Free learning resources from arts, cultural and heritage organisations.

Teachers' Notes

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

 

  • 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.