This issue is more crucial than ever, occupying a central place in cultural discussions, given Egypt’s increasing openness to international cultural cooperation through exchange programmes, grants, and specialized seminars. These initiatives reflect an institutional orientation toward building partnerships based on knowledge and cultural interaction. In this context, translation has become the most important tool for reintroducing Egypt’s valuable cultural heritage into shared spaces, without reduction or distortion.

This approach is clearly evident in the strategic vision of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, which seeks to support cultural industries and enhance soft power by presenting Egyptian artistic and cultural heritage as an active entity capable of interacting with others, rather than merely a static inheritance. Hence, the focus is on translating arts and literature as dynamic mediums capable of faithfully presenting this heritage while respecting the diversity of cultural spheres to preserve its essence.

Within the Academy of Arts, this role has been realized through the establishment of the Higher Institute for the Translation of Arts, Literature, and Artistic Media. Its vision prioritizes preparing specialized personnel capable of dealing with artistic texts as intricate semantic systems that transcend the limits of language to encompass culture, customs, traditions, image, sound, and performance. Translating a work of art is not a literal transfer but a re-creation of an aesthetic experience, requiring strong awareness of identity on the one hand and of the mechanisms of global reception on the other. Egypt’s prominent writers, such as Naguib Mahfouz, Taha Hussein, Yahya Haqqi, Youssef El-Sebai, and countless others, did not simply produce distinguished literary works. Their writings were literary studies and penetrating insights into the human psyche and its complexities, undoubtedly transcending local boundaries. This is precisely what the translator must convey: universal messages that can inspire all cultures and foster a broader understanding of the human experience.

Similarly, Egypt’s timeless cinematic and theatrical heritage, with all its giants who transmitted world heritage to us and left their mark, deserves our utmost attention. We must retranslate it within the same global context that emphasizes the artwork’s cultural content, rather than focusing solely on the technicalities of dialogue, which are certainly open to multiple interpretations. Our cinematic heritage of comedic works from the 1940s and 1950s confirms this, as these films transformed comedy into a weapon of political defiance against occupation, inspiring audiences worldwide. Likewise, the realistic films of the 1990s, which reflected the early signs of globalization and foreshadowed our current situation, offered insightful artistic perspectives that interpreted and engaged with the world, rather than being confined to their own culture.

Perhaps the greatest challenge today lies in transforming translation into an effective tool of soft power, consolidating Egypt’s cultural presence on the international stage, not only through artistic production but also through its accurate and conscious presentation, which respects its distinctive character and illuminates its richness and universality.

In conclusion, translation is no longer a cultural choice but a tactical necessity imposed by the nature of the times. It is the means by which we reshape ourselves to the world and participate in forming a more balanced and pluralistic global discourse, a discourse that acknowledges and celebrates difference, rather than obliterating it.

Prof. Inas Abd-ElKhaleq – Dean, Higher Institute of Art, Literature, and Artistic Media Translation

The post Opinion | The Translation and Preservation of National Identity and Cultural Heritage in the Age of Globalization: A Perspective from Egyptian Cultural Institutions first appeared on Dailynewsegypt.

This initiative, funded by the US government’s Cultural Property Implementation Grant, aims to enhance the skills of Egyptian museum staff in documentation, collections management, and information technology. It will establish a centralized system to unify collections from various MoTA museums, improving the tracking and documentation of artefacts.

The project will be implemented across several notable museums in Greater Cairo, including the Egyptian Museum, the Grand Egyptian Museum, and the Museum of Islamic Art. Ambassador Garg emphasized the importance of cultural preservation, stating, “This partnership is not only about preserving the past; it is also about shaping a future where the cultural richness of Egypt continues to thrive.”

Deputy Minister El-Bahar expressed gratitude for the ongoing support from the U.S. government, highlighting its role in enhancing museum management practices. Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mohamed Ismail Khaled, noted the project’s alignment with MoTA’s strategic goal of improving museum interconnectedness and artefact protection.

Louise Bertini, Executive Director of ARCE, conveyed her enthusiasm for collaborating on this project, which aims to upgrade the Egyptian Museum database and assess the feasibility of a centralized system.

The US government has invested over $140m in cultural heritage preservation in Egypt over the past three decades, with ongoing projects in cities like Sohag and Luxor. The embassy will also be accepting applications for additional funding opportunities as part of the 2024 Cultural Property Agreement Implementation Grant.

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Lu’s company launched a blind box in September — a pottery vessel filled with sand, an empty hourglass and some cotton seeds.

