Egyptian Sarcophagi

The Dragons spent 7 weeks on an in-depth exploration of Ancient Egyptian culture, history, and art in the months of December and January. We learned about so many things! Some highlights were learning: the Egyptians have been a civilization in the northern part of Africa by the Nile River for thousands of years; the Ancient Egyptians were around about 5,000 years ago; the Egyptians were inventors, farmers, fishermen and mostly lived in mud houses (not in the pyramids themselves!); there was a boy pharaoh named Tutankhamen; about the building of the pyramids and what they were used for; Egyptian mythology (the story of Isis, Ra, Anubis, and others) and how to identify them in Egyptian art; the Egyptians practiced mummification of important people in their society, like pharaohs and queens, and placed their mummy in a special decorated mummy case called a sarcophagus. Our classroom was full of books on Ancient Egypt throughout this project. We did some independent study in our Picture Library as we worked step-by-step on these beautiful sarcophagi!

These multimedia pieces are very large, like a real sarcophagus would be! They are two feet tall. Our first step was looking at art elements in some sarcophagi images--shape, color, pattern. We used tracers to trace and cut off the outer edges of a large piece of watercolor paper. We traced and cut a separate piece for the face and ears on multi-cultural skin toned papers. The next step was to draw in with pencil details on our sarcophagi. We were required to draw: shapes, patterns, Egyptian animals, an Egyptian-styled face, and were encouraged to think in narrative terms about what we drew and, "Think like an Ancient Egyptian artist!" We then traced pencil lines with Sharpie markers (fine and ultra fine). These two steps took about two weeks each. We had a lesson about colors in Egyptian art and then used oil pastels in some select areas. Our final steps were to paint the entire piece using caked tempera and layers of metallic acrylic paints.

The pieces are incredible! I am so proud of the students' diligence and dedication to this project!

These pieces are by the 2nd-5th grade students:






Works In Progress and Details: