Conservation Archives
Explore the Archives
Beginning in the early 1990s with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), ARCE engaged in vital conservation work at monuments and sites throughout Egypt, leading to a unique collection of material documenting conservation projects that constitute the ARCE Conservation Archives. In total, the Conservation Archives includes 79 collections, each documenting a different project conducted in Egypt.
The Conservation Archives covers a wide range of Egyptian history spanning over 7,000 years. Geographically and historically diverse, the projects include Pharaonic, Coptic, Islamic, and other Egyptian cultural heritage sites of significance. Some examples include Theban tombs TT50, TT69, and TT110, the Roman Wall Paintings at Luxor Temple, The Red Monastery, and the Bab Zuwayla monument in Historic Cairo. Project work includes conservation and archaeological field training, structural preservation, wall paintings conservation, and historical and archaeological documentation.
Each collection contains photographic and written material including 35mm and 120mm color and black & white slides, born-digital images, technical reports, and various grant-related documentation, in addition to a select number of project artifacts and architectural drawings. There are around 70,000 photographic slides, 200,000 images, 1,200 documents, 1,000 drawings, as well as a small selection of artifacts and multimedia content.
In 2015, ARCE began a partnership with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to digitize, describe, and publish content from the Conservation Archives. During the first phase of this partnership, ARCE and UCLA worked together to publish two archival collections in UCLA’s International Digital Ephemera Project (IDEP): the Luxor Roman Wall Paintings and the Tomb of Anen collections. In 2019, ARCE was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Foundations Grant for Humanities Collections and Reference Resources to publish an additional three collections and build a new ARCE web portal to showcase these collections.
Updates
The ARCE Archives website launched in Fall 2020 with five collections from the Conservation Archives. The online archives include the two projects previously published on the IDEP site, the Conservation of the Tomb of Anen in the Theban Necropolis, and the Conservation of the Roman Wall Paintings in Luxor Temple, and three additional projects: the Conservation of Aslam al-Silahdar mosque in Historic Cairo, the Architectural Conservation at the Red Monastery in Sohag, Egypt, and the Preservation of the Funerary Enclosure of King Khasekhemwy (Shunet el-Zebib) in Abydos. ARCE is currently seeking out additional funding to digitize and publish the remainder of the collections in the Conservation Archives.
Contact Us
The Conservation Archives is housed in the ARCE Cairo Center within our Archives room. In addition to the records available through the Archives website, all materials in the physical archives are freely accessible in-person through an appointment or through consultation with the Archives staff. Scheduling an appointment with the Archives staff is the best way to plan a visit. To schedule an appointment, email archives@arce.org. All materials in the Conservation Archives are available for free, and ARCE membership status does not impact a researcher’s access to material.
The Archives is open during working hours, 8:30AM – 4:30PM on Sunday through Thursday. The Archives is closed for weekends (Fridays and Saturdays) as well as all official American and Egyptian holidays. Ramadan may also affect working hours.
American Research Center in Egypt (Cairo Office)
2 Midan Símon Bolívar (Qasr al-Dubara)
Garden City
Cairo, Egypt 11461
Email: archives@arce.org
Phone: +20 2 2794-8239