We are working our way through some follow up work from the Communications in Signs Great Lesson. This lesson talks about ancient civilizations and how written language has evolved over time. Immediately after I gave this Great Lesson, T jumped right in to our hieroglyphs books. He has always been very interested in mummies. We have several books on the subject and he really is fascinated by them.
Yesterday, we took a little trip to a nearby college museum. T was very excited that there were actual mummies not just reproductions. They also had a large amount of art work from several ancient civilizations including, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Asian, African and American. Many of these pieces of art and cultural artifacts included ancient writings.
We found several examples of Cuneiform writing.
Pottery, jewelry and weapons. Many included writings.
Egyptian Hieroglyphs
A closeup of a replica of the Rosetta Stone, which includes Greek, Egyptian and Hieroglyphs
On the left are canopic jars which are used to hold the organs from mummified bodies. On Right, mummies of a kitten, falcon, dog and baby alligator.
The beautiful room of mummies!
After we thoroughly viewed the Egyptian room, we moved on to the Roman and Greek area. There were some examples of early Greek and Roman writings on pieces of art and pottery. There were many statues but I did not get any photos as I was trying to keep B (2yrs) from climbing on them.
This is a Roman urn that was used to hold ashes of the dead. It had beautiful Roman writing on it.
A Roman sarcophagus
I found these stamps from early Costa Rica very interesting. The kids weren't as impressed.
More follow up work this morning at home.
We pulled out our mini King Tut sarcophagus and mummy. This is super heavy resin that is painted. I purchased it from a local thrift store last year. You may have seen it in the background of some of our pictures in the past, it normally sits on top of our map puzzle stand.
T spent much of the afternoon pouring over our books on mummies and Ancient Egypt.
Journey Through History: Prehistory to Egypt (part of a series)
We pulled out this cool book on Mayan hieroglyphs too. Not only does it have a ton of info on the Mayan culture but it also has this wonderful set of raised hieroglyphs that can be used for rubbings. T thought these were even better than the Egyptian stencils I shared the other day.
Lots of study on other ancient cultures as well, including Roman, Greek, Mesopotamian, and Babylonian. We did a quick lesson with a BC/AD timeline as well.
And some fun reading of The Magic Treehouse book #3: Mummies in the Morning. (looks like they changed the cover for this book)
I have added a new Montessori Great Lessons Resource Page to my blog. Please visit to see some of my favorite books and websites without digging through my blog posts. Or if you want to look back at our previous work, click on the Cosmic Education label on the right.
Wow that's amazing trip to the Museum. Impressive photos of the mummies. I apologize for my grammar, English is my second language.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great Mother and Educator you are! Your doing a awesome job.
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