Empowering Global Citizens

Students could also depict a scene of importance in their family history and
include inscriptions in hieroglyphics around its outer edges.

Also, later in the unit, students can follow the same lesson plan to examine

canopic jars.

Activity 4.3.2

Hieroglyphics Tablet Activity

In conjunction with the art department, students create hieroglyphics tablets
of messages to one another. The messages need to be one sentence in length
and should describe one detail of the Egyptian time line. The tablets are then
broken into parts (aim for a manageable number of pieces, as they will need to
be reassembled later), placed into a box, and mixed with the parts of another
tablet (the more tablets, the more difficult this activity will be) and sand. The
students will then trade their boxes and excavate their tablets, working care—
fully to make detailed notes in their archaeologist notebooks as they go. They
must piece the tablets back together to receive the historical message. All of the
tablets are read together to review the ancient Egyptian time line.

The book Fun wit/7 Hieroglypbs is an excellent, child—friendly resource
(http://www.amazon.com/Fun-Hieroglyphs—Metropolitan—Museum—Art/
dp/1416961143/ref=sr__1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=13068916148C

sr=1~2), as are numerous other children’s books on hieroglyphics.

Students should examine the Rosetta stone, the key to understanding the
hieroglyphics system. A high—resolution image of the Rosetta stone can be ordered
from the British Museum (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_
online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1 1763 1 &partId= 1).

As an extension of this activity, students can consider the controversy around
the Rosetta stone (whether the British Museum should keep possession of

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