History | Holbeach Blog

6L – ‘Egypt’s Dispersed Heritage’ project launch at the Horniman Museum

This term, we will be working with staff from the Horniman Museum to explore and discuss our thoughts on whether or not artefacts from ancient cultures should be retained by British museums. During our visit, we had the opportunity handle objects from Ancient Egypt that were over 3,000 years old. Most of the objects had been removed from tombs. We considered their historical value and discussed the fact the deceased person(s) had not given consent for the objects to be removed from the tombs. Our discussion gave us plenty of issues and perspectives to consider. We plan to continue our conversation next month when staff from the Horniman will visit us at school.

Fish mummification project

As part of our Ancient Egypt project we mummified some fish!

We took out the fish’s internal organs but put the heart back in (the heart was considered very important to the Ancient Egyptians).

The Egyptians washed the bodies of the dead in water from the River Nile.

Like the Ancient Egyptians, we removed the brain with a metal hook.

We packed the body with salt to preserve it.

British Museum Visit

We visited the British Museum to look at some ancient artefacts. We saw the Rosetta Stone, a 5,000-year-old sand-dried mummy, wall paintings from Nebamun’s tomb and sculptures of the pharaoh Ramesses II!

Y4 visit to the Tower of London

Today, Year 4 enjoyed their educational visit to the Tower of London. This was a great way to find out a little bit more about the Tudors, and we even had the opportunity to meet Lady Latimer – aka Katherine Parr – shortly after she had accepted King Henry VIII’s marriage proposal! Do you remember what year we were in?

We found out about Henry’s previous five wives, and learnt the beginning of the rhyme, “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded…” but how does it end?! Can you find out what happened to his sixth and final wife?

The children were very excited by the ravens, and most of them managed to hang on to their lunches! We also had the opportunity to see the Crown Jewels.

All in all, a fabulous day.

Visit to Down House

We visited Charles Darwin’s house and found about his life, travels and scientific theories!

We did investigations which replicated Darwin’s on the Galapagos Islands!

Lunch on Darwin’s ‘Thinking path’!

Investigating maps

We looked at maps of London through history. We noticed lots of differences and similarities!

6F Memorable Experience – An Ancient Egyptian Burial Ceremony

40 days ago, we began the mummification process with our fish pharaohs:

6F Mummification

Today, we completed the process!

Firstly, we carefully removed the fish’s organs from the salt where they had been for over a month. We placed them inside the canopic jar with a special combination of spices.

We then removed the body of the fish from the salt; we are very surprised at how well-preserved they were. The skins had turned hard and leathery! Then, we thoroughly washed the salt from the body and dried it. When it was completely dry, we anointed the fish with olive oil and the spices.

Now it was time to wrap the body in strips of linen. We placed the amulets that we had made between the layers.

The bodies were now ready to be entombed in the pyramids that we had created. We placed the mummies in their final resting place along with our amazing shabtis and the canopic jars containing their organs.

Finally, it was the moment we’d all been waiting for: the feast!

We tried chickpeas, falafel, flatbreads, cheese, dates, dried figs, cucumber, celery, grapes, melon, honey and …. marshmallows! Yes the Ancient Egyptians really ate marshmallows!!

Visit to the Horniman Museum – Ancient Egypt!

We had a fantastic day examining real ancient Egyptian artefacts. We thought about what they told us about Ancient Egypt and how they were important to the people of that time.

6F Visit to the Horniman

We had a great day at the Horniman museum!

Firstly, we searched the World Gallery for Ancient Egyptian artefact and we managed to find them all!

We then had a fantastic workshop with Lucy where we found out about Ancient Egyptian mummification practices. We put on cotton gloves and carefully handled some amazing artefacts – some of them were over 3000 years old!

We handled a death mask, amulets, a shabti, part of a sarcophagus, part of a tomb, strips of linen from a mummy and some jewellery. We even saw a mummified bird!

After lunch, we played in the Horniman gardens – we had a great time!

6L – Looking at Egyptian Artefacts at the Horniman Museum

6L visited the Horniman Museum today as part of their topic on Ancient Egypt. They had a fantastic time handling artefacts that were over 3000 years old, predicting what they were and hearing all about the process of mummification. Well done to 6L who were impeccably behaved throughout the visit.

Finally 6L had the opportunity to see a mummified bird that was 3000 years old!!!