The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum: How San Jose Ended Up With the West's Largest Egyptian Collection on Display
H. Spencer Lewis of the Rosicrucian order bought the first piece, helped fund a 1921 dig at Amarna and first showed the collection in 1928. This weekend brings Halloween programs.
By the Bay Area Brief staff · Edited by Seamus McKenna · · 3 min read
San Jose City Hall rotunda on a sunny day. Photo: The wub / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped, resized and color-graded). Archive photo of the area; not a photo of the events in this story.
In San Jose there is a museum built to look like an ancient Egyptian temple, with mummies inside.
How it began
The museum was founded by the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), according to Wikipedia. Its first artifact was a statue of the goddess Sekhmet, acquired by AMORC leader H. Spencer Lewis. Lewis helped fund a 1921 excavation at Amarna and first displayed the collection in 1928. The current buildings opened in November 1966. The planetarium on the grounds was the fifth built in the United States.
Today
The museum says it has the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts on exhibit in western North America and hosts more than 25,000 students a year. Visitors tour on their own with the museum's app. It lists hours as Fridays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
This weekend
The museum's site lists an Embalmer's Apprenticeship program on Oct. 31 at 1:30 p.m. and a scavenger hunt on Nov. 1.
Sources
This article is an original summary based on the following reporting. We encourage readers to visit the original sources for full coverage.
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