We are studying ancient Egypt. The other day we made cartouches. A cartouche is an oblong enclosure with a horizontal line at one end, indicating that the hieroglyphic text enclosed is a royal name. Since we live in Fairy Tale Land, it only seemed fitting to make cartouches with our royal names in them.
It took many years of studying the hieroglyphics along with the two other languages to try to decipher the hieroglyphic code.
Scholars finally realized they had found the name of a Pharaoh in a cartouche. This was the break through they needed to break the code.
We then made book marks for everyone in the family with their names on them. If I would have known they would have had so much fun with this project, I would have purchased some shrink plastic or clay to make their names into bracelets. But we've got to move on. We can't stay in Egypt forever. There is much more of this ancient world to discover...and five minds waiting to soak up every little detail. (Maybe I'll make some for them as an end of the semester gift. I'll let you know if I do.)
Oh my goodness, I used to have that exact same hieroglyphics kit! What memories. Do your kids play computer games? A college friend got me hooked on Pharaoh Cleopatra for a year or so - it's one of those build your own empire games.
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That sounds like a fun project!
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