This term, Year 3’s topic is Ancient Egypt so where better to go for a trip than the British Museum, which has a huge collection of Ancient Egyptian statues, mummies and artefacts?
To help us with our writing of a ‘How to mummify a pharaoh’ instruction text, we attended a presentation all about mummification. It was really interesting to see the x rays of mummies in the museum’s collection and to see how advanced and detailed the x rays have become over the last 60 years. It was also really interesting to learn how many mummies there are in the museum that are not on display. They have never been opened because to open up a mummy would risk damaging it and harming the preservation of the body.
We learned about different pharaohs which are on display and after lunch we went to the galleries to seek the pharaohs and try to pick up as much information as we could about them. While in the gallery, we got to see hooks (which the Egyptians used to extract the brains), canopic jars (which was where the organs were stored) and amulets which were included in the linen so the pharaohs had protection on their journey to the afterlife.
It was a hot day but fortunately it was nice and cool in the museum and it was great for the children to see not only some authentic mummies and Egyptian artefacts but also the famous Rosetta Stone (although it wasn’t easy to get a good look because it was so popular with visitors!). This should provide wonderful inspiration for our ‘How to mummify a pharaoh” set of instructions!
