Featured Conservation Projects
The Karnak and Luxor temple complexes on the East Bank of the Nile at Luxor are, without a doubt, iconic symbols of ancient Egypt. Yet, rising ground water has, until recently, been slowly destroying these sites. In 2006, USAID (United States Agency for International Development) funded a groundwater lowering project at the two temple complexes. Now, with a new multi-million dollar USAID grant add-on to the Egyptian Antiquities Conservation Program (EAC), ARCE has begun an essential monitoring and conservation project at the two temple complexes.
The church of Saints Bishai and Bigol, the ‘Red Monastery,’ was the heart of a large monastic community, in a region known as an important center for ascetic life in the 5th century, A.D. It is an astonishingly rare example of the coloristic intensity of late antique monuments in Egypt. In this church, late antique paintings cover about eighty percent of the walls, niches, columns, pilasters, pediments and apses. ARCE has administered the first major campaign of conservation, art historical study, and publication of the Red Monastery church sanctuary. The project is directed by Dr. Elizabeth Bolman of Temple University.
