NEW ATTRACTION
N Ireland’s journey from building ships to screen hits
Egypt unveiled a gold-laced mummy and four tombs, including of an ancient king’s ‘secret keeper’, discovered in the Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo. The vast burial site at the ancient Egyptian capital Memphis, a Unesco World Heritage site, is home to more than a dozen pyramids, animal graves and old Coptic Christian monasteries. Archaeologist Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former antiquities minister, announced the latest discovery, dating from the fifth and sixth dynasties - around the 25th to the 22nd centuries BC - to reporters at the dig site.
The largest tomb, ‘decorated with scenes of daily life’, belonged to a priest, inspector and supervisor of nobles named Khnumdjedef, said Hawass.
It was found in the pyramid complex of Unas, the last king of the fifth dynasty, who reigned some 4,300 years ago.
Another tomb belonged to Meri, who according to Hawass served as the pharaoh's appointed ‘secret keeper’, a priestly title held by a senior palace official bestowing the power and authority to perform special religious rituals.
A third tomb belonged to a priest in pharaoh Pepi I’s pyramid complex, and the fourth to a judge and writer named Fetek, Hawass added.
Fetek’s tomb included a collection of ‘the largest statues’ ever found in the area, Mostafa Waziri, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters.
Down a 15-metre shaft, the expedition also found a large limestone sarcophagus that had remained sealed ‘just as the ancient Egyptians left it 4,300 years ago’, Hawass said.
Inside was a mummy featuring ‘gold-leaf covering’ that belonged to a man named Hekashepes, according to Hawass, who described it as one of the oldest and most complete non-royal mummies ever found in the country.
Egypt has unveiled many major archaeological discoveries in recent years.
Critics say the flurry of excavations has prioritised finds shown to grab media attention over hard academic research.
But the discoveries have been a key component of Egypt’s attempts to revive its vital tourism industry after years of political unrest, as well as after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government's plans - the crowning jewel of which is the long-delayed inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum at the foot of the pyramids in Giza - aim to draw in 30mn tourists a year by 2028, up from 13mn before the pandemic.
The country of 104mn inhabitants is suffering from a severe economic crisis.
According to official figures, Egypt’s tourism industry accounts for ten per cent of GDP and some two million jobs.
For much of the last century Belfast’s dockyards dominated global shipbuilding but now the harbour that built Titanic is the launchpad for some of the world’s biggest TV and film releases. A string of major recent cinematic and streaming projects made in the UK province have earned it a growing international reputation for television and cinema production.
Industry insiders say Northern Ireland is increasingly likely to be known globally as the backdrop to Game of Thrones rather than for the decades of sectarian violence that plagued it until the signing of 1998 peace accords.
Since the seminal HBO series, which ended in 2019, the region has provided locations and studio space for Netflix film The School for Good and Evil and the historical action feature The Northman, both released in 2022.
Fantasy blockbuster Dungeons and Dragons, which is due for released in March, was similarly filmed there.
Amazon Prime’s Blade Runner 2099 series, based on Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci fi original, is due to start filming in the province later this year.
Meanwhile, homegrown series and films including Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast and Lisa Mcgee’s TV comedy Derry Girls have also won international acclaim.
Richard Williams, the chief executive of Northern Ireland Screen, which promotes the industry’s growth, said success is changing perceptions and helping the province grow in confidence.
“There’s probably a higher percentage of people in the world who only know about Northern Ireland from Game of Thrones than there are that know about us because of our challenged history,” Williams told AFP.
“Northern Ireland still needs to build up its confidence.”
‘Cutting edge’
Belfast’s once-mighty shipyards, which now house the Titanic Studios - among Europe’s largest - and the newer Harbour Studios, offered the huge spaces needed by blockbuster filmmakers.
“That was very attractive to certain types of early films that needed large-build spaces,” Williams explained.
He added that there were obvious parallels between film production and the heavy industries that once dominated the docks.
“There is a huge amount of craft involved. There's a huge amount of construction involved. Doing things on time and on budget are just as important,” he noted.
The UK government offers tax breaks to the industry, which in return trains and maintains a growing multi-skilled workforce.
Offering the latest studio technology to production companies is seen as a key plank in Northern Ireland’s economic plans.
In a sign of its ambitions, Belfast’s Ulster University has partnered with the harbour to deliver the next generation of film and TV production through its new Studio Ulster project.
The £25mn (Us$31mn) complex will include
large-scale virtual production stages with in-camera visual effects, a motion capture stage, a 3D scanning stage and a research and development smart stage to support research.
Declan Keeney, director of the university’s Ulster Screen Academy, noted it will help quadruple the number of large-scale studios in Northern Ireland.
Comparing them to lighthouses that ‘draw people to them’, they put the province ‘at the very front end, the cutting edge of technology for film and TV’.
“We have a thriving sector here of people, enthusiastic people, who see the potential to work in this space," Keeney said.
The university and academy are already a "talent pipeline" into the creative industries, with 900 students studying 3D skills, aspects of media production and other related disciplines.
'Screen tourism'
Northern Ireland's small size and varied locations have also proven a draw for production companies, according to Naomi Liston, the location manager for "The Northman" and "Game of Thrones".
"(What is) absolutely key about Northern Ireland is that from our studio base we can be up at the north coast, which is one of the most famous beauty spots in the UK and Europe, in under an hour," she told AFP.
"That makes great production sense. And that saves money -- you're not travelling crews and having to accommodate them somewhere else."
The TV and film success has spilled into the tourism sector. At the height of "Game of Thrones" popularity in 2018, Northern Ireland's tourism office said the show accounted for 350,000 visitors.
That contributed over 50 million pounds to the local economy, it estimated. Flip Robinson, a former "Game of Thrones" body double and extra, now runs guided visits of locations from the show.
"We knew that it was going to bring tourists and
There's probably a higher percentage of people in the world who only know about Northern Ireland from ‘Game of Thrones’ than there are that know about us because of our challenged history RICHARD WILLIAMS
that was the great thing that we were excited about, plus showcasing our amazing scenery that we've got here to the world,” he said.
Robinson, from County Antrim, which includes Belfast and the famous northeastern coast, hopes the benefits of the film industry’s growing success will ripple widely.
“People are just all delighted to get involved in it,” he said. “I’m in the area of screen tourism, so it’s fantastic.”