Last night I went to my parents house for dinner, where my Dad gave me an article from the ARCE (American Research Center in Egypt) Bulletin written about his brother who we recently lost to leukemia. He was 62. He spent much of his later years in Egypt heading archaeological preservation projects. I recently posted a video slide show of our family reunion in Maine, last summer. Here is what was published in the Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo.
Robert (Chip) Vincent (1945-2007)
By Michael Jones
On Monday 5 November 2007 a memorial was held for Robert (Chip) Vincent at the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE). Over 100 of Chip’s colleagues and friends attended. When he died on 11 October, aged 62, Chip had been battling with leukemia for over a year. His death brings to an end a distinguished career in cultural heritage preservation in Egypt and elsewhere. At the time of his death Chip was still working on the final stages of a book which he had conceived for ARCE some three years ago. It is a retrospective volume about the 50 conservation projects he directed and successfully completed for ARCE during his 12 years with this organisation. It is therefore a good place to start to recall Chip’s achievement. It is also a clear testimonial to the way that Chip saw all of those who worked with him as participants in a shared accomplishment.
Chip came to Egypt in 1994 to set up a new venture for ARCE because it had just received a generous grant from the United States Agency for International Development for the conservation and preservation of Egypt’s cultural heritage. Out of this the Egyptian Antiquities Project was created as a unit within ARCE. The ARCE director at that time was Mark Easton, and between them, Easton and Chip forged a new mission for ARCE to the extent that the ARCE of today is very much their legacy.
There was another fortunate coinciding of events and people. Abdel-Halim Nureddin, Gaballa Ali Gaballa and Zahi Hawass have all been thoroughly supportive, widening the scope of collegiality to include their staff and all the inspectors of the Supreme Council of Antiquities with whom ARCE has worked.
Chip’s background was in archaeology and management. He participated in over 30 excavations and surveys in many countries including Britain, Cyprus, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. During the 1980s he directed projects for the Sultan of Oman, developing water resources, and immediately prior to Egypt he spent six years as the executive director of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University.
Some of the first projects established in those early years of USAID-funded ARCE conservation projects were in Historic Cairo: at the Bait Al-Razzaz, the Zawiyah of Farag Ibn Al-Barquq, and the Sabil of Nafissa Al-Baydah. Outside Cairo, collaborative projects began with Chicago House at the Luxor Temple and Medinet Habu and with New York University at Abydos, recognising that the very raw material of Egyptology, comprising many of the most famous Pharaonic sites and monuments, require urgent conservation to safeguard their future survival.
Within a year of the initial grant USAID was confident enough to award ARCE further funding in 1995, which fell to Chip to administer, for conservation projects at the monasteries of St Anthony and St Paul and the Ottoman Fort at Qusseir (Red Sea) and in the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings. Each new project increased the number of colleagues and friends and the professionals who directed and participated in them and created an enduring team of colleagues who became friends with a common vocation dedicated to the preservation of Egypt’s cultural heritage. That is how Chip saw us.
Chip was also an accomplished photographer, especially in black and white, and mounted several exhibitions of his work from his schooldays onwards. He lamented the passing of conventional photography in favour of digital, as much for the risk posed to the survival of photographers’ skills as for the quality of images, but he accepted it and started exploring ways in which it could enhance project documentation. His time in Oman planted a love of the desert in Chip’s heart which he developed to the full in Egypt, organising and leading four-wheel drive expeditions which he planned meticulously. He once admitted to me that he enjoyed the planning, obtaining reliable maps (when possible), establishing GIS points and discussing the routes with friends more than the trips themselves. He relished the difficulties. Particularly memorable was his triumphant return from the difficult drive between the Roman quarries at Mons Porphyrites and Mons Claudianus in the Eastern Desert. Chip was also a keen scuba diver and not only enjoyed diving in the Red Sea but also promoted two underwater conservation-archaeology projects for ARCE.
Chip’s last summer was spent with his family at their new home in Maine, where he was able to work on his retrospective book and, among other excursions, take a four-day sail on a tall ship with his daughter. His wonderful sense of humour and ability to conduct himself with dignity and care for others, especially during his last struggle, were inspirational. He is survived by his wife, Fran, and daughters, Sarah and Suzannah.
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