On Friday, Form III visited Haslemere Museum to learn about Ancient Egyptian mummification. The children were fascinated to learn more about this very unusual (and pretty disgusting!) process.
First we met the museum’s pretend Ancient Egyptian and got stuck in removing and embalming its organs in order to prepare him for the salting stage. We used canopic jars to store the organs, before wrapping the preserved body. We learnt that the position of the mummy’s arms indicate whether or not the Ancient Egyptian was a pharaoh and the objects in their tomb give clues as to how important they were.
Next, we got to see the museum’s Ancient Egyptian mummy which is over 3000 years old. We could even see his preserved toes poking out of the end! We also had the chance to examine some artefacts, decode some hieroglyphs and even play some Ancient Egyptian games.
In the afternoon we got to do some mummification of our own… mummifying our dolls! We wrapped them in bandages, added amulets and some hieroglyphs (to give their name), finishing them off with a death mask. The results were fabulous!
