14 DAY TRIAL // Google Street View is always expanding, it seems, as the company sends its cars and backpacks all over the world. Now, the company has announced that it will start adding a new type of Street View imagery on Google Maps, namely the monuments of Ancient Egypt.
“Candlelight flickering on a stone wall covered in hieroglyphs. A proud queen brought low by the bite of a snake. Reeds rustling along a river, waiting to be turned into papyrus, or maybe a basket. The civilization of ancient Egypt stood for thousands of years and left behind a rich legacy of architecture, art, medicine, politics, culture and more. Today, it looms large in our imagination as the home of Cleopatra, Ptolemy, Tutankhamun, people who worshipped cats as gods and buried their embalmed dead in tombs filled with treasures and sustenance for the afterlife,” Google writes quite poetically.
Well, the company says that the Egypt of our imagination can be brought to life over on Street View, which allows you to take a virtual tour among the monuments that have fascinated people from all over the world.
You can start at the Pyramids of Giza, some of the world’s most famous locations and one that continues to be shrouded in mystery. The Giza Necropolis is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world and hosts the Great Pyramid which was built as a tomb and a symbol of eternity for one of Egypt’s old Pharaohs over 3,800 years ago.
You can also check out the Khafre and Menkaure pyramids, as well as the Great Sphinx, which is the oldest and largest known monumental sculpture in the world.
Other Egyptian locations are also open to virtual tours
The Pyramid of Djoser, the site of the very first pyramid designed by Imhotep, is also open for virtual visitors, as well as Abu Mena, one of the oldest sites of Christianity in Egypt, the Hanging Church, the Cairo Citadel, the medieval Islamic fortifications and historic site, and the Citadel of Qaitbay.
“The Pyramids of Giza have survived nearly five millennia and are the planet’s oldest man-made wonder. Now their legacy—and the legacy of many other sites of ancient Egyptian culture—are preserved in a new way with panoramic and immersive Street View imagery. We hope you’ll take a moment to step back in time and explore what was once known as the Gift of the Nile,” says Google’s Taker Abdalla, head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa.
