Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, part 1
Feb. 22nd, 2008 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragoness_eThe Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum is divided up into thematic areas: Daily Life, Kingship, Afterlife, etc. I've also divided up my pictures into topics, but not the same ones: Religion and Burial, Daily Life, Egyptian Estate, Babylon, and Boat Models and Dioramas.
My main interest in visiting the museum was in seeing items of everyday life in ancient Egypt; I was doing a bit of research. You'll find my photos reflect that; lots of images of kitchen equipment, no pictures of royal statues.
Rock-cut tomb model
This model of a 'typical' rock-cut tomb was made by founder Spencer Lewis based on several tombs in the Valley of the Kings. (Do visit the preceding link if you are interested in ancient Egyptian tombs. It's the home of the Theban Mapping Project, and has all kinds of maps and descriptions of all the tombs of the region.)
There is also a full-scale, walk-through model of a somewhat smaller rock-cut tomb in the museum. I didn't get any pictures of it owing to the dim lighting, but it was fun to tour to get a feel of what its like inside, without having to go the expense of a trip to Egypt to walk through the real thing.
The Yellow Coffin, 18th Dynasty
18th Dynasty Lady's Coffin
As you can see, the museum has a couple of lovely, heavily-painted mummy cases. The yellow coffin, which belonged to a priest, apparently had a mummy in it that no one knew about when the museum got it; they got a freebie along with their mail-order coffin. They also have a few mummies, but I didn't photograph them because mummies are gruesome-looking and they're someone's corpse; it seems rude.
Correction: I didn't photograph the human mummies.
Mummified Bull's Head and Cat
There are three kinds of animal mummies found buried in Egypt: sacred animal sacrifices, food offerings to accompany the mummy, and favorite household pets. The bull's head (with painted eyes) and cat mummies above are sacred animals. Animal mummies as temple offerings were big business at popular pilgrimage sites; kittens were raised en masse in "kitten mills" to be mummified and sold to pilgrims (and tourists) at popular shrines like the Temple of Bastet in Bubastis.
Eventually some enterprising priests figured out they didn't actually need to go to all the expense of raising and killing live animals when they could just fake up a mummy with a correctly-shaped object and padding covered in linen wraps. One of the things I didn't photograph is just such an ancient fake: a "baboon" mummy that consists of a clay jar and a sculpted head wrapped in padding and mummy wraps. The museum eventually discovered what it had when the mummy was x-rayed. There are surviving writings of a priest who led a reformation against fake offerings and railed against those selling false mummies to pilgrims. I am reminded of the medieval traffic in fake holy relics. The more things change...
A different sort of mummy was the gazelle mummy that I didn't photograph because the lighting was too bad. (And it was a non-descript package that looked like a pile of old dirty burlap). Women of means kept gazelles as pets and hand-fed them; the one in the museum was quite elderly when it died--it suffered from arthritis and tooth loss and was buried with its owner.
Catfish mummy
This mummified fish is an example of a food item preserved and buried in the tomb with the mummy, to provide food in the afterlife. Someone like their fried catfish, no doubt. Beef was also mummified and left in the tomb.
Additional provision for the deceased was made by way of tomb paintings, models of food, and regular funerary offerings from friends and family.
Beer jar
Because most Egyptians were illiterate, instead of labeling jars and bottles with their contents, they were made in different shapes depending on what sort of thing they were meant to hold. Beer jars were shaped differently from wine jars; perfume bottles differed from sacred oil bottles. An Egyptian had only to look at a jar to know what sort of liquid should be in it.
Offering Plate and Libation bottles
Granite jar
The Egyptians hand-carved granite into jars, sacrophagi, and sometimes obelisks. Granite is very hard and resistant to weathering; so hard that it generally wasn't used after ancient Egyptian times until modern times, because it is so difficult to cut.
Sandstone funeral altar
Next time: More ways to honor the dead
My main interest in visiting the museum was in seeing items of everyday life in ancient Egypt; I was doing a bit of research. You'll find my photos reflect that; lots of images of kitchen equipment, no pictures of royal statues.
Rock-cut tomb model
This model of a 'typical' rock-cut tomb was made by founder Spencer Lewis based on several tombs in the Valley of the Kings. (Do visit the preceding link if you are interested in ancient Egyptian tombs. It's the home of the Theban Mapping Project, and has all kinds of maps and descriptions of all the tombs of the region.)
There is also a full-scale, walk-through model of a somewhat smaller rock-cut tomb in the museum. I didn't get any pictures of it owing to the dim lighting, but it was fun to tour to get a feel of what its like inside, without having to go the expense of a trip to Egypt to walk through the real thing.
The Yellow Coffin, 18th Dynasty
18th Dynasty Lady's Coffin
As you can see, the museum has a couple of lovely, heavily-painted mummy cases. The yellow coffin, which belonged to a priest, apparently had a mummy in it that no one knew about when the museum got it; they got a freebie along with their mail-order coffin. They also have a few mummies, but I didn't photograph them because mummies are gruesome-looking and they're someone's corpse; it seems rude.
Correction: I didn't photograph the human mummies.
Mummified Bull's Head and Cat
There are three kinds of animal mummies found buried in Egypt: sacred animal sacrifices, food offerings to accompany the mummy, and favorite household pets. The bull's head (with painted eyes) and cat mummies above are sacred animals. Animal mummies as temple offerings were big business at popular pilgrimage sites; kittens were raised en masse in "kitten mills" to be mummified and sold to pilgrims (and tourists) at popular shrines like the Temple of Bastet in Bubastis.
Eventually some enterprising priests figured out they didn't actually need to go to all the expense of raising and killing live animals when they could just fake up a mummy with a correctly-shaped object and padding covered in linen wraps. One of the things I didn't photograph is just such an ancient fake: a "baboon" mummy that consists of a clay jar and a sculpted head wrapped in padding and mummy wraps. The museum eventually discovered what it had when the mummy was x-rayed. There are surviving writings of a priest who led a reformation against fake offerings and railed against those selling false mummies to pilgrims. I am reminded of the medieval traffic in fake holy relics. The more things change...
A different sort of mummy was the gazelle mummy that I didn't photograph because the lighting was too bad. (And it was a non-descript package that looked like a pile of old dirty burlap). Women of means kept gazelles as pets and hand-fed them; the one in the museum was quite elderly when it died--it suffered from arthritis and tooth loss and was buried with its owner.
Catfish mummy
This mummified fish is an example of a food item preserved and buried in the tomb with the mummy, to provide food in the afterlife. Someone like their fried catfish, no doubt. Beef was also mummified and left in the tomb.
Additional provision for the deceased was made by way of tomb paintings, models of food, and regular funerary offerings from friends and family.
Beer jar
"Egyptians drank beer from small ceramic round-footed jars like this one. Beer was one of several required offerings when people visited the tombs of their ancestors."
Because most Egyptians were illiterate, instead of labeling jars and bottles with their contents, they were made in different shapes depending on what sort of thing they were meant to hold. Beer jars were shaped differently from wine jars; perfume bottles differed from sacred oil bottles. An Egyptian had only to look at a jar to know what sort of liquid should be in it.
Offering Plate and Libation bottles
Granite jar
The Egyptians hand-carved granite into jars, sacrophagi, and sometimes obelisks. Granite is very hard and resistant to weathering; so hard that it generally wasn't used after ancient Egyptian times until modern times, because it is so difficult to cut.
Sandstone funeral altar
"Offering tables like this one were used to receive liquid offerings. When the libations overflowed and spilled on the ground, they were meant to symbolically reach the mummy buried deep below"
Next time: More ways to honor the dead
