Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum

Jill's Journal: When you have a 7-year-old who thinks Ancient Egyptian history is the Greatest Thing Ever, you take advantage of little opportunities like visiting the largest collection of

Egyptian artifacts in the western United States. The girls and I headed to lovely downtown San Jose (which, I was surprised to learn, is the third-largest city in California) and the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. My only regret is we just spent the afternoon there; we should have spent a full day.

We walked in the front doors to immediately see a full-sized, full-detailed recreation of King Tut’s innermost coffin. Erika’s face positively shown. She was awed and enthralled and just so happy. It was awesome. And it just got better.

This girl knows her Egyptian facts. Time after time, she’d take my hand and say, “Oh look, Mommy, there’s the goddess (fill-in-the-blank) or there’s the symbol (fill-in-the-blank) or there’s the hieroglyphic for (fill-in-the-blank). I’d walk up to read the description and she was right every time. This girl knows her stuff. It was amazing.

More than once, I’d point to an odd-looking creature and she’d say, “That’s the symbol for the god (fill-in-the-blank) and he represents (fill-in-the-blank).” I was floored. Her current “what I want to be when I grow up” is an archeologist or a missionary, “or maybe a combination of both.” I’d say she’s on the right path.

This guy is one of the stars of the show. He’s one of four mummies on display at the museum (the girls were particularly touched by a 4 1/2-year-old girl mummy from Egypt’s Roman period, about the time of Christ’s birth). This upper-class man is one of the best-preserved mummies in the world. Seriously, we could see the details in his fingernails and his tongue and so much more. He dates to somewhere between 1500 and 1000 BC. It is believed graverobbers bothered him around 400 BC and priests rewrapped him at that time in the linens he still wears.

Egyptian “pillows,” used only when sleeping on one’s back.

Hieroglyphic and/or cuneiform tablets. Amazing collection.

One of the rarest statues in the world: Cleopatra VII. Egypt’s most famous queen and her complicated relationship with the Roman Empire have gone down in infamy. She took first Julius Caesar as her lover and then Mark Anthony before committing suicide via an asp (believed to be the snake we call a cobra) when Egypt was defeated by the Romans. After her death, the Romans destroyed every likeness of her they could find. Only seven, of various sizes, have survived.

Statue of the goddess Sekhmet, patroness of diseases and healing, commissioned by Amenhotep III (recognized as Egypt’s most prosperous and internationally powerful pharaoh) in the 1300s BC.

Major added bonus: This week, we’ve been studying Babylon in 1st grade history. These large fragments are part of the ruins of King Nebuchadnezzar II’s palace (yes, that famous king from the Old Testament!) and the Hanging Gardens he built for his homesick wife. The Hanging Gardens were one of the seven Ancient Wonders of the World. We also saw several other Babylonian and Nebuchadnezzar artifacts – I can’t describe how utterly fantastic it is to see these real items from the ancient world in the exact week we’re studying them. Just awesome. Talk about driving points home.

Three little girls couldn’t resist a little twirling in the Egyptian Peace Garden as the shadows grew long after our wonderful excursion. I have actually discovered one downside to all our traveling: these girls now believe every place in the world is very accessible. So accessible, in fact, that they just can’t understand why we should go to an Egyptian museum when we could just visit Egypt itself and see the pyramids up close and personal. Funny girls. Someday they’ll appreciate the opportunities they’re being given.