The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Spring 1992, Volume 38, Number 2
Richard W. Crawford, Editor
Cover image: Detail from the Egyptian Tomb, a popular exhibit at the Museum of Man from 1952 until the mid-1960s. Photograph courtesy of Museum of Man.
Back cover: Two young ladies admire an ancient Egyptian painted stela excavated a Tel el Amarna in this publicity shot for the California Pacific International Exposition of 1935-36. (The stela is Museum of Man #14881, photograph from the San Diego History Center collection.)
Page 72. Ellen Browning Scripps (1836-1932).
Page 74. Ellen Scripps’ home, South Moulton Villa, was constructed above the ocean at La Jolla in 1896-97.
Page 75. When Ellen Scripps visited the temple of Luxor in the early 1880s, it was still half-buried with its courtyards encumbered by the mud-brick dwellings of the modern village as seen in this early photograph by Antonio Beato.
Page 76. Ellen Scripps was highly impressed by the vast temple complex at Karnak. In the late 19th century, Antonio Beato, a topographical photographer based at Luxor, photographed many of the ruins at Karnak including this gateway constructed by Ptolemy III.
Page 79. The excavators found Tel el Amarna to be in a particularly ruinous state, the result of erosion of the mud-brick walls and the re-use of stone blocks by later inhabitants.
Page 80. At Tel el Amarna, archaeologists were able to reconstruct the original appearance of many of the buildings with the aid of illustrations found in some of the Amarna tombs.
Page 81. Exhibits in the rotunda of the San Diego Museum included replica casts of some of the Mayan monuments from the jungles of Central America. The Egyptian collection was displayed on the balcony above (photo ca. 1936).
Page 82. A group of stone mangers carved with depictions of oxen, ibex and antelopes were found in the North Palace. The example sent to San Diego had been featured in The Illustrated London News while it was being exhibited at the Egypt Exploration Society headquarters in London (Museum of Man #14848).
Page 83. This funerary statue and stela, dedicated to the Overseer of the Granary, Menthuhotpe, were found at the city of Abydos and date to the early Middle Kingdom, ca. 2000 B.C. (Museum of Man # 14931-32).
Page 83. Found in the private temple on the Royal Estate, this quartzite head of an Amarna princess exhibits the elongation of the skull peculiar to Akhenaten’s children. This deformity has caused considerable debate among scholars (Museum of Man #15047).
Page 84. This fragment of a granite stela shows Akhenaten making an offering to the sun god, Aten, whose rays have human hands. One ray, which seems to end at the king’s arm, is actually carved with tiny fingers supporting the arm (Museum of Man #7696).
Page 84. A wide variety of household items survive from Egypt. Decorated in red and blue, the tall vase is a type of pottery that became popular in the late 18th Dynasty. The alabaster vase was found during excavations at Abydos and also dates to the 18th Dynasty. Although found at Amarna, the porphyry jar dates to the Pre-Dynastic period and was many centuries old when re-used at Akhenaten’s city (Museum of Man #s 14944, 14979, 14986).
Page 85. The exaggerations of the early Amarna style can be seen in this section of a column from the Great Palace. Nefertiti, identified as “Lady of the Two Lands,” has a high waist, heavy thighs, and thin neck and arms. At far left is the hand of Akhenaten holding a censor shaped like the hawk-headed sun god Re. Behind the queen, the hand of a princess holds a type of musical instrument called a sistrum (Museum of Man #15299).
Page 86. This quartzite torso represents Meritaten, the eldest royal princess, identified by a column of hieroglyphics down the back which reads “…Meritaten, born to the Royal Wife (Nefertiti)…” (Museum of Man #10082).
Page 87. The Ellen Browning Scripps Memorial Room opened in 1940 to display the artifacts from the Egypt Exploration Society.
Page 88. Several of the more important residences at Amarna had household shrines which contained an image of the king. The most complete example, now restored in the Cairo Museum, came from the house of Panehsy, Chief Servitor of the Aten. Its pylons depict Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and princess Meritaten making offerings to the Aten.
Page 88. From a nearly identical shrine, a fragment in San Diego shows that the missing part of the inscription ended with the cartouche of Nefertiti (the Limestone block is Museum of Man #14709)
Page 89. The Egyptian Tomb was a popular exhibit at the Museum of Man from 1952 until the mid-1960s. Most of the objects were from the Scripps’ funded excavations of the Egypt Exploration Society.
