Submitted by Andrea Gregovich, art teacher at the Jewish Community Center - Camp Shalom in Tucson, AZ
Lesson: Hieroglyphic Cartouches

Materials:

• Clay
• Canvas cloth
• Clay tools

Grade Level: 6th - 8th grade

Procedure:

I net-searched "hieroglyphics" and "cartouche" to find a site with the hieroglyphic alphabet (and also graphic examples of what cartouches look like), which I made copies of and brought to class. I asked them what they knew about Ancient Egypt to introduce the project, and then set them to work on translating their names in hieroglyphics and sculpting the hieroglyphs with clay. We used multi-colored sculpting clay, but any kind of clay will work.

Summary

Students will have handouts of the Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet. There are several versions and students can choose to translate each English letter with the corresponding hieroglyph or with a phonetic version of the Arabic version.

Students will then sculpt each symbol out of clay. Students may use colored glazes that have color of the Egyptian period of old or simple multi-colored clay. After firing, students may glue each piece on a sheet of plexiglass or other flat object.