TEACHING ABOUT ANCIENT EGYPT IN BIRMINGHAM'S MUSEUM & ART GALLERY...

 Teaching about ancient Egypt in Birmingham’s Museum & Art Gallery…

Introduction…

This would prove to be the most popular session I offered through my time working in the Schools Liaison Department. At first, I used a collection of artefacts kindly lent to me by Phil Watson from the Archaeology Department and I was able to find a space to work in next to an old stagecoach on the wooden floor of the Local History Gallery, off the Great Charles Street entrance.

I would also teach in the Industrial Gallery, which formed the approach to the Edwardian Tea Room and thus from about 11am onwards, the area would be busy with visitors making their way to find refreshments. Not a good place for teaching, I will admit…

I would move on again to Galleries 32 and 33 but finally, I was allowed to work in a room opposite the mess-room used by the security staff. This was also the place where our schools’ loans boxes had been moved to and thus dispensed from, next to the lift entrance on floor three. 

At least I could decorate my walls with posters and also with some children’s work sent to me by obliging teachers. However, the permanent Egyptian Gallery, numbered 34, was one of the most visited in the Museum, for the artefacts on display really did amaze.

DEATH MASK IN GALLERY 34...

CANOPIC JAR...

A worksheet was essential for classes doing their own thing during visits and also of course for the groups I was teaching, so that they could see the Gallery as well as handle some artefacts. A whole day visit for taught groups was advisable, so the lunch area became a busy place. Eventually of course, the Local History Gallery became the Learning Centre and was refurbished as a lunch area, which led through to classrooms within the Museum itself. 

LIMESTONE BUST, GALLERY 34.
APPARENTLY VERY VALUABLE...

LOVE THE BES POTS...

The Egyptian loans boxes were also highly sought after by schools and were generally used as follow-up aids for children who had experienced the Gallery and also the handling session.

Eventually, my artefacts were incorporated into activities concerning an Egyptian school day, when teachers and their children were all in role and I devised the activities for these visits. The sessions took place in the very public Industrial Gallery however and we were constantly gawped at by the general public.

I also used the artefacts to support Black History Month at one time, basing the storyline on ancient Nubia.

Eventually of course, I ran many Egyptian sessions with me in role, playing the part of a scribe, inventing the name Thoth-hotep and dressing in a white tunic, a black wig and wearing eye make-up. One group of kids asked me what I looked like really and I said that they wouldn’t recognise me if they saw me. They were confident that they would…

THOTH-HOTEP...

As it happened, on that day, my afternoon group had cancelled for some reason and so, after lunch I walked into the Egyptian Gallery as myself and strolled amongst the group of children who had been certain that they would recognise me. No-one did, not even the teacher, or her support staff. Eventually, I spoke to a lad that I had joked with earlier in the day, referring to what we had laughed about during the morning and he swung round to face me, demanding to know how I knew about that…

I smiled and said: “I thought you said you would know me without the costume and make-up?” Suddenly he and the class realised who I was and they were totally shocked, as well as being disappointed, I guess…  

Making Up For Egypt…

I would sit

In a tight space.

No natural light

Endearing the day.

Thigh-length white gown, obtusely 

Tied with gold braid, loosely

At the waist

And tired gaze peered into a small mirror,

Cosmetics in hand, mind contrite…

I would brush

Eyelids with green:

Unnatural sight, 

Preparing the day.

Black liner, eye-paint sinuously

Daubed with bold sweeps, selflessly

With kohl’s sheen

And keen gaze peered at a scribe’s face,

Wig in hand, senses alight…

Pete Ray

HOLDING WOODEN DEATH MASK & SECTION OF CARTONNAGE COFFIN CASING...

Mornings spent making up my eyes to appear as though I was an ancient Egyptian scribe: ‘Thoth-hotep’, ready for Egyptian handling sessions in role at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery…

Good days… 

The artefacts…     

The artefacts used in my handling sessions included amulets, including an eye of Horus, a scarab beetle, a figure of Bes and a djed pillar. Everyday items, like a make-up pot which had the remnants of kohl eye-liner still in the bottom of it, a wooden headrest, a bronze mirror, a flint arrowhead and several other vessels were also passed round. And there were funerary items, too. 

WOODEN HEAD-REST...

