Best Ancient Egypt Books for Key Stage 2 History

“Mummies were real people with real lives. They are not monsters. They are not ghosts. They are the preserved bodies of Egyptian people who lived thousands of years ago. People who laughed, sang, hung out with their families and looked after their pet cats. People like us, in many ways.” Here is one of the…

This block statue of Sennefer came from a temple on the west bank of the River Nile. It is one of the most handsome block statues ever made by the Ancient Egyptians. Look how finely carved and polished Sennefer’s face and hands are. Sennefer was the mayor of Thebes during the reign of the pharaoh…

For a fun project over the summer, I had a go at making an ancient Egyptian coffin out of cardboard and papier-mâché. I know papier-mâché isn’t the most relaxing of classroom activities but when I do it at home with an audiobook playing in the background, I find it extremely therapeutic. Maybe a project of…

This painting shows Nebamun’s herders bringing the cows for counting. Like all tomb paintings, the ones in this tomb chapel show the owner as healthy, wealthy and wise, and generally living his best life.

Two hundred years ago, nobody knew how to read hieroglyphs. Even Egyptians had forgotten the meaning of those strange symbols written and chiselled by their ancestors. A French man called Jean-Francois Champollion was the first to crack the code of hieroglyphs. The key was the Rosetta Stone, which contained the same message written in three…

This is the coffin of Tjentmutengebtiu, otherwise known as Tamutin or Tamut. She was between twenty-five and forty years old, and was a priestess in the great temple at Karnak. The painted face on a coffin is a very idealized portrait. It often bears little resemblance to what the person actually looked like. Scientists at…