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Current page navigation: Back in time | Ancient wonders | Precious vessels | Early writing | Mummification | Changing times | Hieroglyphics | Viking Quest | Animals in Egypt | ‘Mummimals’

Back in time

Over 50,000 years ago cave paintings were found. Do you know when the pyramids were built in Egypt or when the Roman Empire started?

1. Open up the Word document Timeline of past civilisations (Word 25KB).
2. Solve the clues and then put the dates into the correct order.

Send in your completed word document to ed@tki.org.nz.

Ancient wonders

The Seven Wonders of the World is a list of important objects that were built by human beings between 3000 BC and AD 476. They were considered important because of their size and the technology used to construct them.

1. Read the information on the Great Pyramid, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Zeus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Temple of Artemis, and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.
2. Write eight of your own questions and answers for a class quiz on the Seven Wonders of the World. This link will give you some ideas to get started.

Send in your questions and answers to ed@tki.org.nz.

Precious vessels

The containers and vessels used in daily life by ancient cultures can tell us a lot about how they lived, what they used for cooking, storage, or for special occasions.

1. Read about pots and play the game.
2. Choose one type of container such as food.
3. Open a Word document and use the ‘draw tools’ (Word 24KB) on your computer to design your own container.

Send your design to ed@tki.org.nz.

Early writing

People started writing around 3500 BC by using pictures on cave walls. Ancient Greeks used to write words and names next to the pictures they painted on their pots.

1. Find out the difference between pictures and alphabet-based writing.
2. Read about the origins of writing.
3. Complete this word find.
4. Read about the Greek alphabet.
5. Try this activity about Greek pots and the Greek alphabet.
6. Make up your own alphabet by opening the ‘My alphabet’ document (Word, 26KB).

Send your alphabet to ed@tki.org.nz.

Mummification

The ancient Egyptians believed that a person's spirit, or soul, lived on after their death. Preserving the body through mummification was the best way for the spirit to recognise its body in the afterlife.

1. Learn more about the steps taken to make a mummy.
2. Make an apple mummy (PDF 125KB). Scroll down to number 20 on the list.
3. Calculate the size of a mummy case and its contents using ancient Egyptian measurements. The instructions ask you to work in inches which are shown by this sign “.

Send in your results and calculations to ed@tki.org.nz .

Changing times

Archaeologists can link the past to the present by finding everyday objects people used. Find out just how much has life changed for humans over the past 800 years.

1. Play the ‘Yesterday and Today’ game.
2. Choose three objects and predict how these will change in another 100 years in the future.

Send in your ideas to ed@tki.org.nz .

Hieroglyphics

Inside the tombs and pyramids hieroglyphics were used to communicate messages. Egyptian hieroglyphs were a combination of sound-signs, pictograms, and ideograms.

1. Discover the secret of hieroglyphics by using the magnifying glass to scroll over the hieroglyphics.
2. Can you break the code?
3. What has the discovery of the ‘Rosetta Stone’ got to do with hieroglyphics?

Send your answer to ed@tki.org.nz .

Viking Quest

Go back in time to AD 793 and join the Vikings in their quest for treasure.

1. Play the game of 'Viking Quest'
2. Write a list of five facts you have learnt about the Vikings.

Send your facts to ed@tki.org.nz .

Animals in Egypt

Popular pets for an Egyptian family were birds, cats, dogs, lions, gazelles, and monkeys. Animals like donkeys helped to carry heavy things and some animals like cats were sacred.

1. Take a closer look at these animals.
2. Did you see the clever carving that makes the carved giraffe head look so real.
3. Open a Word document and give it a suitable title. Make a table with two columns and six rows. Label one column ‘animal’ and the other ‘realistic feature’. Use the ‘Egyptomania Animals’ website to fill in your chart.

Send your chart to ed@tki.org.nz .

‘Mummimals’

Animals were often mummified to protect and accompany the dead on their journey in the afterlife.

1. There are four canopic jars. Find the names of each of the jars.
2. Unscramble the names of these animals that were mummified.

Send the four names to ed@tki.org.nz .

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