The funerary items of course were the star objects: shabtis (models of workers for use in the afterlife), a painted wooden death mask, a piece of painted cartonnage from a coffin lid, the skull of a mummy (with red hair and a few broken teeth), half of a skull (with jawbone and teeth) and a mummified foot, which had four toes, toe nails, and an achilles tendon erupting from the heel. And later during my time at the Museum there was a mummified baby’s hand too, which I could not pass round as it was so delicate and tiny…  

DEATH MASK...

HALF-SKULL...

I also used some replica statuettes to illustrate what some of the gods looked like but the children were always made aware that any items I didn’t pass round were not genuine ancient artefacts anyway…

MUMMIFIED FOOT...

CHILD'S HAND...

A quick referral back to my article about teaching at Aston Hall is very relevant here, for the rather difficult secondary groups sent out to me by Perry Common Comprehensive School, also came to the Museum & Art Gallery for Egyptian handling sessions. Those took place in the Industrial Gallery, containing a lot of ceramics but as mentioned earlier, that was also the route taken by members of the public heading for the Edwardian Tea-Room… 

Instead of leaving the funerary items until last, covered over on my teaching table, I revealed the skulls and foot first, which totally terrified the pupils into stunned silence, then caused interest, then real fascination and finally enjoyment… 

One other story about teaching secondary pupils occurred one day when art teacher Wendy Roberts and I were sharing visiting groups from a school somewhere in Warwickshire. She came to my teaching room with her group and I gave her mine but as she took my group away she simply bellowed to them in her slightly Cockney accent: “Right, are you ready to see the tits and willies..?” It went very quiet…

Only later did we find out that the daughter of Birmingham’s Chief Education Officer at the time was in one of the groups… Oops…

The remarkable thing about the Egyptian handling sessions was that nothing was ever badly damaged, just a few minor chips occurring on one or two of the faience amulets during more than twenty years of use. 

The role-play sessions…

The problem I had when I chose to do many sessions in role as Thoth-hotep, was how to include the artefacts into a scribe’s ancient lifestyle but in truth, the story evolved as time went on. Clearly, the everyday objects were easy to bring into the presentation but the funerary objects posed a bit of a problem. I decided to explain that my wife and daughter had died some months back and a good many of their precious belongings had been stolen from where they had been buried and what I had on my table were the remnants from the tomb. I said that damage had been done to their mummified bodies, as the valuable amulets placed between layers of bandages had been sought and stolen. 

Hence, the skull was that of my wife and the half-skull and foot were those of my daughter.

CLOSE-UP OF THE HALF-SKULL...

HALF-SKULL & FOOT...

Eventually, after many sessions with schools had been completed, one child’s hand was raised and a girl asked me how my wife and daughter had died, which I hadn’t prepared an answer for. So, on the hoof I simply said that one day whilst I was working as a scribe for the Pharaoh they had gone out on the River Nile to catch fish by casting a net over the side of our papyrus reed boat. Unfortunately, my daughter had tried to copy her mother’s action and leaned over the side of the boat to help drop the net into the river but she had tumbled into the murky waters.

My wife, despite the fact that she could not move about in deep water (I didn’t use the word ‘swim’) then suddenly plunged into the river to try to save our daughter but it had been in vain and both had perished.  

I thought no more about the effect this revelation might have on groups visiting the Museum but nevertheless incorporated the story into my two-hour session. However,  some weeks later two odd things happened. One has to remember that although I met visiting classes in my costume and walked them to my teaching room, I wore my lanyard, which revealed that I was Peter Ray, Museum Teacher. I would then tell the children that when I removed my lanyard, I would attempt to become the Egyptian scribe Thoth-hotep but when I replaced the lanyard round my neck, either if a fire-alarm sounded, or the end of the session had come, I was Pete the teacher again…

So, when an adult with a class of children was leaving my room one day and said how sorry she was that my wife and daughter had drowned and then told me that she hoped that my life would improve over time, I simply stood and stared at her in some surprise as she departed through my doorway…

THE SEATED SCRIBE, WHICH THOTH-HOTEP WAS BASED UPON.
IT WAS THEREFORE AMAZING TO SEE THIS STATUE IN THE EGYPTIAN MUSEUM, CAIRO, IN 2009 AND 2011...

