Why is it important to study and understand cultures from the past?

• Cardboard home appliance cartons
• Two or three flashlights
• Tempera paint or markers
• Reference materials that contain hieroglyphs.
• Copies of hieroglyphs. See Attachment One for examples of hieroglyphs.
• Student copies of Attachment Two: The Egyptian Book of the Dead

Instructional Procedure:

Anticipatory Set:

You will need to plan ahead for this anticipatory set. Obtain one or two cardboard home appliance boxes. Refrigerator boxes seem to work best and can usually be found at home improvement or appliance stores. (You should contact them in advance so they can save the cartons for you.) Remove the tops and bottoms of the carton. Lay them horizontally end to end. Cover the ends with a black material draped over the openings. The material may be stapled on or attached with Velcro. Bulletin Board paper will work, but isn’t as durable as cloth. Draw or paint hieroglyphs on the inside walls of the boxes. (See Attachment One for some examples of hieroglyphics) The afternoon before you are going to begin the lesson, after students are gone, set up the room with these boxes. (If you can only obtain one carton this will work, however two or three are better because more than one student can crawl through at a time.) Using a flashlight, each learner carefully crawls through the “tomb”. Have two or three flashlights available. The number of flashlights will naturally limit the number of students in the tomb at the same time. As a student exits they should pass their flashlight on to another student so they can enter. Tell the students as they move through the tomb to observe the walls carefully making mental notes to report back to the class.

• After the initial excitement of crawling through the “tomb” has subsided, guide the students in a class discussion. Begin by asking: What do you think these boxes represented? What did you notice on the inside of the “tomb”? (Possible answers may include: pictures, drawings, some learners might know the word hieroglyph.) Tell them that hieroglyphs are a representational form of communicating. Ancient Egyptians and other cultures wrote with pictures and symbols that represented a word or sound. Much of the information that we know today about the Ancient Egyptians comes from “reading” the hieroglyphics.
• Tell the learners that they are going to see a movie about many mysteries. Explain that the Mysteries of Egypt is a movie about ancient Egypt and their culture revolved around the idea of life after death.
• Next ask: What does the word “mystery” mean to you? Accept all reasonable responses and examples. The dictionary gives several definitions: A hidden or secret thing, something beyond human knowledge or understanding. Continue the discussion by talking about some possible methods of solving mysteries. Ask: How would you solve a mystery? (e.g. gathering clues, doing some research, talking to people) Archaeologists attempt to solve mysteries about different cultures. In this case the mystery is the ancient Egyptian culture.
• Two things were very important to ancient Egyptians—how would they get to the afterlife (heaven) and how would they be remembered by the living after they were gone. Hieroglyphics on the walls and scrolls found in the tombs told about their beliefs. One of the mysteries archaeologists had to solve to learn about the Egyptian culture was how to interpret the meaning of hieroglyphics.
• Tell the learners that one of the things common to all civilizations is beliefs and values about how to live together in community. Most cultures have traditions of community involvement or giving back to the community by giving time, talent and treasure for the benefit of all—the common good (philanthropy). Teacher Note: Students who have no background in this may need to have the terms common good (a core democratic value), time, talent and treasure explained further.
• Distribute, read and discuss the information and questions on Attachment One: The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Relate the acts of kindness in The Egyptian Book of the Dead to the definition of philanthropy discussed earlier in the lesson.
• Using a large world map, point out the location of Egypt and talk about the relative location in relationship to the area where you live.
• Point out the Nile River on the map. Tell the learners that they will be taking an imaginary “flight” over the Nile River, The Valley of the Kings and the pyramids when they see the movie.
• Tell them to pay attention to the information about the Nile River. (The Nile River is the longest river on earth and if it weren’t for the Nile River there wouldn’t have been a viable community in this part of Egypt.)

Extension:

If computers are available to the students, they can go to http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/
cartouche/cartouche.html to make their own cartouche using the letters of their names. A cartouche is made up of different hieroglyphic symbols enclosed in a loop that represent a person’s name. These were used for kings, queens and high ranking officials in ancient Egypt.

Bibliographical References:

Egypt State Information Service. www.sis.gov.eg/

Destination Cinema. Mysteries of Egypt. http://ww w.destinationcinema.co m/
our_films/egypt/egypt.asp This site has several study guides for the IMAX films including “Mysteries of Egypt.”

Haslam, Andrew. Ancient Egypt (Make it Work!). Two Can Publishing, 2000. ISBN# 158728300X

Hart, George. Ancient Egypt. The Nature Company Discoveries Library; National Geographic Society Edition, 1995. ISBN 0783547633

Harcourt School Publishers. Make Your Own Cartouche. http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/
cartouche/cartouche.html
A web site that allows students to key in their names and to create an Egyptian cartouche.

Lost Civilizations. Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Education: Ancient Egypt. www.lost-civilizations.net/ancient-egypt-egyptian
-hieroglyphs-education.html
Use this site for copies of Hieroglyphics (Attachment One).

Tour Egypt. The Egyptian Book of the Dead. http://www.touregypt.net/bkofdead.htm

After Viewing the Movie

Materials:

• Research materials, including books, encyclopedias, internet, maps, etc.
• Any materials that may be needed to create their exhibit for the museum.

• Teacher’s subjective observation of learner participation in group activities and completion of artifact for display in the museum.
• Use the rubric (Attachment Three) to assess the final artifacts and displays.

• The British Museum. www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
  A user friendly site for visiting the museum and seeing artifacts from ancient Egypt. Some of the exhibits are from Howard Carters’ expeditions in Egypt in 1922.
  
  
• Egypt State Information Service. www.sis.gov.eg/
  
  
• Haslam, Andrew. Ancient Egypt (Make it Work!). 2000. Two Can Publishing ISBN# 158728300X
  
  
• Hart, George. Ancient Egypt. 1995 The Nature Company Discoveries Library; National Geographic Society Edition; ISBN 0783547633
  
  
• Harcourt School Publishers. Make Your Own Cartouche.
  http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/
  cartouche/cartouche.html
  A web site that allows students to key in their names and to create an Egyptian cartouche.
  
  
• Tour Egypt. The Egyptian Book of the Dead. http://www.touregypt.net/bkofdead.htm