We did a mini-unit on Ancient Egypt this year. We watched a video called Pyramid and learned a little about ancient Egyptian art and culture as well the Canopic Jars. Canopic jars were used in the mummification process. The ancient Egyptian placed the internal organs in 4 separate jars that were decorated differently. (Human head, falcon head, baboon head, jackal head). We made ancient Egyptian inspired Canopic Jars and students were allowed to chose a different head or they could stick with one of the four traditional heads.

We used 2 styrofoam cups cut in half and taped together. We then rolled up a ball of newspaper for the head and taped it on top of the cups for the head. The entire sculpture was paper-mached as smoothly as possible and then allowed to dry. We used paper clay to sculpt the features of the head and worked the clay into the paper-mache. The clay was only used on the top portion of the sculpture in most cases.

Students then painted their sculptures starting with a base coat of brown, yellow and white mixed together that looks like a mustard, gold color. After the first coat dried we did a second coat of acrylic gold paint. Students then added additional details and Egyptian symbols.

Left Image: Selena Molina 7