Archaeological Museum a highlight of SDA School

[Key Guy]

(from the Ridgecrest, CA, Daily Independent news online)

http://www.ridgecrestca.com/articles/2006/10/12/news/lifestyles/edu01.txt

"The Biblical Archaeological & Anthropology Museum on Las Flores Avenue, behind the Seventh-Day Adventist School, is open to the public Saturdays from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Ridgecrest Seventh-Day Adventist Church pastor John Aitken, who oversees the museum behind the Seventh-Day Adventist School on Las Flores Avenue, said the hours it is open to the public will soon be expanded. “We are in the process of getting staffing so it will be open more,” said Aitken.

Aitken, who also is an archaeologist, said the museum consists of artifacts he has collected over the course of 40 years. “It’s amazing in a lifetime how much you can accumulate,” said Aitken.

A person walking through the museum would find a mummy replication, exact replications of bones that have been found, a wall of time and a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, which has yet to be found, among other things. “Most of the stuff in L.A. museums is replications. There isn’t that much that’s been found,” he said. He said there are companies that make replications of archaeological discoveries. In the museum there is a replication of bones from a baby Tyrannosaurus and replications from bones found from an ape. Aitken said dinosaurs were not around millions of years ago as some people say. Rather, Aitken says they were created when the Bible says the rest of the Earth was created.

Aitken said he originally created the museum for the Seventh-Day Adventist school and its students. He said the school has archaological classes."