The Sojourn in Egypt Part I, or, Who Wants Their Mummy?

Actually, aside from birthday shenanigans, we've spent the last week and a half in ancient Egypt. It looks like we'll still be there quite a while, too!

This was not the plan.

The plan was to go through Child's History of the World and make side trips into interesting time periods as we came to them.

The Zoomlians laugh in the face of such linear thinking!

"Can we learn about Egypt?" Zorg wanted to know. Usually it's Leena who asks that question. Usually followed by, "Can you wrap me up like a mummy?"

I was hesitant.

I remembered a remark from the Queen of Carrots that the down side of unit studies was the repetition of subjects.

We've done Egypt. Then I thought some more: it had been 3 or 4 years since we had really "done" Egypt. Zorg would have been 3 or 4 years old!

I thought some more.

Egypt is one of those topics that begs for in depth immersive unit studies. There are so many fabulous resources it's hard to narrow it down. We haven't done a big, knock your socks off, sustained high tide thing in a while.

Plus... I was 6 years old when I went on a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and saw their Egyptian collection. I'm not sure I ever got over the wonder and the realization of how vast and old and amazingly different the world is.

Fortunately, I did get over the terror of seeing the stone sarcophagus! It was massive, hewn from black stone. At that time it was lying in the center of a room on a dais. So big I couldn't really see inside except for the steel rod which held the lid ajar. Looking it up now was the first time I had seen it since. As a child, I don't think I saw the carving on the lid; to me it was just cold, black, primal stone. I had several nightmares about being trapped inside for thousands of years...

Looking back, I wonder if that fear is part of what made the wonder so vivid. If so, I'm thankful for it. The fear ebbed, but the wonder at the wide strange world remains.

OK! Lets do it!