Egypt's Ministry of State for Antiquities just issued a new book, 'The Tombs of Beni Hassan in Minya: The Picture and the Significance,' the first in a series in an ongoing project aimed at documenting Egypt's monuments and archaeological heritage.

The project, which began in 2004, aims to register all monuments throughout the country.

According to Minister of State for Antiquities Ahmed Ibrahim, the project will utilise the latest recording and documenting technologies. 

The 377-page book includes 268 high-resolution photos of the tombs, along with 62 diagrams.

Magdy El-Ghandour, head of the Egyptian Centre for Recording Monuments, says the project's next step is to publish the scientific studies and make them available to future scholars.

El-Ghandour went on to explain that the first comprehensive effort to record the nation's monuments was implemented in 1958, during attempts to save the temples of Nubia after the construction of Egypt's High Dam. This required that all inscriptions and scenes be recorded with the utmost accuracy to aid in the reconstruction of dismantled temples in new locations.

Ahmed Said, professor of ancient Egyptian civilisation at Cairo University, currently heads up the project. He began the initiative by documenting 12 graves from newest to oldest, with a focus on their architectural features. The findings are then all recorded in a single database.