Manetho: The app unlocking Egypt's pharaonic past through real-time AI hieroglyphic translation

In a sunlit Cairo office filled with glowing screens and worn history books, where modern code meets ancient symbols, Ahmed El-Kholy is quietly rewriting history.

As the CEO of Dark Pyramid, an Egyptian firm at the crossroads of AI and cybersecurity, he has developed Manetho — the world’s first real-time hieroglyphic translator powered by artificial intelligence.

More than just an app, Manetho serves as a digital gateway to Egypt’s pharaonic past. It allows Egyptians and tourists alike to unlock the secrets of pharaonic inscriptions with a single scan, bringing the voices of ancient Egypt into the present.

Ahmed’s idea for Manetho took shape in early 2024 during a visit to one of Cairo’s museums, where he watched tourists staring blankly at walls of hieroglyphs — their confusion in trying to comprehend the ancient script mirroring his own.

Speaking to The New Arab, he says, “A tourist once asked, ‘How come you don’t understand what’s written?’”

For Ahmed, that question was more than a passing remark — it felt like a challenge, a call to reclaim a narrative that was slipping away in a digital age flooded with misinformation.

That sense of urgency grew during another visit, this time to the Egyptian Museum located in Cairo's Tahrir Square. There, he witnessed a group of Afrocentrists stirring controversy by claiming ancient Egyptian civilisation as their own.

“These narratives gained traction online,” Ahmed says, “but lacked scientific evidence.”

Yet, the voices challenging these narratives — prominent Egyptologists like Dr Zahi Hawass, Dr Mayssara Abdullah, and Mostafa Waziri — were few, and their influence was overshadowed on social media.

“They can be counted on one hand,” Ahmed notes.

This disparity birthed a bold vision to democratise Egyptology, leading Ahmed to ask, “Why not make our history accessible to every Egyptian, every tourist, every curious mind?”

Decoding Egypt’s ancient secrets

Named after the ancient historian who categorised Egypt’s dynasties into the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom, and Late Period, Manetho serves as a bridge across millennia.

With a smartphone photo, users can scan artefacts or inscriptions, and the app delivers instant translations and historical context in nearly every modern language — Arabic, English, French, Chinese, Japanese, and more.

Ultimately, it is a tool for cultural preservation, educational enrichment, and tourism, empowering visitors to verify guides’ tales or dive deeper into Egypt’s past.

As Ahmed puts it, creating Manetho did not come without its challenges and was a monumental task.

Hieroglyphs, deciphered centuries ago via the Rosetta Stone, are complex, context-laden pictograms, with most references found in old, foreign books that weren’t digitised, leaving no raw data for AI training.

Referencing mainstream AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini, Ahmed highlights that they faltered because their datasets weren’t suitable for the task.

“The sources were outdated,” he says.

Faced with that gap, Ahmed and his team, working alongside Egyptology experts, began the slow process of translating texts from scratch to build a custom AI model.

To maximise efficiency, they focused on foundational texts such as the Pyramid Texts and religious inscriptions commonly found on statues.

“Instead of translating 50 or 60 statues individually, we translated the Pyramid Texts as a whole,” Ahmed says.

In sharing this, Ahmed reveals that, with guidance from Egyptologists, they prioritised key pieces, including the Magical Stela at New York’s Metropolitan Museum and dozens of artefacts from the Egyptian Museum — such as statues of Rahotep and Nofret, Amenhotep II, King Djoser, and treasures from Tutankhamun — now housed at the Grand Egyptian Museum.

“One artefact can represent the value of ten,” Ahmed explains.

A 'remarkable technological endeavour'

At present, Manetho is receiving widespread praise, including from Egyptologist Hussein Bassir, who hails it as a “remarkable technological endeavour” that connects modern audiences with ancient Egypt through AI and augmented reality (AR).

“It’s a new window for younger generations to engage with our history interactively, far from dry academia,” he also shares. 

Reflecting on the future, Hussein envisions users scanning hieroglyphs for instant translations or seeing statues come to life through AR, placing them “at the heart of historical events, as if strolling through ancient temples.”

"It is truly wonderful to see a number of Egyptologists participating in this project, because this brings scientific credibility to it and ensures that it is not merely a superficial entertainment experience, but rather a comprehensive scientific and cultural initiative,” he emphasises.

He also notes that the involvement of specialists means the hieroglyphic translation will be based on precise foundations, and that the scenes recreated through augmented reality will reflect the findings of archaeological and historical research.

Thus, Manetho becomes not only an innovative technological tool but also a bridge connecting modern science with ancient archaeological knowledge, opening an authentic and engaging window into ancient Egypt for both local and global audiences.

Glowing praise 

For users who have already started using the app, the impact has been profound. With 700 early adopters, including 250 Egyptologists testing its accuracy and the rest tourists, feedback for Manetho has been glowing.

Eman Rabie, a recent graduate, describes using Manetho as “like being in the seventh cloud.”

“Understanding my ancestors’ texts is a milestone, and the fact that Egyptians created it makes it even more special,” she adds.

Adding to the feedback, a French tourist shares his thoughts: “I must say, I was truly amazed when I saw the bust of this young woman, of Greek origin, I believe — and witnessed your incredible work in bringing her to life. Bravo, truly, it’s an excellent idea. I also think this will be an excellent way for future visitors to discover and appreciate these beautiful works of art. Thank you again, and bravo!”

In addition to reviews, users have suggested adding voice features and virtual reality experiences, such as placing headsets near statues to hear their stories.

Whether these suggestions will be adopted remains uncertain, but what is clear is that Ahmed’s vision aims to go beyond hieroglyphs to include hieratic and demotic scripts, with plans to expand to Sumerian, ancient Greek, and Chinese.

“It’s not just translation,” he says. “It’s pronunciation. Imagine hearing ‘hyr wnfr’, meaning ‘hello and welcome’, spoken aloud after centuries.”

A past that can illuminate the future

Despite numerous challenges, Manetho’s successes continue to grow. In December 2024, the app won first place in Egypt at the Huawei Sparkle Innovation competition, which qualified it to compete on the Africa-wide stage. By May 2025, it was praised as one of the top global startups in Guangzhou, China.

Additionally, the app was selected from 500 projects to join a Ministry of Communications incubator, earned certifications from the European Union and the Talermo Association, and was a highlight at International Museum Day held at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation under UNESCO patronage.

These major milestones cannot and should not go unnoticed, especially as Dark Pyramid — a company experienced in AI for agriculture, industry, and commerce — views Manetho as its legacy: a showcase of "100% Egyptian technology" competing on a global scale despite the huge budgets of tech giants.

As the founders said, "Manetho is a gift to Egypt and the world, helping the ancient voices of the Nile to be heard more clearly than ever before. As Egypt embraces discoveries, this homegrown innovation proves that decoding the past can illuminate the future."

[Cover photo: Egyptian app developer Ahmed El-Kholy demonstrates the hieroglyphic translation feature of his app using an artefact at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo [Xinhua]]

Salwa Samir, a Cairo-based journalist, writes about antiquities, human rights, social issues, immigration, and issues concerning children and women.

Follow her on X: @salwasamir2010