Arthur Cruttenden Mace
British Egyptologist; he was born Glenorchy, Hobart, Tasmania, 17 July 1874, son of Revd John Cruttenden M. and Mary Ellen Bromby; he was educated at St. Edward’s School, Oxford, and Keble College, Oxford, BA, 1895; he joined Petrie (q.v.) at Dendera, 1897-8, Hu, 1898-9, and Abydos, 1899-1901; in 1901 he joined Reisner with whom he continued to work on the California University excavations at Giza and Naga ed-Der until 1906; in 1906 he began work for the Metropolitan Museum, NY at Lisht; he married Winifred Blyth in 1907; in 1909 he was appointed assistant Curator in New York where he helped Lythgoe in arranging the Egyptian Department of the Museum and from 1912-14 he worked on the Amenemhat pyramid and the tomb of Senebtisi at Lisht; during the First 347 World War in 1915 he enlisted in the 2nd Battalion, 29th London Territorial Regiment known as the Artists’ Rifles, but was later transferred to the Army Service Corps until 1919; he went back to New York, 1919-20, in order to work on the restoration of the jewel caskets of the Lahun princess; he was again at Lisht, 1920-22; he was made Assoc.Curator in the Department of Egyptian Art, MMA, 1922; plans for further work in Thebes and Lisht were postponed in order to assist Howard Carter in the gigantic task of clearing the tomb of Tutankhamun, 1922-24, but after serving two winters thus he had a breakdown in health and was unable to continue his Egyptological work; he spent the next four winters in England and the Riviera; Mace’s achievement in Egyptian archaeology was considerable; he founded and directed the camp of the Metropolitan Museum’s first expedition, and was also the real organiser of its field work; in addition to articles in the JEA and BMMA he was part-author of the following works, Petrie’s Diospolis Parva. The Cemeteries of Abadiyeh and Hu, 1898-9, 1901; El Amrah and Abydos, 1899-1901, with D. R. MacIver, 1902; The Early Dynastic Cemeteries of Naga-ed-Dêr of Reisner, pt. 2 is by Mace, 1908-9; The Tomb of Senebtisi at Lisht, with H. E. Winlock, 1916; The Tomb of Tut. Ankh.Amen, with H. Carter, 1923-33, the first vol.; his MSS are in the Griffith Institute, Oxford and with his family; he died in Haywards Heath, Sussex, 6 April 1928.