“The Uygur pottery craft is one of the intangible cultural heritage projects in Xinjiang. Customers can find some articles that we bury in the potteries, which are duplicates of well-known cultural relics unearthed in Xinjiang. The sand can be recycled for the sand clock, while the cotton seeds can be planted in the potteries symbolizing a bright future,” Lu said.

Xinjiang is the largest high-quality cotton production base in China and an important producer of the crop in the world.

Creative products related to intangible cultural heritage and traditional culture like the blind box have won over young consumers. The company received positive feedback from its customers who praised the mysterious product, according to Lu.

Lu’s team consists of young local illustrators, designers and copywriters in Xinjiang.

“The young people have their own unique understanding and feelings for local cultures of various ethnic groups, which will become an important supporting force for the region’s cultural and creative industry in the future,” he said.

Iiham Rayim is an inheritor of the Twelve Muqams, known as the “Mother of Uygur Music,” which is a group of classical music pieces combining Uygur singing, dancing and music, considered a treasure of Chinese ethnic music.

The unique art had almost become lost before the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Thanks to the unremitting efforts of the government, as well as local folk artists, the art lives on today.

In 2005, Xinjiang Uygur Muqam Arts of China was approved by UNESCO as a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”

“I witnessed the rescue, protection and inheritance of the Xinjiang Uygur Muqam arts. To better protect and inherit the arts, the government has held diverse activities, which helped more young people learn the unique charm of the arts, and also helped our folk artists increase their incomes in the meantime,” the 57-year-old inheritor said.

“I started to learn to play the tanbur (a stringed instrument) in 1991 and was selected as a county-level inheritor in a contest in 2005. I started to enjoy a monthly subsidy of 800 yuan (about 126 U.S. dollars) in 2008,” said Molakadir Yaya, a 40-year-old Muqam artist in Shache County in southern Xinjiang.

Shache County is known as the hometown of the Twelve Muqams, with one national-level inheritor, one regional-level inheritor and 23 county-level counterparts.

With concerted efforts, the county has built a center to help protect and promote Muqam arts and facilitate research, exchanges and performances.

Apart from Uygurs, the Uygur Muqam arts have attracted young people of other ethnic groups.

Wang Jiangjiang, an ethnic Han, studied opera performance and composition in Milan, Italy, before he traveled to Xinjiang in 2010. On his journey, Wang learned of the Uygur Muqam arts, immediately taking a liking to it.

Wang devoted himself to traveling across the region to record the arts for more than a decade. He has interviewed performers and recorded performances of more than 3,000 inheritors of Xinjiang Uygur Muqam arts, including Iiham Rayim.

“The Xinjiang Uygur Muqam arts include songs, dances, and folk and classical music. It’s very difficult for a person to memorize all of them, and that’s why I record them,” Wang said.

The Chinese government has attached great importance to documenting and protecting the fine traditional ethnic cultures, ensuring that they are passed on to succeeding generations. All ethnic groups in Xinjiang have items on the national and autonomous regional representative lists of intangible cultural heritage.

“I don’t worry about the Muqam arts perishing at all. I mastered the arts by following my teacher, and now I have several apprentices too. In the future, they will be teachers themselves with their own apprentices. We believe that the Muqam arts will be passed on through the generations,” Molakadir Yaya said. ■

The post Xinjiang Speaks: Young generations keep ethnic cultural heritage alive first appeared on Dailynewsegypt.

The project is Google Arts and Culture’s latest effort in supporting and highlighting the culture and heritage of the Middle East. Available in Arabic and English, “Preserving Egypt’s Layered History” tells the history and stories of ARCE’s restoration efforts.

The institution is dedicated to supporting the conservation of Egyptian antiquities and archaeology research at diverse locations around Egypt. Everyone can use their phone to access the Google Arts and Culture app to explore an Augmented Reality model of the 3,500 year old Tomb of Menna, study the Aslam Al-Silahdar Mosque in 3D, or discover the country’s Coptic Monasteries.

Users can go behind the scenes into the preservation efforts at historic locations across Egypt, and learn more about the work of Egyptian archaeologists and female Egyptologists from around the world.

The Google Arts and Culture app puts the treasures, stories and knowledge of over 2000 cultural institutions from over 80 countries at the fingertips of users. This is to make the world’s heritage accessible to anyone, anywhere, by means of modern technology such as high-resolution scanning, machine learning and Augmented Reality.

The post Google, American Research Center join forces to preserve Egypt’s layered history first appeared on Dailynewsegypt.

