Draw Like an Egyptian

Can you see anything?
Yes, wonderful things.

When I was seven, I wanted to be an Egyptologist. So when I spotted this project several years ago, I knew it was a keeper. It's also relatively neat, takes time to do well (it usually covered two 55 minute sessions), and requires only a few supplies - a winner all around.

First, I had the kids take rulers and mark a piece of manila paper in thirds, horizontally. This was the first time some of them had attempted this. Next, we studied the term profile, and discussed proportions of the face. (For kids especially, eyes fall about in the middle, the nose halfway between the eyes and chin, and the mouth halfway between the chin and nose.) After sketching in a profile view of a face in the right third of the paper, and marking where each feature should be, we looked at examples of ancient Egyptian art.

Tut's Tomb


Ramses III


Nefertari

On flat surfaces, the ancient Egyptians depicted people in profile - there are only a few examples where this is not the case. However, they also drew each eye as though it was being seen from the front. We also looked at the colors used in Egyptian art - mostly reds, blues, and yellows.

We added details to our profiles to make them into Egyptian self-portraits. Each kid drew hair, eyes, and other features to resemble themselves, but added accessories that an ancient Egyptian would have worn. Once we had drawn a self-portrait we were happy with, we traced the lines in black marker.

In the left third of our paper, we drew a decorative line to separate it from the rest of the page. Then we used that third of the page to draw a cartouche. A cartouche was a specific shape used to enclose a royal name. For now, we left ours blank. First we had to talk about hieroglyphics.

At first, Egyptologists were uncertain they would ever be able to decode hieroglyphics, the symbols the ancient Egyptians wrote with. But in 1799, a French soldier in Egypt discovered the Rosetta Stone. This stone had a passage carved in three different scripts, including ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, and ancient Greek. It took twenty years to match up the translations, but in the end, the code was cracked.

Online charts of hieroglyphics don't always agree on what symbol makes what sound. I put together the chart above, a simplified version of a couple of different ones (right click; view image for full size). I encouraged the kid to spell their names phonetically, rather than concentrating on the English spelling.

Once we'd drawn our names, we traced them in black marker as well. Then it was time to move on to the cray-pas. I asked the kids to create a pattern for their background, and to use bright colors. Finally, we got out metallic gold pens and colored a few small details, such as jewelry or crowns, to add a little glow.