161 1. Purpose of the project 1 2 The ultimate purpose of the project Croato-Aegyptica Electronica was to build up a targeted and selected database of relevant institutional and private collections of the Ancient Egyptian antiquities in Croatia. 2. History of the project The first phase of the project’s development started in late 2001 when the idea of the project was initially presented (paper ‘Egyptian antiquities in Croatia: Computerised processing of Sources and Literature’) at the international scientific conference ‘Historical research, study of history and computerization’ (December 10-12, 2001, Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia). During next two years (2002-2003) the first team of researchers and project developers was formed (M. Tomorad, I. Uranić, G. Zlodi, H. Gračanin, I. Malus Tomorad, M. Gračanin). During this period, with the help of prof. dr. P. Selem, we got support from all the museums and other institutions to start research of their collections and for future publishing of all the material as an online digital catalogue. After a successful application at the Ministry of Science, Education, Technology and Sport of the Republic of Croatia in early 2004, the project got sufficient financial funds to start its development. After solving the problem of funding our project team started the second phase of the project. During the first half of 2004 the first project web site entitled ‘Croato-Aegyptica Electronica’ was created. M. Gračanin designed and programmed the whole site. 1 The Global Egyptian Museum [http://www.globalegyptianmuseum. org/]. 2 The Center for Documentation of Cultural & Natural Heritage of Egypt (Cultnat) [http://www.cultnat.org/]. In May 2004 the Croatian version of the web site was launched at [htp://infoz.ffzg.hr/cae]. The English version, which is slightly different from the Croatian version, was launched at the end of June, 2004. A few hundred pages of text written by M. Tomorad, I. Uranić, H. Gračanin and I. Malus Tomorad were implemented at the site between 2004 and 2007. The CAE database has been accessible on- line since July, 2004 until the early 2010. In September, 2004 the site got its own domain [www.croato-aegyptica. hr] and the first version of the database was incorporated into it. Firstly, accessible online database included some 120 artifacts from the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, and later it included few hundred artifacts. 3. Croato-Aegyptica Electronica website (2004-2014) CAE website [www.croato-aegyptica.hr] was the first Croatian educational and informational web portal about the history of any civilisation in the world. It included texts and sections about: 1) project Croato-Aegyptica Electronica, 2) history of the Ancient Egyptian museum collections in Croatia, 3) links to the most important Egyptological web sites, 4) development of Egyptology, 5) Ancient Egyptian chronology from Prehistory until the Arab conquest of Egypt, 6) Ancient Egyptian towns and sites, 7) Ancient Egyptian mythology, 8) Ancient Egyptian history, 9) famous monuments in Egypt, 10) everyday life in Ancient Egypt. Site had its own news database which was constructed using the free software programs PHP and My SQL. It was divided into five categories: Egyptological discoveries on the field, exhibitions (past, current and future), lectures, conferences and symposiums and new Egyptological books in the Croatian language. Soon after its creation the whole site became very popular which resulted in a nomination for the Croatian scientific award for popularization of sciences for the year 2004. In 2006 the project stopped receiving the required financial support which resulted with a number of problems. In Development of the ‘Croato-Aegyptica’ Database Mladen Tomorad University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia Goran Zlodi University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia Abstract: The basic aim of the Croato-Aegyptica (CA) database project is to select relevant material which represents the Egyptian cultural heritage in Croatia from both institutions and private collections (c. 4000–5000 artifacts). From its ini- tial phase in 2003 around 3000 artifacts were analyzed and inserted into our CA database. In the next phase (2015–2018), the online digital catalogue, as the final product, will include all Egyptian museum and private collections in Croatia from the Predynastic periods until the Arab conquest of Egypt in the 7th century AD. The plan is to implement CA database into the Global Egyptian Museum 1 which is carried out under the aegis of the International Committee for Egyptology (CIPEG) and the Center for Documentation of Cultural & Natural Heritage of Egypt (Cultnat) 2 . Key words: ancient Egypt, Croatia, institutional and private collections, project Croato-Aegyptica Electronica (CAE), online digital catalogue CA, future project development