Robert and Francis Fullerton Museum

 

The world of ancient Egypt never really interested me while growing up. I was more interested in American history, since that was where I lived and it was a lot cheaper to travel to Topeka, Kansas than to Cairo, Egypt.

“That’ll be forty bucks for the Greyhound,” a ticket person would state. “Or five gazillion dollars to fly across the world to a land of the never-ending desert.”

I already lived in a desert, so I chose the bus to Topeka.

It was not until I viewed a documentary about Egypt that my attention turned around in considering the ancient Egyptians as some of the most advanced folks that have ever populated this earth.

The year I watched the documentary is not important, plus it ages me, but I will never forget the impact it had on me from that point on.

Professor Steven Martin stood on a stage and sang a song about the ancient Pharaoh Tutankhamun – the boy king. Tutankhamun died at the age of 18 years old and his tomb in the Valley of the Kings went undiscovered for over 3,000 years. The treasure-laden tomb was located in 1922 by Howard Carter, an esteemed and wily archaeologist. 

One poignant moment in Professor Martin’s televised lecture was when he sang, ‘How’d you get so funky – did you do the monkey?’

That had a major impact on me with regard to ancient Egypt.

“There’s an Egyptian exhibit at the Robert and Francis Fullerton Art Museum at Cal State, do you want to go?” I asked Laureen.

This Cal State was the California State University of San Bernardino – in case anyone was confused since there are 23 such campuses spread up and down the state of California.

“What sort of exhibit?”

“I guess they have a bunch of stuff dating back a longtime ago in Egypt,” I replied. “A lot about the Egyptian afterlife.”

“You’re not going to dance, are you?”

I thought of Professor Martin, and hoped he would not be disappointed. “No.”

The ancient Egyptians, from my research put a lot of thought into what happened when they died.

Laureen Beyer studying a cartouche

The ‘afterlife’ was really a part of their ‘present life’ since so much thought was put into when they would pass from this realm and into the next.

According to something I read in some Australian archeology magazine: ‘The ancient Egyptians believed that when they died, their spiritual body would continue to exist in an afterlife very similar to their living world. However, entry into this afterlife was not guaranteed. The dead had to negotiate a dangerous underworld journey and face the final judgment before they were granted access.’

That sounded rather ominous to me.

“Yeah, it’s just like your current life, but when you die you gotta travel though all kinds of nasty things with big teeth trying to eat you or getting squirted with a green Jell-O like substance.”

The British Museum had an exhibit referred to as, ‘Ancient Egypt: Secrets of the Afterlife’.

Which really is not much of a secret since it stated that ‘the exhibit would cover everything from the process of mummification and ancient canopic jars used to store the different organs of the body, to mummy masks created only for the wealthiest, which helped a person’s soul find their way back to their body in the afterlife.’

In all transparency, Laureen and I have visited the British Museum, the Louvre, the Museo Egizio, and other places that house ancient Egyptian artifacts. It was all very interesting, but my main point in visiting these museums was to have my photograph taken next to an embalmed Egyptian, so I could ask, “Are you, my mummy?”

For the sci-fi nerds like my wife, that reference was from an episode of ‘Doctor Who.’

The Robert and Francis Fullerton Art Museum is located in the northeast section of the University of California, San Bernardino. A short walk from the parking lot to the west, and if you get there at the right time and correct day, you won’t have to pay for parking.

There is nothing special to the building, a large windowed cement block structure but what it lacks on the exterior is made up for in the interior.

This whole Art Museum is a treasure trove of not only the ancient Egyptian thingies we went to look at but there are rooms full of modern art work, some from the very students who attend the university currently.

There were paintings of this and that; a couple of metal horns facing each other and giggling, a pair of sunglasses on a red background, a blank canvass with a red a tie, a green light bulb attached to a board, a guy with no head and so much more. 

It was enthralling and quite the experience.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Art,” Laureen replied.

And I thought Picasso was hard to understand.

The Egyptian exhibit came into view, and what a view.

Glass case after glass case holding objects that were lost for eons, and here they were now for everyone to see.

Well, for everyone to see if that meant the Inland Empire.

Getting a person ready for burial in ancient Egypt was not for the timid. Usually, the whole mummification process took 70 days to complete and was reserved for the rich. After the person died, they would receive all kinds of attention, like having their innards taken out and stored in ‘canopic’ jars, which would be placed near their sarcophagus.

I did learn something that was really cool. A video at the museum explained which parts of the innards were reserved for the canopic jars after death.

It was not a hit and miss slitting and sliding out of organs and tossing here and there. Nope, there was a method to this measure.

The video referred to it as ‘SILL’, Spleen, Intestines, Lung, Liver. These were the organs the ancient Egyptians carefully removed from the deceased and placed gently into the ceramic canopic jars. 

Brains were tossed to the wayside, since the early Egyptian doctors had no idea what the brain was utilized for.

Sounds like some of our politicians, but I digress.

The heart, it was left in the body since the Egyptians believed this was where wisdom and love emanated from.

‘My heart belongs to you, but please leave it within me since without it I will be an unfeeling doddering and drooling old ghost in the afterlife.’

That was supposedly carved into a cartouche on a pharaoh’s cartouche around 1,300 BC.

We wandered the rooms full of ancient treasures.

There were cartouches, sarcophagus lids, jars full of ancient food items, burial items from small buttons to sew on the outer clothing of the deceased to large beautifully hammered metal chest plates.

Items to adorn a tomb or mummy

Being in this room, with pieces found in ancient tombs was really a sobering experience for both Laureen and me. 

Here were items that had once adorned folks that had died eons ago, and now were we walking from glass case to glass case in wonder at the unbelievable craftsmanship that took place in creating these pieces. 

Items found in various burial sites

A pair of 3,000-year-old playing dice made of wood stared up at us. It was as if a dealer in Las Vegas could use those very dice today, since the numbers were so distinct. What appeared to be a pawn from a modern chess piece sat beside them. I could imagine losing to Laureen at that moment utilizing that piece in my demise.

Rolling the dice

One item I found fascinating was a severed hand of a mummy. I am sure the mummy, if it were around and could speak, would counter my fascination.

“That’s my hand, and you have no business having it in a museum without the rest of me. All I want is my hand to make a handstand, and wouldn’t that be grand?”

Even the rings that bejeweled the severed hand are on display, on the hand itself.

Mummified hand with rings

Laureen bypassed that exhibit.

But one she did not bypass was the one of ancient Egyptian jewelry. Two glass cases revealing marvelous examples of delicately stringed jewelry for the neck and the wrists – along with a few rings.

Some nice jewlery

“You know, Mother’s Day is coming soon,” she said.

There was a large cartouche, hope I have that right, showing a parade of Kings walking into the afterlife. Each pharaoh looked pretty happy, or pretended to be, walking behind each other into the uncertainty of the life after death.

John Beyer pondering the line of Pharaohs

I pondered that a moment or two. 

The entire museum is worth a visit if a person is into ancient Egyptian artifacts. But, who is not with such hits as Indiana Jones, the Mummy, or John’s Hesitancy for Marching into the Afterlife.

This is a place to explore – and don’t forget to dress the part, it will do the soul a lot of good.