Together with Luxor Deputy Governor Mohamed Abdel Kader, US Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission Director Leslie Reed, and U.S. Embassy Defense Attaché Major General Ralph H. Groover, Ambassador Cohen visited sites of USAID-funded projects at Karnak Temple, Valley of the Kings, Dra Abu El Naga, and Theban Tomb 110.

Ambassador Cohen stated, “Egypt’s antiquities are an important part of its heritage and that of all humanity, but also an important asset that creates jobs and income. The US has, for decades, worked hand-in-hand with Egyptians to preserve historical sites, strengthen tourism, and create jobs and income.”

At each location, the delegation visited sites with the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and the American Research Center in Egypt.

In partnership with the Egyptian government, the United States has provided over $100m to conserve monuments across Egypt, spanning from Pharaonic times to the late Ottoman period.

Since 1978, the American people have invested over $30bn to further support Egypt’s economic development.

The post US Ambassador visits cultural heritage preservation sites in Luxor first appeared on Dailynewsegypt.

The file will be discussed in the 15^th session which will be held in Jamaica from 30 November to 5 December.

The full file of the history of Arabic Calligraphy is currently being prepared by the Saudi Heritage Preservation Society in order to be ready for the final submission in March.

The Saudi ministry of culture held a five-day workshop last Sunday with the attendance of representatives from participating countries in order to coordinate the details of submitting the file to UNESCO.

Hattan bin Mounir bin Samman, the secretary-general of the Saudi National Commission for Education, Culture, and Science, said in a press statement that Arabic calligraphy had an exceptional value due to its long history and uniqueness as one of the richest aspects of Arab and Islamic cultural identity.

“Arabic calligraphy has been — and will continue to be — the focus and passion of experts, stakeholders and those involved in cultural affairs, education, and science, who are interested in both human and cultural heritage,” he said.

Until last year, Saudi Arabia successfully managed to register, over the years, seven items on UNESCO’s Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage including falconry, the majlis, coffee, the Najdi ardah, Almezmar, Al-Qatt Al-Asiri, and was a part of the participating countries in submitting the file for palm trees at the last session in December.

The post UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists first appeared on Dailynewsegypt.

The listing came at the 14th gathering of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which took place in Colombia from 9 to 14 December. The date palm was accredited to be one of the elements that help in deepening the relations between Arab countries and its populations.

The file was admitted to the committee by Saeed Hamad Al Kaabi, director of the Intangible Heritage at the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi), in cooperation with Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen.

Daily News Egypt interviewed Al-Kaabi to explore the details behind the bid, the challenges they faced throughout the process, and the cooperation between the participating countries.

What made you interested in bidding to list date palm in UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage?

Our bid for adding date palm to the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on behalf of 14 Arab countries was based on the existence of the date palm in most Arab countries, which constitutes a pan Arab cultural component, and its importance for Arab economy as a source of food and raw materials for many traditional handicrafts that met the daily needs of Arab families.

Moreover, it was based on the social and cultural connotations of the date palm in the Arab society where it is the inspiration for many customs, traditions, and oral history.

How long have you been preparing the bid, and what are the listing elements?

A call was made to prepare a joint Arab date palm bid by the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO). Thus, two meetings were held between the member countries, the first in Sudan’s Khartoum and the second in Luxor in Egypt from 16 to 18 December 2018, ending with the mandate of the United Arab Emirates to be the coordinating country for the bid.

As for the included elements, they were mainly the required criteria in the nomination process, including the names given to the date palm in different Arab countries, its spread in the Arab world, a brief description of its history, the bearers and practitioners of the economic activities related to the date palm, methods of preserving the date palm, ans its cultural and social connotations.

What were the challenges that you faced while preparing the bid?

The large number of Arab countries participating in the bid, which were 14, was the biggest obstacle which delayed the submission of the required documents. However, the well-management of the team and the long experience of the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism in preparing such bids for UNESCO overcame all challenges.

What was the contribution of the other 13 countries participating in the bid?

The participating Arab countries submitted their respective bids in addition to other required documents. Afterwards, a committee was formed to coordinate the bids and prepare it as one.

Then, the Arab file drafting committee represented all countries involved, and produced the file according to required standards.

These steps were followed by presenting the bid in its final form to the participating countries to obtain their approval, and finally the bid was submitted to the UAE’s Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development, which in turn sent it in to the Arab League and then to UNESCO.

How would the date palm’s joining of UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list increase its popularity?

