Another Egyptian mausoleum that hits all the expected marks, except that it is too small (or cheap) for lotus columns. This one, however, adds the delightful detail of pharaoh’s-head door pulls, which more than makes up for the missing columns.
Little smiley characters like the one at upper left occasionally appear on mausoleum doors in Pittsburgh cemeteries. It’s a cheerful little mystery.
The West View Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery, but negative historical associations did not prevent two of its residents from specifying the popular Egyptian style for their grand mausoleums. This is one of them, built (according to the inscription) in about 1930 by Herman Kamin. It is not as grand as the Egyptian mausoleums in the very richest cemeteries, but it does have fresh palms in the urns, and a fine view of the pyramids from inside.
A somewhat unusual interpretation of the Egyptian temple, though it does not abandon the three requisites: sloping sides, lotus columns, winged scarab. The front is a very close scale model of the front of Trajan’s Kiosk at Philae (now moved to Agilkia Island) in Egypt.
Here are two more pictures, these from July of 2022.
Another fine Egyptian temple, with all the requisite signifiers—lotus columns, sloping sides, winged scarab over the entrance.
Like the Huhn pyramid in the Allegheny Cemetery (but on a much larger scale), this is a classical interpretation of the Egyptian pyramid, with proportions more like those of the Pyramid of Cestius along the Appian Way than like those of a true Egyptian pyramid. It is striking enough that it appears in much of the Homewood Cemetery’s publicity. It was designed by Alden & Harlow and built for William Harry Brown, banker and heir to a shipping empire, in 1898. Mr. Brown’s firm was the largest shipper of coal on the rivers, which obviously made him quite a pile of money.
