truly brings to beingness the stories, radical and places that our visitors get acquainted with successful the exhibition," Campbell said. "With a amusive twist, of course."

The dream-like acquisition lasted much than 10 minutes, and honestly, I didn't privation it to end. 

Those who consciousness the aforesaid whitethorn beryllium heartened to larn that portion of the proceeds from grounds tickets volition assistance money ongoing efforts to excavate and reconstruct the 700-foot-long tomb of Ramses II. Ancient tomb raiders plundered it, and flooding aboriginal near it severely damaged.

Archaeologist Zahi Hawass is starring a squad that's moving to reconstruct the tomb of Ramses II, which was severely damaged by flooding. 

Zahi Hawass and World History Exhibitions