Joining the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list sheds light on the date palm and its cultural and heritage importance in the Arab world through research, studies, books, and publications. It appreciates the efforts being made to develop different breeds of date palm, methods of preserving it, and develop products made from them.

As the Arab countries participating in the bid shared their experiences in the field of date palm cultivation, developing new breeds, and ways to benefit from its products, the bid also highlighted common cultural and heritage elements in the Arab world that must be preserved and nominated to UNESCO in the future.

How do you plan to use this step in promoting tourism in Arab countries?

We aim to highlight the aesthetic aspects of date palm plantations and their impact on the environment, and hold festivals, exhibitions and competitions related to the date palm. This is mainly through organising tourist visits to the industrial areas associated with the processing of date palm products.

As for the industries relying on it, we aim to devise new methods to fully benefit from the date palm in modern industries. Moreover, we are currently preparing promotional documentaries about the date palm.

The post Date palm’s journey to join UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage first appeared on Dailynewsegypt.

For those who do not work at the Ministry of Antiquities, exploring a maritime heritage to treat and preserve it is essential. However, this is coupled with missing information that the Alexandria University’s Centre for Maritime Archaeology & Underwater Cultural Heritage aims to provide during its latest workshops.

Under the title of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) role in the Preservation of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Egypt, 19 workers from the country’s various ministries underwent an intensive workshop to learn about the country’s hidden underwater heritage, and the tools to preserve it.

The five-day workshop took place for the first time a centre for Martime Archeology and Underwater Cultual Heritage at Alexandria University with the cooperation of  the Egyptian National Commission for Education, Science, and Culture at the Ministry of Higher Education,  the UNESCO Office in Cairo, and the Ministry of Antiquities.

As the only country having a training centre for underwater heritage, the workshop was dedicated to the individuals engaged in the exploration of underwater antiquities in order to learn more about the laws surrounding antiquities, and the UNESCO’s 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.

According to the UNESCO’s latest study, there are 150 drowning cities in the Mediterranean only, and more than three million shipwrecks. Alexandria is the second city in the Arab World which discovered underwater antiquities in 1910. With few main famous underwater cities, including the Heracleion ancient city. Alexandria is considered one of the most enriching cities in the world, for having dozens of unspotted underwater archaeological sites. 

“Most of the archaeology work is interdisciplinary with a number of other fields like media, environment, and education. So, we needed to break the circle of antiquities members only in order to let others explore the most of the antiquities they are to be part of,” Emad Khalil, founder and director of the Alexandria University Centre for Maritime Archaeology and Underwater Cultural Heritage, told Daily News Egypt.

Throughout the workshop, the 19 participants learned about the research process, diving, unearthing water relics, as well as preserving them.

Egypt’s struggles in saving maritime heritage

At the conference hall of the Alexandria Library, Emad explained that the process of underwater cultural heritage is divided into three categories: research, preservation, and capacity building.

Egypt signed the UNESCO’s 2001 convention in 2017. As one of the enriching countries in the fields of underwater heritage, the country faces limited challenges in the research process, compared to other challenges the country faces.

“The struggle we have about the equipment,  can be solved with the support of international entities. However, the real struggle is in the preservation of underwater antiquities,” he added.

“Unlike on-ground antiquities, the maritime heritage is unguarded. In museums, you stocktake the relics so if anything goes missing, we instantly figure out. Nonetheless, this does not apply when it comes to underwater archaeological sites. Up until now, no one knows the exact number of antiquities located in Egypt’s various territorial waters, which leaves us clueless if anything gets stolen,” he explained, stressing,

“We urgently need a systematic underwater survey across the Egyptian coast!”

Adding the legal and social reasons, the struggles pile up. In the Egyptian law, there is only a single article dedicated to underwater heritage preservation. Maritime antiquities preservation comes in the Egyptian law as a part of the 1983’s 117 saving relics law, which according to Khalil, “insufficient, as both of them have different aspects and tools of preservation.”

He explained that adding the preserving regulations of underwater heritage to terrestrial antiquities is inaccurate..

All of these are added to what have become regular milestones to antiquities saving in Egypt, including the very limited number of research teams, and the paralysing logistics facing any excavation requirements.

Khalil pointed out that the legal regulation part in the preservation is considered the easier part of the process of the underwater antiquities’ preservation.

Lack of public awareness

Despite discovering thousands of water antiquities, Egypt does not have museums for underwater discoveries so far.  The Ministry of Antiquities has one temporarily exhibition named, “Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds” that roams a number of foreign countries showcasing 293 artefacts that tell the tales of the two underwater cities: Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus.

