Resources: Handouts, season wheels from the previous session, paint or colouring pencils/pens
Support Handout (1): The handout provides four Egyptian god and goddess names, written in hieroglyphics. A decoding key is included.
Core Handout (2): The handout provides six Egyptian god and goddess names, written in hieroglyphics. A decoding key is included.
Stretch Handout (3): The handout provides six Egyptian god and goddess names, written in more complex hieroglyphics. A more complex decoding key is included.
Challenge Handout: The handout is a blank cartouche that can be decorated.
Ask the children to play ‘charades’ in pairs. One of them should act out one of the farming seasons, for example, sowing seeds, and the other child should use their season wheels to show the answer.
Using the presentation, ask the children to recall the role of an archaeologist and discuss the kinds of artefacts historians have found from the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. Through the slides that follow this, the children will begin to understand that the Egyptians were some of the first people to invent a writing system. They will explore what the Egyptians recorded, including learning about some of the main Egyptian gods, and how they recorded it, exploring the role of scribes. They will begin to understand how the discovery of the Rosetta Stone helped archaeologists to decode hieroglyphics.
Using the handout, ask the children to decode the names of Egyptian gods and goddesses, which are written in hieroglyphics.
Challenge Task
Ask the children to draw or paint their own name on a cartouche. A cartouche is an oval-shaped frame used by the ancient Egyptians. Inside the cartouche, they wrote the name of a pharaoh or important person. It protected the name and showed that the person was important. You often see cartouches on tombs, temples, and monuments.
Using the handouts, discuss with the children what we can learn already about Ancient Egyptian beliefs - did they believe in one god or many? Did their gods have special roles? Did their gods look like humans? In the next session, Ancient Egyptian beliefs will be looked at in more detail.
Archaeologists play a key role in uncovering and studying the past by examining artefacts, structures, and other physical remains left behind by ancient peoples. From the Stone Age, they have found tools and weapons made of stone, as well as cave paintings; from the Bronze Age, items like metal tools, weapons, and decorative objects; and from the Iron Age, stronger iron tools, weapons, and evidence of more advanced settlements. The Ancient Egyptians were among the first people to develop a writing system, called hieroglyphics, which they used to record information about daily life, religious beliefs, and their gods, such as Ra, Osiris, and Isis. Writing was often carried out by scribes, highly trained individuals responsible for maintaining records, keeping accounts, and documenting religious rituals. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone was a breakthrough for archaeologists because it contained the same text in Greek, Demotic, and hieroglyphics, allowing scholars to finally decode Egyptian hieroglyphics and gain a much deeper understanding of Ancient Egyptian civilisation.
Pronunciation of Ptolemy: tol-uh-mee (the 'p' is silent)
Pronunciation of Egyptian gods:
Ra: rah
Anubis: uh-noo-bis
Osiris: oh-sy-ris
Isis: eye-sis
Horus: hor-us
Thoth: th-ow-th (rhymes with 'both')
Hathor: hath-or
Sekhmet: sek-met
Amun: ah-moon
Set: set
Bastest: bass-tet
Sobek: so-bek
Khnum: koh-noom
Maat: mart
Tefnut: tef-nut
Ptah: tuh
Anhur: an-her
Kek: kek
Khonsu: kon-soo
Gen: geb
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