More about Egypt

The study of all things Egyptian has captured J's imagination. For a few weeks now it has been his biggest interest. We're about to move on to Greece.

Here are a few manifestations of J's absorption of the material. First we have an architect's plans for a pyramid. J has a set of hieroglyphic stamps. At the top it says "Gold Cap." Further down on the left it says "Dig" and has the arrow pointing to the appropriate spot. Below that it says "1st Chamber" and points to the room at the very bottom. To the right it says "Grand Gallery" but J forgot to draw the arrow. Finally, the top right says "Steps Go Here." If you'd like, you can build your own pyramid in your back yard.



One morning I awoke to hear the sounds of scotch tape being dispensed. Then, a few steps and more pulling and tearing of tape. When I got up to investigate, I found that all the doors in the house had signs. Each Egyptian god was given his or her own room. These were my favorites:

Ra (or Re) was the sun god. This was on our bathroom door. The bathroom is painted yellow.

As the story goes, Osiris was once a pharaoh. His brother, Seth, wanted his throne and murdered him. Then Seth cut Osiris' body up and hid the pieces in 14 different locations. Osiris' wife, Isis, gathered up all the pieces and put them together again and made the first mummy. Since he was dead, and a pharaoh, he (of course) got to become a god. His jurisdiction was the underworld. He was happy to be put back together again, as you can see.

Anubis was also associated with death. Since death was so important to the Egyptians, they spent a lot of time thinking about, talking about, and mummifying anyone and anything they could. Anubis' room was all about the mummy and his innards. The Egyptians removed the brain, liver, stomach, and lungs (not pictured) before mummifying the body. As you can see, the organs were NOT happy with this situation. The brain was the only one who could think, and his thoughts were very dark.

This picture was on OUR bedroom door. The hieroglyphics say "Thoth's Room." Thoth was the god of wisdom and writing. I was told that this was on our door because, and I quote, "Daddy is a good writer and he's the wisest one in the house." There was no sign for me. I'm not sure what to think about that. I'll just let it pass.

I WAS, however, handed six pages of activities. The first was a coded word scramble (spelling out the names of the canopic jars), then another coded page that asked the question, "What threatening cold-blooded animal lives in the Nile?" There was a "Fun Fact" page that showed a picture of Horus and informed me that the canopic jars were his four sons, and two pages that listed 22 names and their pronunciations. Then, there was this:

I did my very best work connecting the dots and discovered...those four canopic jars!

A good time was had by all.