Scientists from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague and the Czech Institute of Egyptology of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University introduce a new scientific discipline – cyber-Egyptology

The Czech Institute of Egyptology of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University under the leadership of Prof. Miroslav Bárta has been developing long-term research into the dynamics of the development of complex societies based on the study of the anatomy of the internal dynamics of ancient Egyptian civilization. Since 2006, one of the fundamental activities in this field has been the creation and intensive filling of a database of officials buried at Abusir and the adjacent cemeteries at Saqqara, Giza and other selected sites led by Dr Veronika Dulíková. In view of the extent of the database, it was necessary to find methods that can cope with fragmentarily preserved information. This task has been addressed by Dr Radek Mařík of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of Czech Technical University in Prague. Gradually, the Egyptology-cybernetic team succeeded to apply several cybernetics and artificial intelligence methods; together, they acquired a grant from the Czech Science Foundation GACR for a project named “Complex network methods applied to ancient Egypt data in the Old Kingdom (2700–2180 BC)”. The main objective of the project is to develop a new approach to the analysis and interpretation of data available from the age of the pyramid builders and the use of semi-automatic methods in its processing. This has defined cyber-Egyptology as a new branch of science.