“I believe the main deficiency we have in underwater archaeology scene in Egypt is the matter of showcasing the heritage we have! The fact that we have an exhibition about the Egyptian underwater antiquities that has been booming around the world in the past five years, and the moment it returns the country, the relics go straight to storage is just unbelievable, and unacceptable!” Khalil ironically said.

Before the inauguration of  Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds exhibition in the United States last year, 1,000 tickets were sold in the first day of promoting the exhibition’s opening only, according to a press release by the Ministry of Antiques, the time at which also stated that almost all of the tickets for the exhibition’s first day sold out once they were released for sale.

“Despite that, we still do not have a single maritime museum at a country that overviews thousands of water kilometres, and hundreds of underwater archaeological sites,” Khalil concluded.

The post UNESCO’s workshop tackles underwater cultural heritage for the first time in Egypt first appeared on Dailynewsegypt.

The intergovernmental committee gathered for a week in Mauritius for their annual event, in which they consider the traditional knowledge and skills that need to be safeguarded by adding them to the list.

Al-Aragouz is a wooden marionette puppet that is about to be distinguished within the city life. It first saw the light in Egypt in the Fatimid era. History books did not detect the origin of the puppet, but it was stated that it was not created in Egypt.

When it came to Egypt, that type of art was only exclusive to sultans and the elites. The art gained wide popularity in Egyptian society as it reflected the political, cultural and economic situations of the people through the puppets which appeared in different shapes and roles.     

Throughout the years, Al-Aragouz widely spread among all social classes, and became an inseparable part of different Prophet bith celebrations, also known as Moulids. It started fading away with the appearance of animation shows TV.

Currently, Wamda Troupe is still the only performing group of the show at old Cairo’s Bayt Al-Suhaymi. 

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In an attempt to modernise the traditional Egyptian education system, develop new learning techniques and give students the opportunity to acquire more skills, a new initiative was launched by students of the Faculty of Alsun at Ain Shams University.

“Students get lost after graduation, they do not know how to channel their qualifications and how to exploit their unique advantages in the beginning of their career,” Eslam Ashraf, cofounder of the React initiative, said

Ashraf and a number of his colleagues found during their studies that the education system at their faculty does not prepare them well for the labour market. The faculty does not offer any training in movie and script translation and even literary translation courses are not offered before the last year prior to graduation.

Unsatisfied with this situation the students founded React. It was the first student initiative in their faculty, and React aims to increase the student’s skills through a number of projects, in addition to promoting self discovery and help them discover their own abilities.

The first project React initiated was Re-trans, which focuses on teaching language students to translate foreign movies to Arabic. The founders of React worked with a number of foreign cultural centres, including the Czech, German and Italian centres, to pick famous movies to translate into Arabic. Once the translations were done, “the cultural centres organised screenings of their movies featuring our translations in their venues and the work we had done proved to be very professional,” Ashraf said.

As well as improving students’ capabilities, Re-trans aims to introduce Egyptian audiences to films from different cultures other than just English and American ones. “We are thought to be the first ones to translate a Czech movie into Arabic in Egypt and the Middle East,” Ashraf said.

React has been working on the Re-trans project for the past three years. In the first year only three films were translated, in their second year they managed to translate eight, and finally this year 24 films were translated, including films from Spain, the Czech Republic, Italy and many more.

Over the past month React showed the majority of their translated movies in a number of foreign culture centres. “One of the films that was screened was the Italian film Il Padre E Lo Straniero (The Father and the Foreigner), which stars Egyptian actor Amr Waked, who attended the screening,” Ashraf said.

When the project started it was initially renounced by board and professors of the faculty board, but today they share their academic and professional expertise with the members of React and all films that are translated are supervised by professors of the faculty.

React’s other projects include Areeka, which aims to develop students’ skills and bolster their critical thinking and the Da’bes project.

Da’bes is an Egyptian vernacular term which means “search”, and the project aims to introduce the faculty students to unknown cultural national treasures and prepare them to be successful and unique tour guides.

“Egypt is not only the sphinx and the pyramids, which is what we keep saying to the members of React and the faculty students in general,” Ashraf said. React has staged many conferences for students, which were conducted by Egyptian researchers and professors and highlighted several cultural heritage subjects, like the origins of Tanoura art and Egyptian pottery.

React tries to reduce the gap between the Egyptian education system and the needs of the modern-day sophisticated labour market. It also focuses on the schism of thought between the traditional methods used by most teachers and the younger generation who want to break the established rules to be able to react positively to the requirements of today.

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