American Research Center in Egypt

ARCE was founded in 1948 in Boston by Edward W. Forbes, then the director of the Fogg Museum at Harvard, and Sterling Dow, then president of the Archaeological Institute of America, with the intention of creating a scholarly research center in Egypt. The center's Egyptian headquarters opened in 1951 in an office at the Office of U.S. Information and Educational Exchange in the American Embassy in Cairo.

ARCE began conservation work at heritage sites throughout Egypt in the early 1990s, following the earthquake in 1992, with support from USAID. USAID endowed ARCE with two sizable endowments, providing the organization with substantial financial support through which it still operates today. Today, ARCE's ongoing grants program is supported by its Antiquities Endowment Fund, which was created with resources from USAID as allocated by the United States Congress.