A Fantastic Trip!

On Thursday, we went to the Horniman Museum for a fantastic workshop. We had a wonderful teacher called Danny who helped us to become Egyptologists for the day. He began by telling us all about Mr Horniman and how he started his museum. Can you remember where the museum was when he first opened it?

Mr. Horniman travelled to Egypt to collect some items for his museum. When he was there, he met a student who helped him find what he needed. Can you remember which famous Egyptologist it was?

We were incredibly lucky that Danny decided that we were 'serious students' of Ancient Egypt. He was very impressed with how sensible everyone was and with your fantastic knowledge. You were able to answer every single one of his questions and shared some excellent information!

As we were 'serious students', we were able to touch some very special objects from Ancient Egypt. Some of the children couldn't quite believe that they were real! We had to wear special gloves before handling the objects, so that we didn't damage them. Some of the very fragile objects were in small glass cases.

We got to hold and look closely at some real amulets, a piece of a wooden coffin with tomb paintings on it, a mummy mask and a scarab beetle amongst other items.

We also got to see a real mummified falcon, just like Horus! It was fascinating to see the falcon's body and some of the bandages still remained on it.

 Some of us felt like doctors or scientists, when we were able to look at the x-ray of the falcon and we could identify its rib cage, feet and spine.

Following our session with Danny, we went down to the 'African Worlds' exhibition. There is a small collection of Ancient Egyptian artefacts in the museum. We were all very excited to see some real Canopic Jars, as well as a sarcophagus, some shabtis and most interesting of all... a mummy!

If your parents haven't seen these items in the museum, perhaps you could take them one weekend or during the Christmas holidays and tell them all about what you have learned!