Sunday, August 17, 2008

Diary Entry 7 - Death

Dear Diary,

Today is a sad day because my Uncle Rames died today.

i did not understand waht happens to people when they die, my dad explained everthing to me and since Uncle Rames was a priest his preperarion for the funeral was very complicated.
My father told me that he was muffified and the first thing that i imagened, when he said the word “mummy” was a body wrapped in strips of cloth. But, he said that in ancient Egypt manythousands of years ago, the first mummies were made naturally in the desert
sand. As their belief system developed, the ancient Egyptians began making mummies artificially. This means they deliberately preserved the bodies ofpeople who had just died, otherwise known as embalming. It took up to seventy days for the ancient Egyptians to artificially turn a dead person into a mummy.
The following are the steps the ancient Egyptians followed to mummify someone:

1. Wash and clean the body with water from the Nile River.

2. Remove the internal organs. Because internal organs have a lot of water,
they had to be removed before the body could be embalmed.
a. The brain was taken out through the nose and thrown away. The
ancient Egyptians believed the brain wasn’t very important, that it was
just stuffing for the head.
b. The heart was left inside the body. For Egyptians, the heart was the
most important organ. They believed that the heart controlled thoughts
and emotions, and served as the place where memories were stored.
c. Four organs were taken out and embalmed separately—the liver,
lungs, stomach, and intestines. Each of these four organs was placed
in a separate container called a canopic jar. These canopic jars were
placed beside the mummy when it was later put in a tomb. Other
organs were thrown away.

3. The body was covered in a type of salt called natron for forty days. It took
that long for the body to completely dry out.

4. The mummy was then stuffed with incense (frankincense and myrrh were
commonly used) and covered with resin to make it waterproof.

5. Finally, the mummy would be covered with amulets and wrapped in strips
of linen. Linen is a cloth material made from flax, which is similar to cotton.
Amulets are carved figures that are thought to have magical power. One
important amulet was the scarab beetle, which was placed over the heart
to protect it.

when my dad first told me all of this i was speachless, and i though that all you did was wrap some one up in linen cloth and put then in a coffin! '

The reason for all of this is because Egyptians believed strongly in an Afterlife—that after they died, they continued to live on in a different world. This Afterlife was a perfect version of life along the Nile River, with an abundance of water, fruit trees, animals to hunt, and especially crops. If you were rich and did not want to have to farm, you made sure there were plenty of little statues called ushabtis placed in your tomb. A ushabti is a small, carved, mummy-like figurine that has a spell placed on it, ensuring that it will do any hard work for the entombed person. i told my das that i wanted plenty of those.

In addition to ushabtis, many items from everyday life were included in a tomb along with the mummy, the coffin,and the four canopic jars. These everyday items could include clothing, furniture, cooking equipment, and even food

after my dad told me all of this i though long and hard about the effort that people go through to preserve bodies for the after life and i really appreciate it.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Diary Entry 6 - Employment



dear diary,




there are many different jobs in Ancient Egypt, currently i have no job but i am looking in to some because i have to choos by Monday and today it Friday, i have to start my reaserch.



i found 2 jobs that i am very interested in, the first one is a scribe, i enjoy writting very much so this job appealed to me, anyone could learn to be a scribe if they had the talent. Learning to be a script was a complicated process. Scribes went to scribe school. Most who attended did not pass the course. In ancient Egypt, everything was written down, especially lists. Scribes were in high demand. Good scribes could work their way up, all the way to Pharaoh's court. This job sounds amazing.

I also like the idea of being artist, my mother is an artist and she could help me if i choses this prfession. Ancient Egyptian art is five thousand years old. It emerged and took shape in the ancient Egypt. Expressed in paintings and sculptures, it was highly symbolic and fascinating - this art form revolves round the past and was intended to keep history alive. this is a brief summary of art considering i already wrote a diary entry about it. i love the idea that i was an artist i would have the opportunity to keep the history of my country flowing to the next genertaion, it would be a great honour.
i was thinking about these two options and i think that i am going to be an artist becasue i aslo watch my mother paint and the effort that goes in is exaclty what she gets out of it in the end, i love to see her happy face and hear the sroty she tells me that is shown in the painting so for those reasons i want to be an artist.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Chapter 5 - Housing

Dear Diary,

Part of my dad's job is to watch over the servants and make sure that they are doing there work, I love helping out my dad and giving him advice on things, they are currently building new houses and last night my dad came to me for advice. I do not know much about building houses so he explained the whole process to me and then I got to go with him to see some other houses and what they are like so I could help him with the ones that the servants are currently building.

The Egyptians lived in houses made of bricks. The bricks were made of mud and chopped straw. They mixed the mud and straw and then poured the mixture into moulds. The moulds were placed in the sun which turned it into hard bricks.

Some of the tools used to make homes were the T-square which was used for measuring angles. They also had a mallet, which is a type of big hammer. Of course, they had the brick moulds to make the bricks. They also had plumb lines which were used to make sure the houses were built straight and level.

The Rich homes usually had 10 rooms and the poor homes only one. The richer homes walls had a mixture of lime and water and some of the richest homes have painted walls, because my dad is so important her in Egypt we have painted walls. Some of our rooms are blue and some yellow, we also have coloured ceilings. Some rich people also have a room that is used for family worship of the friendlier gods. All rich people had gardens with pools to swim in. Most gardens were very peaceful. To get to the gardens they had very neat paths. They had high walls to keep out noise and intruders. At the doors there were guards to protect the gardens.

Townhouses were joined together on either side looked the same. The city has many avenues of very well built buildings. The windows were little small square holes in the wall that were fairly high.

Most people, except for the poor, had furniture. Some of the furniture was a bed to sleep on, a side table to place books and other things on, a toilet seat placed on top of a hole to go to the washroom, and a sideboard so they do not fall in the hole. Their kitchens had some small tables. They had drinking vessels and dishes but they had no cupboards.

The poor slept on the bare floor, the roof or on a mat. Because of the danger of scorpions, they had a head rest to raise their heads. In the houses of the rich there was a guest room and a set of rooms for the owner. There was another room for the woman of the house.


More About Homes

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Diary Entry 4 - Education

Dear Diary,

In Acient Egypt the boys are the ones who get to go to school, the girls stayed home and our mothers teach us how to cook. I enjoy staying at home learning to cook, i is really good beacuse today my mother is teaching me a family recipe and i get to make it tommorow night for our second meal. All three of my brothers go to school, they always come home with lots of school work to do, lukily next year they stop school and help dad at work.