Recreating Ancient Egyptian Culture in Second Life

We present the cases of two role playing communities in the virtual world Second Life. We examine the process of creating culture as educational recreation and discover whether the culture the communities set out to create is in fact successfully realised. Some of the difficulties encountered in the reproduction of ancient Egyptian society are examined. We discovered that although the prevalent discourse among these communities is one of desiring authenticity, there is in fact a high level of resistance, both conscious and subconscious, to establishing authenticity. © 2010 IEEE.