Crisp and Immortal
16th June 2023
As part of our study on Ancient Egypt, this week the Year 4s learnt about the mummification process. The students already knew a bit about this, thanks to the ‘barmy embalmer’ and his assistants from our ‘Who's Your Mummy' play, who have to mummify one of the characters. However, we learnt about the process in even more detail in our lesson and wrote an explanation text about it.
To make this even more practical and interesting, the children began the process of mummifying an apple. They learnt that one of the most important parts of preserving a body is to remove the fluids or dehydrate it - that does not sound pleasant! To help do this, ancient Egyptian embalmers used a substance called natron.
The Year 4s got inventive and made a similar mixture with salt and bicarbonate of soda. Then they carved faces into their peeled apples, put them in a cup and thoroughly covered the entire apple with the natron-like substance. They also had a ‘control mummy’ which was an unpeeled apple.
The ‘mummies’ will be left in a cupboard for a week and hopefully the ‘natron’ will help draw out lots of the apples’ moisture. They will then be able to compare their apples to the ‘control’, which probably won’t have lost as much moisture, as it is protected by the peel.
We are hoping our apples will be ‘mumtastic’!
(Click on the images below to read through two explanation texts written about mummification)
