Exploring Ancient Egypt Class Summary 11/18/13

11/21/2013

Making Mummies

Students thoroughly enjoyed diving right into the process of mummy making this week!

We learned from our reading in SOW that Egyptians began creating mummies for the first time during the Old Kingdom. Ancient Egyptians believed that dead people needed their bodies preserved for life in the afterworld. Priests were in charge of the complicated embalming process that took more than two months to complete and involved the removal of internal organs and treatment of the body with salt, spices, and oil to prevent decay. Certain organs were preserved in canopic jars which were adorned with the heads of gods (the sons of Horus) in order to protect them.

We also molded tinfoil into the shape of mummy bodies and wrapped these in dry "linen", careful to place special jewels inside the wrapping just as the ancient Egyptians did to protect the mummy on its journey to the afterworld.

After our mummies were wrapped, we applied wet plaster strips to finish the mummification process. When these dry, we will be able to paint the gold mask on our mummy's face so that the gods will recognize the mummy when it arrives in the afterlife!

Students each hope to create a sarcophagus for their mummy when we meet next in class.

The Four Sons of Horus

Students covered glass jars with gold paper and used air dry clay to mold the heads of gods to create their own canopic jars. We will paint these once they dry to complete our designs.

Writing Ancient Numbers

We made papyrus again in our afternoon class, and we are refining our techniques! The children enjoy making it so much that we may have an entire scroll done by the end of the semester!

The students also enjoyed learning about the Ancient Egyptian number system, and wrote page after page of numbers. The Ancient Egyptians did not use place value - but rather a simple system of adding symbols together. Here are their number symbols:

Enjoy writing these together - it is a low pressure, playful way to explore mathematical concepts.

Mosaic Minutes