Then another school brought three classes to experience the handling session in role. Two came on one day, so that one group handled the artefacts, whilst the other used my worksheets in the Egyptian Gallery, then they changed over after lunch. The third class visited on the following day and worked with me in the morning, then went off to use the gallery after lunch. However, when that third class arrived, an adult helper who had been with the two groups on the previous day, wanted a quick word with me…

She said that a teaching assistant working with one of those two classes had been sobbing uncontrollably on the coach en route back to school because she had been overcome with grief about what had happened to my wife and child in the River Nile… I was amazed… She had totally believed that I was an ancient Egyptian scribe and widower, over 2,000 years old, despite the fact that I had explained about my use of the lanyard and indeed, had spoken in Brummie English…

SHABTI, HEAD-REST, DEATH MASK & CARTONNAGE COFFIN CASING...

The scarab beetle discussion…

Discussing the scarab (dung) beetle one day caused me one of my worst teaching moments…

As Thoth-hotep, I believed that just as a dung beetle rolls up dung and pushes it backwards along the ground to use as a provision of food, so a magical scarab, as the god Ra, pushed the sun backwards across the sky and buried it at sunset. I had just spoken to the children about that and one lad, who was a big lad, very bright and clearly had a good sense of humour suddenly raised his hand. He said, quite rightly, that a beetle didn’t push the sun across the sky, for the earth was round and turned. I pretended that he was some kind of heretic and told him that the earth was flat, which was why we dared not sail too far upon the seas, in case the boat dropped off the edge into nothingness.

He told me that I was wrong and that the world was turning round. I retorted that he and I were totally still and suggested he looked at his feet to check. He was brilliant to argue the point but suddenly broke down into tears… I was horrified! He had been so brave to make and argue his point that it seemed he would handle the debate, which he had, until he saw that I was not going to believe his modern knowledge and then he had lost his confidence.

An adult then explained quietly to him that I was in role as someone from long ago but when I returned to being Pete the teacher at the end of my session, I went over to him and told him that he was the only child ever to question my ideas as an Egyptian, shook his hand and asked the other children to give him a round of applause. I explained that as a man from ancient times, I would not be happy to be told something daft like the earth was round, for I would keep falling over… He laughed loudly and we parted amicably… 

How wonderful that he had been prepared to stand up for the truth, despite some nutter wearing a black wig and eye make-up telling him that an invisible dung beetle shoved the sun across the sky each day… 

An early moment of concern…

The following incident happened in my early days of handling Egyptian artefacts with groups of children and the Industrial Gallery was again the venue. 

A Year 6 group was sitting on the hard floor and my artefacts were covered over on my table but one girl in the class was a very lively character, constantly answering questions and she was very tall and confident. In those times, I would ask a child to come forward and take the skull from me, partly so that any child with any worries about touching it could see a classmate holding it and maybe feel a little more comfortable… 

Wrong… 

I asked the confident girl to join me and handed her the skull, which she took into her hands and began to inspect, whilst I began to explain about the red hair and few teeth which they could inspect if they would like to handle it. Suddenly though, as if a tarantula had just crawled from the skull, the girl realised what she was holding, threw the skull upwards and dropped gently into a faint… Having been a wicketkeeper for most of my sporting life, I dropped quickly down and caught the artefact before it smacked on the ground but remarkably, nobody even seemed concerned about the fainting child. The male teacher finally walked towards me and laughed, saying: “It’s OK, if anyone mentions blood or death in class, she keels over…”

THE SKULL I DIVED FOR...

What? I replied, “Why didn’t you warn me?” He responded, “It’s an everyday occurrence…”

Thanks for that…

An Egyptian Schoolday…

It was decided that I should offer an Egyptian school day for pupils to experience in the Museum & Art Gallery, in role and in the public Industrial Gallery. Preparing the teachers’ notes took quite a while and I still have a copy of the pack which contained guidelines for visiting classes.

Maths was done in pairs, using ancient number symbols to calculate two adding sums on a wooden board covered with a kind of white pigment, instead of gesso.

Writing was attempted too, using pieces of unglazed pottery, which I managed to get hold of cheaply at a garden centre, which sold me some broken terracotta pots as well as several complete ones which I totally enjoyed smashing up… The children used brushes and inks for this activity.

Drawing a figure in profile was tried too, on squared paper to imitate how large scale paintings were completed in ancient tombs. The results would be coloured in back at school.

