Last week, Year 3 took a trip to the British Museum to learn more about Ancient Egypt, archaeology and the work of archaeologists in uncovering the lives of past civilisations.
We are currently looking at Ancient Egypt in History, covering exciting topics such as pyramids, hieroglyphs, pharaohs and mummies! We went to the British Museum to take a closer look at the largest collection of artefacts from Ancient Egypt outside of Egypt itself, and to learn more about the work of the museum’s archaeologists in Egypt.
After a long journey to the museum with lots of walking we were able to explore some of the Ancient Egypt galleries, learning more about the mummification process and seeing real mummies! We had a mixed reaction to this, some of us thought it was amazing while others found it a little scary.
Then, we went to our workshop where we learnt all about Nigel, an archaeologist working for the museum in Egypt. We got to learn about how he and his team work, spending hours and hours doing painstakingly meticulous work to uncover hidden artefacts and wonders. We also learnt that no artefacts are allowed to leave Egypt now, and so Nigel has to pick his best finds to go to museums owned by the Egyptian government.
We then had the opportunity to explore some real and some replica artefacts. We worked in groups to look closely at them to decide what they were, when we thought they were made, and the order in which they were made. After this, we got to think like Nigel. We had to pick one artefact to put in a museum and explain why we would do it. We had some brilliant answers that showed just how much we were able to think like archaeologists and museum curators!
Finally, we headed back to school, tired and happy, after a long day of exploring an ancient civilisation.