Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum
Encyclopedia
Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis
The Ancient and Mystical Order Rosæ Crucis , also called Rosicrucian Order, is a philosophical and humanist worldwide fraternal organization. Members are known as students...
, is a museum about Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
located at AMORC's Rosicrucian Park
Rosicrucian Park
Rosicrucian Park is the headquarters of the English Grand Lodge for the Americas of AMORC, located in San Jose, California. The park takes up nearly an entire city block and includes the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, the administration building for the Order, the Rosicrucian Planetarium, the...
in the Rose Garden neighborhood of San Jose, California
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
The Rosicrucian Order continues to support and expand the museum and its educational and scientific activities.
History
The founder of AMORC, Dr. Harvey Spencer LewisHarvey Spencer Lewis
Harvey Spencer Lewis F.R.C., S.·.I.·., 33°66°95°, Ph.D. , a noted Rosicrucian author, occultist, and mystic, was the founder in USA and the first Imperator of Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis , from 1915 until 1939....
(Ph.D., F.R.C.), was a collector of various artifacts with mystical symbolism, some of them from the East. In 1921 he contributed financially to the archaeological excavations at Tel el Amarna
Amarna
Amarna is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site that represents the remains of the capital city newly–established and built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty , and abandoned shortly afterwards...
(the capital city of the pharaoh Akhenaten
Akhenaten
Akhenaten also spelled Echnaton,Ikhnaton,and Khuenaten;meaning "living spirit of Aten") known before the fifth year of his reign as Amenhotep IV , was a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt who ruled for 17 years and died perhaps in 1336 BC or 1334 BC...
) of the Egypt Explorations Society of Boston by receiving donations from AMORC members. In return, the Egypt Explorations Society donated several Egyptian antiquities to AMORC.
In 1928 he presented to the public a collection named "The Rosicrucian Egyptian Oriental Museum", located at the administration buildings of AMORC at San Jose, California
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
.
After Lewis' tour in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
in 1929, AMORC received many more artifacts and donations and as a result the collection grew significantly, with more than 2000 exhibits.
The second Imperator of AMORC, Ralph Maxwell Lewis
Ralph Maxwell Lewis
Ralph Maxwell Lewis , the son of Harvey Spencer Lewis, was the Imperator of Rosicrucian organisation Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis from 1939 to 1987. In Fédération Universelle des Ordres et Sociétés Initiatiques, FUDOSI, he was known with the nomen mysticum Sar Validivar...
(F.R.C.), son of H. Spencer Lewis, decided to build new buildings for the museum. The new museum buildings opened in November 1966.
By that time the museum managed to become unique by:
- Having the largest exhibition of Ancient Egyptian antiquities in the Western USUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. - Being the only such museum in the world with buildings constructed in Ancient Egyptian architectural style.
- Having a purpose-built planetariumPlanetariumA planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...
adjacent to the museum. The Planetarium was the 5th opened in the United States, and the first with a Star Projector built in the country, constructed by H. Spencer Lewis. - Having its buildings set in an Egyptian revival park.
In 1995 Julie Scott, M.A., S.R.C., moved to San Jose and became Director of the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum.
Hours & the Planetarium show
The Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday. The hours are: Wednesday - Friday 9a.m. to 5p.m., Mystical Friday (third Friday of every month) 9a.m. to 8p.m., and Saturday & Sunday from 10a.m. to 6p.m. The museum also plays a planetarium show, The Mithraic Mysteries, at 3:30p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Planetarium currently closed indefinitely. Closed major holidays.Notable exhibits
A notable activity took place in 1999 when the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum started the travelling exhibition "Women of the Nile" accompanied by many lectures. "Women of the Nile" travelled across the United States of AmericaUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and continued until 2001. In 2000-2002 a stone figure of Cleopatra VII from the collection was displayed in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
in similar exhibitions.
The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum’s child mummy
Mummy
A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...
traveled to Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
in nearby Palo Alto on May 6, 2005 to be studied under CT scans and other high-resolution methods of remote sensing, in a collaboration between the museum, Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
, and Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
Hospital and the NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
Biocomputational Lab. The results were released at the 75th Anniversary of the Museum on August 6, 2005, with detailed scans, and these were covered by a Time Magazine article on the subject. One of the scanning images won the 2006 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge 2006 co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
and Science Magazine
Science Magazine
Science Magazine was a half-hour television show produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1975 to 1979.The show was hosted by geneticist David Suzuki, who previously hosted the daytime youth programme Suzuki On Science...
.
A statue of Taweret, the Ancient Egyptian hippopotamus
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...
-like goddess of pregnant women
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
and childbirth
Childbirth
Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...
, once stood at the entrance, but has been moved to the side to facilitate renovations to improve accessibility to the handicapped. Since 2004, the Museum has been completely renovated, with the following Gallery themes:
- AfterlifeAfterlifeThe afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...
and Rock Cut Tomb - Daily Life and Other Cultures
- Kingship and PalacePalaceA palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word itself is derived from the Latin name Palātium, for Palatine Hill, one of the seven hills in Rome. In many parts of Europe, the...
- TempleTempleA temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...
(SekhmetSekhmetIn Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet , was originally the warrior goddess as well as goddess of healing for Upper Egypt. She is depicted as a lioness, the fiercest hunter known to the Egyptians. It was said that her breath created the desert...
) and Akenaten's AmarnaAmarnaAmarna is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site that represents the remains of the capital city newly–established and built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty , and abandoned shortly afterwards...
period - Rotating Exhibits.
Rock Cut Tomb Replica
The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum contains a composite replica of an ancient Egyptian Rock cut tomb, based on photos and sketches taken by Rosicrucian expeditions to tombs at Beni HasanBeni Hasan
Beni Hasan is an Ancient Egyptian cemetery site. It is located approximately 20 kilometers to the south of modern-day Minya in the region known as Middle Egypt, the area between Asyut and Memphis.While there are some Old Kingdom burials at the site, it was primarily used during the Middle...
, in order to give the guests the experience of being in such an excavation. Below are photographs of the interior of the replica tomb, largely containing scenes from The Book of the Dead. The dark interior of the tomb replica is evident.