The classes had been asked to rehearse a short piece of drama from an ancient Egyptian tale, maybe some music, even some juggling or dancing using gymnastic skills, ready to perform in the Museum.

I would later read to the pupils a story from a famous papyrus and one or two children would be asked to play characters from the tale to entertain their colleagues. 

Finally, the ancient game of Senet was played, which would hopefully have been experienced by the children back at school in a knockout competition and the two finalists would battle it out in the Museum. Hopefully, the children would have made their own Senet games back at school too.

Lunch at the Museum would have to be something that might have been eaten in ancient Egypt and in the notes provided I included many ideas about what to bring, such as bread, cheese, butter, salads, grapes, raisins, milk or grape juice… 

So, the teachers’ notes included information about how the ancient Egyptians calculated arithmetic, how they drew figures on a grid, how hieroglyphics were written and of course how a Senet game could be made, with instructions about how it was played. The interesting thing was that no matter how far ahead in Senet one could be, there was every likelihood that the losing person could catch up right at the end to create an exciting and close finish…

I found out a lot of information about ancient Egyptian games and sports for the pack, such as juggling or catching reed balls, which were often covered by sewn leather strips. A hoop game was contested by two people, attempting to hook a hoop before the opponent could, using long sticks bent at the ends. (Hockey sticks or walking sticks could be used for that game back at school.) Hopping games, cartwheeling and the gymnastic ‘bridge’ position have all been spotted painted upon tomb walls from ancient Egypt.  

Ideas for costumes and make-up were added too, all of which meant that the teachers could choose which activities to take part in on the day and leave the rest to me…  

How did it go?

I hated the first day, which unfortunately featured a school which arrived with no costumes at all and having prepared virtually nothing… I was upset and shocked but had to somehow battle through the two sessions and use my handling artefacts. Things did improve however but the organisation involved in providing those Egyptian schooldays was so tough to administer in a busy gallery, often with poorly prepared groups, that I didn’t ever attempt it again… 

Thoth-hotep & his son…

One day, my son Jamie was off school due to a teachers’ training day, which his mum needed to attend and she taught at his school. So it was that he came to the Museum with me and took part in a role-play Egypt session…

JAMIE & ME...

The day was not only memorable for the fact that Jamie performed with coolness and remarkable ability but also for the fact that the relationship with a colleague of mine was broken, permanently…

Each morning, the staff members, whether at Aston Hall, Blakesley Hall, the Science Museum, the Nature Centre, or Sarehole Mill, were expected to ring in from their centres just to confirm that they had arrived and that their visiting school’s booking would be going ahead. The teachers in the Museum & Art Gallery were also expected to ring the office if we were staying in our teaching rooms before our schools arrived. If I was working in role, I would stay in my room to daub on my make-up and dress in costume but on that day, Jamie needed making up and putting into a costume too. 

However, I rang the main office number twice but there was no reply each time, so I simply left a message that I was in work and then had to get on and prepare for the arrival of my group of children. At 9.55am Jamie and I waited at the Great Charles Street entrance for our school to be admitted but when a colleague descended the stairs, she had a real go at me in front of a security guard and my son, for not ringing the main office. 

I was incredulous and bellowed at her, “ How dare you speak to me like that…” I told her in no uncertain terms that it was nothing to do with her and that anyway I had left a message on the answerphone… Jamie was embarrassed, the security guard was terrified…

The teaching session went so well though and the visiting pupils were fascinated by Jamie in role and he was an excellent aide, playing the part really well.

A falling out between a colleague and me had happened however and although the Head of Department hauled us both into a meeting room to ‘sort things out’ some days later, I was told to read a poem about the situation, written by my colleague! I refused, stood up and remarked that I wouldn’t be party to such crap, then walked out. Nothing was ever said about it again but unusually I had displayed a rare positivity and firmness, which went against my natural and usual easy-going nature. 

The Head of Department was somewhat taken aback…

Thoth-hotep at Sarehole Mill…

My colleague Elfyn Morris put together a session called ‘Water Through Time’ and classes would visit the mill to make a film about how water was used in ancient Rome, ancient Egypt, Tudor times and Edwardian times. He would play the roles of a Victorian gentleman and a Tudor miller, whilst I would be a Roman Centurion and an Egyptian farmer.

