Egyptian Museum

On Saturday afternoon, William and I went to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose. I stumbled upon this little gem in my hunt for fun cultural events in the bay area. Like the kids in our Sunday School class said, its great if you like Egyptian stuff.

The entrance to the museum had pillars and Egyptian statues lining the path. There's William in the background patiently waiting for me while I take a photo op.

Surrounding the museum is a set of gardens, statues, and research buildings. I like the ankh at the top of the building.

And what Egyptian museum would be complete without an obelisk

They also had an interactive game you could play called "senet". It is somewhat like Backgammon where you roll the dice to see who can make it to the end first. We just read the directions and decided that we could pass on playing it.

And then, the museum. I have had a deep love for ancient Egypt since I was in elementary school. Being the nerd that I am, I went to these summer school programs called "Beyond the Basics" at Cottonwood High where you would learn about the culture, traditions, and history of the ancient world. One year was completely focused on Egypt and I got to make a cartouche, a model of my own pyramid, make a scarab, and many other fun activities. These courses made me want to be an archaeologist- but, obviously, I chose a different career path. I am still a fan though of Egypt and so I was very excited about this museum. And I wasn't disappointed.

The first artifact I saw when walking in one of the rooms was the replica of the sarcophagus of King Tutankhamen. What I find fascinating about King Tut is that he is so famous now due to the discovery of his intact tomb. However, he was one minor pharaoh only ruling for 9 years until he was 18. That's why his tomb was still intact because it probably didn't have the riches of Ramses II who ruled for like 90 years and whose tomb was raided before it was even sealed. Somethings interesting that I learned about King Tut is that his name was changed to Tutankhamen from Tutankhaton because his father, Akhenaton, introduced monotheism to Egypt. Following his fathers death and to distance himself from that previous regime, he changed the "aton" at the end of his name. He also married his sister, (which was the practice among royalty to perpetuate the family line) who was the daughter of beautiful Queen Nefertiti.

They created a replica tomb, complete with ancient hieroglyphs on the walls- unfortunately, the photo is blurry since we weren't allowed to use flash

The museum also had several mummified bodies of both humans and animals. One was particularly interesting because several years ago, the National Geographic Mummies Road Show (who knew there was such a thing) visited the museum and analyzed their specimens. They found that the mummy was older than anticipated because its cloth wrappings had been added later. They think that the tomb had been attacked by grave robbers who removed the wrappings to get the precious amulets and that some priests re-wrapped the bodies later to keep them together. They also had a sarcophagus of a snake that had the remains in it as evidenced through x-rays.

Additionally, there were some pieces from ancient Mesopotamia such that we got to see the Code of Hammurabi- the first written legal code in the world

Doesn't it look even more dramatic with the red background. I also saw different artifacts with cuneiform on them and learned that they sometimes wrote cuneiform on the bottoms of tiles to act as treads. I also saw many of the complex seals that they had, which were amazingly on a cylinder. I had erroneously thought that they were just a flat stamp, but the ones they showed had to be rolled out on a tiny cylinder, making it very difficult to replicate.

William loved learning about hieroglyphics and its evolution. It is a phonetic language, but over time, many of the words shifted pronunciation to not match. He knows a lot more about it so you can ask him if you are curious. Another interesting tidbit that I learned is that the Egyptians eye makeup was more than just cosmetic but actually prevented them from developing eye infections. See- there is a logical purpose behind it too beyond just for beauty.

Included in our entrance fee was a free show at their planetarium. I thought it was a little odd that the museum had a planetarium but I thought that they might show us a few movies about the importance of astronomy in ancient Egypt, or how the sky looked during that time. However, we saw this show called "Mithraic Mysteries". So it presented this hypothesis that the Mithraics actually represented astronomy in their teachings, paintings, and rituals. To show just how exciting this movie was, the guy next to me was snoring 5 minutes into the 35 minute show. It was funny because it was pretty loud and his friends would nudge him to wake him up, but it only lasted for a few minutes until he was snoring again. William fell asleep at the end, but was discreet about it. We recommend SKIPPING this show if you go to the museum. We wondered why they had a show about a group that existed so much later than Egypt and we just found out why they would have a show like that tonight.

The Rosciurian Order is a group that believes that knowledge is power and can transform the individual. They draw on teachings throughout all time including Plato, Aristotle, gnostics, Mithraics (now makes sense), Templars, and many other ancient societies that had "mysteries", knowledge, and initiatory rights. The original founder of the Rosicurian Order in the U.S. was by Dr. Lewis. He had the U.S. order help with some excavations in Egypt and so in return for their help, they gave him and the society the ancient relics that are now in the museum. The order is still going today- you can become a member if you pay the membership dues and spend 12 years learning all of their different knowledges/truths about the world. We just really liked their museum.