On Tuesday we went  by bus to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.  Were met by Lesley who showed us where to put our jackets and packed lunches.  We got the chance to see how poor people were buried in Ancient Egypt, then rich people and finally powerful people.  Lesley made GJ into a Pharaoh and removed all his organs and we put them into Canopic Jars (not really – hes absolutely fine!).

      

We dressed AL, MS and MM as gods and each of them was responsible for one of the organs.  ER pretended to be the scales in the weighing of the heart ceremony, and luckily for GJ, his heart was lighter than the feather of truth so he got to keep his heart and travel safely into the afterlife.

Next we went on a hunt around the exhibition.  Lesley asked us to look out for a fake beard, a priest in a child’s coffin and a wooden pencil case.  I saw the fake beard and found out that they thought that most gods had beards and they wanted to look like a god.  This is why the fake beards were added (JF/ER).

    

I saw the priest’s skeleton – it looked like it had been taken apart and packed into the small coffin (AD).  He had been reburied after his remains had been found, which the reason for him being in a small coffin.

I found the pencil case – it had lots of old pencils next to it (SC)

We met Lesley at the big stone sarcophagus.  She let us all stand around it and try to lift the lid but it was so big and heavy that our whole class couldn’t even shift it (LR).  It was so big and heavy that the floor underneath it had to be reinforced with steel to prevent it falling through the floor! (DL)  It was so big and heavy that the when the museum was recently refurbished, only the sarcophagus and Sir Roger the elephant were left inside the building.  All the other exhibits were removed for safe storage.

In the handling area, we were lucky to get to touch artefacts that were 3500 years old! My favourite was the scarab beetle which would have been sewn onto the mummy’s bandages, over the heart, to provide protection in the afterlife (CG).

  

After lunch we watched and listened to a beautiful organ recital in the main concourse of the museum. None of us had ever seen such a huge musical instrument.  The organist was using three keyboards, one above the other, with hos hands, and another with his feet! We could feel the vibrations of the music through our whole bodies – amazing!

    

Next, we had a look at the art exhibitions.  We loved all the beautiful glass!

We loved our trip (especially the gift shop!)