NYC Field Trips to Ancient Egypt
If you live in — or are planning a trip to — New York City in the near future, why not take a detour to the wonderful world of Ancient Egypt.
NYC is home to two great collections of Ancient Egyptian art and artifacts: at the Metropolitan and Brooklyn Museums, and a Virtual Reality experience.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an endless series of rooms beginning at the Great Hall leading up to the magnificent Temple of Dendur. You pass great statues, brilliant tomb paintings, and even small funerary models of life in ancient Egypt. Download a family map, a kid’s guide to the Temple of Dendur, and Think Sphinx with a treasure map in the Egyptian galleries of Sphinxes. There are also coloring pages with a couple on ancient Egypt. Download the entire publication The Art of Ancient Egypt for educators, including images, activities and lesson plans for free, just one of many educator’s resources available.
The Brooklyn Museum an excellent ongoing collection of ancient Egyptian art. There are online resources for kids, including a museum guide for kids, a museum guide for teens written by teens, mini-lessons and a coloring page of an ancient Egyptian cartonnage. Educators' resources allow anyone to access works of art online, including several on ancient Egypt.
Every museum trip is an opportunity to become an historian. Art is a primary resource which can inspire us and lead us to more knowledge and new connections.
Bring a guide for reading hieroglyphics (suggested books follow).
Look for clues in the works of art. Consider these questions:
How was this made? Was it made for a specific purpose? What purpose?
Does this art show how people lived? What they ate, wore, how they worked? What was important to them? What did they value?
Write your own historical fiction storybook using ancient Egypt as the background, design jewelry based on ancient Egyptian designs, or make a papyrus scroll.
The Horizon of Khufu: Journey to Ancient Egypt, a pricey interactive exhibit for families on the Pyramid of Giza, opened in 2024 on West 57th Street in Manhattan. This virtual reality experience, for ages 8 and up (minimum height requirement of 4’6”), attempts to take you 4500 years back in time, giving you a historically accurate hands-on experience in ancient Egypt. Running time is 45 minutes.
Suggested Books and Resources
Write Your Name in Hieroglphys (free online) from the Penn Museum. Any word or phrase can be typed in and translated into hieroglyphs written from top to bottom in color.
Ancient Egyptian Name Translator (free online)
The Shipwrecked Sailor: An Egyptian Tale with Hieroglyphs by Tamara Bower, for ages 4-9. Based on a story found in an ancient papyrus scroll, this story tells of a shipwreck on the island of the soul and a happy homecoming. One line on each page has been translated into hieroglyphs, with illustrations inspired by papyrus scrolls.
Day of Ahmed's Secret by Florence Parry Heide and Judith Heide Gilliland, for ages 4-8. Ahmed, a young boy in contemporary Egypt, spends his days delivering butane gas. The sights and sounds of Cairo are vividly described, and at the end of the day, he reveals his secret: he has learned to write his name.
Seeker of Knowledge: The Man Who Deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs by James Rumford, for ages 6 and up. This is the biographical story of Jean-François Champollion who translated hieroglyphs.
The Golden Goblet and also Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, for ages 9-14. Popular adventurous historical fiction novels set in ancient Egypt.
Tales of Ancient Egypt (Puffin Classics) by Roger Lancelyn Green, for ages 9 and up. These myths became the basis for the more well-known Greek and Roman myths.
Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors: An Activity Guide by Marian Broida, for ages 8-13. Includes the neighboring cultures of the Hittites, Nubians, and Mesopotamians.
Fun with Hieroglyphs by Catherine Roehrig, for all ages. Published by the Metropolitan Museum, this rubber stamp kit, easy-to-use chart, and accompanying booklet can enable anyone to start writing in hieroglyphs!
Hieroglyphs by Joyce Milton, for ages 7-12. An introduction to hieroglyphs, including a stencil that helps write them.
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