We rigged up a shaduf, used by ancient Egyptians to lift water from the River Nile for irrigation and other purposes, so I demonstrated it, before being interviewed by several children to explain how it worked. It was rather bizarre to be dressed as an ancient Egyptian on the bank of a millpond in the middle of a Hall Green housing estate, lifting a leather bag, full of water, which was attached to a pole, using leverage. It worked though…

I have copies of two of the films made on a VHS video cassette to this day and it was fascinating to watch it again before writing this article…

Gingerella…

Artefacts from the British Museum formed a display in the Gas Hall exhibition space at one time and the main attraction was Gingerella, a mummified woman, not from a tomb but rescued from her ancient desert burial… She was quite amazing… No photographs were allowed however…

Demon Fear

She was cowering like a wounded foe, a foetus,

A frightened child, wary of a bully,

Or an elderly widow, helplessly

Warding off a violent death.

Gritted teeth, on skeletal frame

Dyed the colour of the Red Land,

Grinned. And hair, matted in clumps

Sparsely mocked a funeral wreath.

Right hand was protecting her eyes, despairingly.

Small finger and thumb were touching,

Others curled on each other like some burial rite,

Empowered to dissuade demon chaos. 

Toes, almost arthritic on crouched limbs,

 Reached nowhere, stiffened by desiccation.

And pottery, conserved then displayed, 

Coarsely mocked the corpse's dais…

Pete Ray

Summing up…

The Egyptian sessions were special to me and being in role especially was something unique. Thus many children experienced handling genuine artefacts and became embroiled in the stories surrounding Thoth-hotep’s life. 

When not in role, the sessions were rather different but just as useful and I guess I was lucky that even though the artefacts were the same ones every time, the pupils’ reactions to them were always different, meaning that every two-hour slot was unlike any other…

I tried…

 The Award Winning Museum Float in the Lord Mayor’s procession, May 29th 1993… 

Up around 8am, loaded the car with the video camera, plus our Egyptian wigs and costumes but inexplicably my daughter Wendy was suddenly taken to the Fox and Goose for some reason by her mum and so the drive into town was delayed until around 9.45am.

Met colleague Elfyn, then Museum employee Lorraine (who was to be Nefertiti) and her daughter Sarah, plus her friend Nancy and eventually we were allowed into the Museum of Science & Industry where the girls went off to make up and I went to the yard and helped a little with the truck’s decoration. But by 11.20am, little had been done, so I went to change into my tunic and wig, then to have my face made up.

BEING MADE UP BY AN ARTIST...

Five of us went in a taxi to our float near Steelhouse Lane and were joined by the others. We practised our dance to Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers’ ‘Egyptian Reggae’ music on the lorry and attracted some attention, especially as Elfyn looked rather like Moses. He was usually the one who forgot his steps too, which added that much more hilarity to the event… 

WENDY & LUCY ON THE FLOAT...

Graham Allen from H.R., someone who had never actually spoken a word to me in the Museum, had given bunches of flowers to the kids and had even been out to a department store for some gold material and decorated a throne on the float. All of this surprised me and then, sportingly, he even videoed the procession, following us close behind. 

My young son Jamie had been taken into the city centre to see his sisters on the float but our camel, formed by John Needle (not Cleopatra’s) and a female colleague from the Natural History Department, was so good…  

We danced our way to ‘Best Original Float’ from the Mayor and especially in Corporation Street, the crowds really seemed entertained by us… It was slightly cold but great fun and the girls enjoyed it so much… They also spotted their mum and Jamie on the crowded streets.

We alighted after a good number of jolting routines and danced alongside the float in New Street then in Centenary Square itself, near the rusting man sculpture. We were ushered into the Edwardian Tea Room too and were asked to dance our routine again which received rapturous applause. Graham Allen was great with the kids, providing them with crisps, cans of drinks and cakes throughout the afternoon. He even bought the adults pots of tea…

ME ON THE FLOAT...

We walked back to the MSI, changed and left with Elfyn and his family, before the girls and I drove to niece Bev’s house, as rain began to spot. The apparently well behaved Jamie and his mum had already been collected from the city centre by Beverley…

The girls watched the procession video before they went to bed, which they appeared to enjoy. 

I still have the footage…

Graham Allen? Back to the rather sullen, unfriendly character he always was on the Monday morning…