The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archeology

I've always really loved Egyptian History and for a long time I wanted to be an archeologist, so when Mum told me there was a Museum of Egyptian Archeology I couldn't believe how lucky I was to be living so close to so many cool things like this.  

Mum decided that she and I would make a special trip together so we could spend the afternoon surrounded by all the cool artefacts.  So we jumped on the tube and whizzed towards to the museum!

Here's me walking down the quiet alley towards the ancient artefacts.

The Petrie museum holds all the artefacts collected by an archeologist called Flinders Petrie who made many trips to Egypt.  It was kept safe during the Second World War by a single woman named Violet Lafleur.  She packed and moved all of the artefacts to a safer place in London and even worked through a bombing.

When we arrived at the museum I was given a map and a cool pack of cards about the interesting artefacts and the men and women involved with Petrie.

Stone Carvings

Stone was usually used to draw/write events in Mythology or Legend or to write about what special people such as the Pharaoh had done.  I was so surprised how many there were.

Here's a picture of me in front of one of the many glass cabinets holding the stone tablets.

Here is a picture of a Pharaohs name engraved in the oval on the stone with a line under it.  The oval is called a "cartouche".  Often the names of people such as Pharaohs were written inside an oval cartouche like this.  The cartouche was meant to protect them from evil spirits in life and after death.

To me this looks like a story because it has a name repeating in it.  Can you spot it inside the oval cartouche?  This one has been coloured.  

Here is one with coloured pictures and writing.

In this one I thought the figure on the left was Ra the god of the sun because of the sun disc above his head which usually represents that that god is Ra.  But the card said it was a god called Horus.  So when I got home I looked it up on the computer.  It seems like the Egyptian Mythology is quite complicated and weird, but from what I read Horus and Ra combine and become Amura.

Objects of Mythical Protection

The ancient Egyptians believed that when you die you go to the Underworld. The Underworld was believed to be a place where spirits would go when the person died. To get to the Underworld there were rivers of fire, beasts and monsters and other obstacles. There were gods and beasts who guarded the Underworld such as Ammit (a female demon with the head of a crocodile, the mane and front paws of a lion and the body and hind legs of a hippo) and Anubis (God of embalmers).  They decided whether or not to let spirits in to the Underworld or not.  To be able to get in you had to have a just heart and how they would tell is they would use a weighing scale and for your heart to be just it had to weigh the same as this magical feather that one of the gods owned.  But if your heart weighed more than the feather it would be fed to Ammit.   

Because travelling to the Underworld was so dangerous people felt they needed protection so often would have objects buried with them to protect them on their journey.

These are Shabtis.  They would usually be found in pyramids and tombs as they were buried with people to protect them.  The scripting engraved on them is usually meant to represent spells and charms for protection in the underworld.  I discovered that they usually held tools of some sort.  For every about 10 Shabti like that there would be one 'boss' Shabti holding a whip.

This is another amulet for protection.  It's mean to represent the eye of Horus which legend says watches over all humans.

Clothing

These are some remains of actual dresses worn by the ancient Egyptians.  Things like the stone carvings remain practically whole and undamaged except by breakage.  However, the fabric of these dresses is much more delicate and has been more severely damaged over time.


They also has some replica clothing that you could learn about and try on to see what ancient Egyptian clothing was like.

This is a loincloth for a worker.

I made my Mum put the worker's loincloth on.

Here I am wearing the Pharaoh's loincloth.

This one shows a dress.

This is a wrap skirt which would have been worn by the big tough workers.

This is a piece of jewellery designed to look like a laurel wreath worn by Roman Emperors such as Julius Caesar. 

Other Interesting Objects

There was a really lovely lady who was there to help out.  She knew so much about the objects on the cards and took lots of time to explain things to me.

These are some pieces from the palace of Akhenaten (probably Tutankhamen's father) and Nefertiti. These pieces were particularly interesting because Petrie covered them with tapioca pudding when he found them to preserve their colour.  I think they should be called the pudding puzzle pieces.

Here I am learning about the beads from the card.  I also learnt an interesting fact from the lady who was helping us.  That was that they think Tutankhamen's name is written on one of the beads.  So it could have been his!

This is from a coffin lid.  It shows an artist's impression of the person who died.

These are early Egyptian tools.

This one is a bit creepy.  It's a chunk of hair from a Mummy found in a tomb.  It's still even got some scalp attached.  Gross!

Me and Mummy!  (Well, not an actual Mummy - just the case.)

Egyptian Writing...

Here I am practicing writing in Egyptian.  I wrote a new nick name I chose for myself - Lupus - which means wolf.