Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, San Jose

Museum, Museums outside Egypt · also called Egyptian Museum San Jose, Rosicrucian Museum, San Jose Egyptian museum, Usermontu mummy, Rosicrucian Park

The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose holds the largest collection of ancient Egyptian objects in the western United States, and its coffins, stelae and shabtis carry names and offering texts you can read. The best known name there is Usermontu, written on the coffin of a priest.

Point your camera at the signs

Signs to look for

Head and neck of a canine F12wsr The head and neck of a canine (user, powerful) opens Usermontu's name on his coffin.
Game board Y5mn The game board (mn) begins the name of the god Montu, the second half of Usermontu.
Bread on an offering mat R4ḥtp Bread on a mat (hotep) opens the offering formula on the stelae.
Sedge M23sw The sedge (nesu, king) follows in the offering formula, 'an offering that the king gives'.
Sekhem sceptre S42sḫm The sekhem sceptre writes 'power' and the name of Sekhmet, the goddess of the museum's first object.

The story of Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, San Jose

The museum is run by the Rosicrucian order AMORC, whose founder Harvey Spencer Lewis bought its first piece, a small statue of the goddess Sekhmet. The collection first went on show in 1928 and grew to more than 2,000 objects after his trip to Egypt in 1929. Its buildings are designed in ancient Egyptian style.

Usermontu, 'Montu is powerful', was a priest of the 26th Dynasty. The museum bought his coffin in 1971, sealed and with a mummy inside. Embalming style and dating suggest the man in it lived centuries before Usermontu, so the name on the coffin is almost certainly not his own.

Inside the galleries is a walk-in replica of a rock-cut tomb, built from photographs and drawings made on the order's own trips to tombs in Egypt. Its painted walls draw on the Book of the Dead. Real inscriptions are on the objects, among them stelae of the Middle and New Kingdoms with the offering formula.

Inscriptions to see

Coffin of Usermontu

A Late Period coffin made for a priest. Look for his name in the bands of text, where the dead man is addressed.

Offering stelae

Limestone stelae that ask the gods for offerings for the dead and name them. The collection includes one of the 12th Dynasty. Check which are on display.

Tomb replica

A modern copy. Use it to see how texts and scenes were laid out on tomb walls before you read the real objects.

Shabtis

Small figures meant to work for the dead in the afterlife. Many carry the owner's name, and the longer ones the shabti spell in lines around the body.

Reading the hieroglyphs here

Read the real stelae before the tomb replica, so you learn the signs from ancient carving.
Cases are lit from above. Tilt the phone a little to keep the reflection off the text.
Small objects such as shabtis read best with the camera close and the sign framed alone, then traced.

Hiero Lens boxes the signs and names them, on your phone; nothing is uploaded. On worn stone, trace a sign over the photo.

Questions

Is the mummy at the Rosicrucian Museum really Usermontu?

Probably not. The coffin names a 26th Dynasty priest called Usermontu, but the mummy inside is thought to be older, from the New Kingdom. Why he ended up in that coffin is unknown.

Is the tomb at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum real?

No. It is a modern replica of a rock-cut tomb, made from photographs and drawings of tombs in Egypt.

How big is the Egyptian collection in San Jose?

It is the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities on show in the western United States, with mummies, coffins, statues, stelae and objects of daily life.

Where it is

Open in OpenStreetMap · Written from published sources and not yet checked on site by our team: displays and open tombs change.