Life & Death in Ancient Egypt—Teacher Notes
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Life & Death in Ancient Egypt—Teacher Notes General information about these notes: These notes are designed to help your class get the most out of their self-guided visit. This pack focuses on some aspects of life and death in Ancient Egypt, including the Journey to the Afterlife ceremony. Please note that the children will be looking at a real mummy of a young boy, between the ages of four and six. Please do read the information panels where you will find additional information. In these accompanying notes there are hints and tips for asking your class more questions about what they are looking at. There are additional websites we recommend for you and/ or your class to find out more as well as ideas for activities back in the classroom. http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/menu.html http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/interactives/history/egypt/ Let’s begin with life...Case—Ancient & Crafty (The Pots) The ancient Egyptians developed the use of pottery around 7,000 years ago. Egyptian potters used the wheel to improve the quality and speed of production as early as 4,000 BC, creating pots from the two different types of clay seen in this display. Initially pottery was seen as one of their greatest technical achievements, but in later dynastic times the potter was viewed as dirty and they became the butt of jokes. People in the settlements along the River Nile called it ‘the river of life’. The river was essential for growing food (irrigation) and—of course—for the clay used for making storage pots. Activity 1a—Observation: The pots are different colours, sizes, shapes and have different bases. Activity 1b—Different colours: The 3 red pots are made of river Nile silt, which is very fine particles that make a paste-like clay. This silt is almost identical to the colour of the rocks in Torbay. The 2 pale coloured pots are made from Egyptian desert clay called marl, which is a mix of clay and lime only found in some locations at the edge of the desert. 1c—Different sizes & shapes: The children may have lots of different ideas about why the pots are different sizes and shapes. The fundamental idea to draw out of them is that they were made to store many different things. You could discuss with the children what types of storage they have at home. E.g. cardboard boxes (cereals, instant soup, etc), tin cans (baked beans, canned tomatoes, etc), glass jars (jam, Marmite), plastic Tupperware type containers (storing left over food, storing a packed lunch). Ask the children why they think some pots have flat bottoms and others are pointed. The conical bases (pointy ended pots) were for use on uneven surfaces and would have been pretty useful for storing on sand as they could be pushed into it. The flat bottomed pots would have been used on flat surfaces. Activity —2 What made the small dent? It was made by the potter’s thumb. We can imagine that this pot has just been made giving us a real link to the past. You could ask the children how they thought the potter might have felt about leaving a thumb print in the pot? (Perhaps it was a way of marking the pot to identify it as his.) Activity —3 Cypriot Juglet: It is thought that these were based on the shape of a poppy seed head because they were used for transporting opium based products. Opium is a very dangerous, but very effective, drug that is still used today in modern medicine. The Victorians also had bottles of different shapes and textures for easy identification of the contents. The Victorian ridged bottle for identifying poisons is the most well known example. Activity —4 Clay shell lamp: The lamp has been made from clay in the shape of a shell. The black colouration is the result of an ancient Egyptian forgetting to blow the lamp out. These would have been filled with animal fat or oil. A spark from flints rubbed together would fall onto dry straw or other material. Gently blowing onto this would provide the oxygen needed to create a small flame to add to the fat in the lamp. This was the same process used by our stone age ancestors. (See our Stone Age—Meet the Ancestors Activity Pack for more information) Case—Ancient & Fashionable (The Jewellery & Cosmetics) Clothing: The ancient Egyptians were very fashion conscious. Most clothing was very simple and made from linen, flax and sometimes wool. Simple sheath garments (seen on some of the images in the gallery) were worn in very early times. Men and boys working in the fields or involved with craftwork wore little more than a loincloth or a kilt like garment, just like the one Psamtek is wearing. Feet were mostly bare, although leather or reed sandals were sometimes worn. Ask the children when they think sandals might have been worn. Think about the sand on the beach (or think of paving stones) in the summer. How does it feel (very hot!). Perhaps sandals were useful to prevent feet from burning or perhaps they were worn for special occasions or ceremonies. Cosmetics: Commonly used for practical reasons, as well as being fashionable, men and women, girls AND boys used make-up. The two main forms of eye make up were green eye paint and black kohl. The eye paint was made from malachite (a green carbonate of copper), and black kohl eye liner from galena—a dark grey ore of lead—applied with a wooden stick. Henna (a red-brown stain from a plant) was used to paint nails and dye hair. Henna is still used all over the world today as a natural red hair colouring and is used in a number of Asian ceremonies - particularly weddings—to produce intricate temporary patterns on hands (henna tattoos). Ideas for classroom: The children could use henna paste to create hand decorations for each other if learning about Diwali, which is always around the same time as the English Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night—5th November. They could also dress as Egyptians and draw Egyptian style portraits of each other to put on a long scroll of paper for a classroom display. Jewellery: Egyptian faience was a ceramic material created to resemble precious stones, such as turquoise and lapis lazuli. Ancient Egyptians used faience to produce a range of objects including jewellery, figurines, tiles and architectural elements. Faience objects were common in ancient Egypt and made from ground quart or sand with a small amount of lime and plant ash or natron (a natural salt). The blue glaze was made of soda lime and silica. An intriguing theory is that the ancient Egyptians also used blue glass fragments found in the desert. Scientists have found ‘fields’ of glass in the desert from a suspected meteorite impact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXTB2QyRg4U Ideas for classroom: Make a diadem (Egyptian head adornment) or a headdress to wear as part of an ancient Egyptian costume. Make a necklace from blue sticky shapes on thick card or—as a D&T project make real ceramic beads from clay and paint them before creating the necklace. Activity —5 Egyptian portrait: Encourage the children to look around at the images of different Egyptians. For example there is a white alabaster reproduction sculpture of an Egyptian head near the Pots case. They could use the ’hair’ as inspiration for their drawing. They could also complete the portrait once they’ve finished the activity pack Activity —6 Dark lined eyes: The ancient Egyptians drew their almond shaped eyes to look like the eyes of the God Horus, to protect them from evil spirits. The galena the eye make-up was made from was also thought to help keep insects away. Activity —7 Red cheeks: The Face make up included stain for cheeks made from red ochre from the same red clay used to make the pots. It would have been ‘washed’ and dried in the sun (or burnt) to produce the rouge. Now for the death bit... Psamtek—The Boy Mummy Activity —8 Observing the mummy: The key thing for the children to notice is that the mummified body is smaller than the coffin base. The blue objects draped over the body represent the inner organs. The heart was left in because they thought it contained the dreams and memories of the dead, and therefore your soul. Of course it was also needed to be weighed during the ‘Journey to the Afterlife ceremony. Activity —9 The coffin would have originally been used in the New Kingdom and left in a tomb for 1000 years. It must then have been found by people in Psamtek’s time (later intermediate period) and reused for this small boy. After being put in another tomb the coffin and mummy was discovered in the 1920s and sold to Lady Leeds. This reused royal coffin is over 2,500 years old. Wood survives well in Egypt because the climate is so dry. Activity 10—The position of the arms is very important and tells archaeologists what the status of the owner is. The decorative detail (including the inclusion of knees carved into the wood), and placing of the carved arms of this coffin indicates that it belonged to a very wealthy family—maybe even royalty—so at first it was thought that Psamtek must have been from a wealthy family himself. However, research on the mummy shows that the coffin is 1000 years older than he is.