Resource created by Leeds Museums and Galleries: City Museum
This resource explores key features of Ancient Egyptian society using original artefacts.
Curriculum Links
- KS2 English/Literacy: Planning, drafting and writing; Reading aloud; Evaluating and debating
- KS2 History: Ancient Egypt: the achievements of the earliest civilisations
Learning Objectives
Knowledge of Ancient Egyptian society and religious practices
Understanding of how artefacts can reveal information about how people lived in the past and the different nature of early civilisations
Skills to interpret historical evidence
Discussion Ideas
- Why do you think the Ancient Egyptians mummified their dead?
- How might they feel about us digging them up today?
- Why do you think people had their hearts weighed before they could go into the afterlife?
- What do the objects found with the remains of mummified people tell us about how ancient Egyptians imagined the afterlife would be?
- What objects would you place in a mummified person's coffin?
Activity Ideas
- Complete the Canopic Jar interactive quiz: Download the interactive Powerpoint for a fun class quiz on which ancient Egyptian God protected which organ in the afterlife.
- Design a protective amulet for a mummified person going into the afterlife. Think about the sort of things you would want to keep the person's remains safe from and the symbols you could use to help with this.
- What would you take into the afterlife?
Draw a mummified person's tomb and fill it with the sort of objects from your own life that you would want to take into the afterlife. Label these objects and write down the reasons why you would take them with you.
When you have finished, present your ideas to a small group or the whole class and debate which ones might be the most important.
- Create your own hieroglyphic life story:
Ancient Egyptians used picture words (hieroglyphics) as their written language and decorated their coffins with them to tell the stories of your life. What pictures would you use to tell your life story. Look at some examples and create your own.