"Year 3 had a fabulous trip to the Brighton museum for their mummification workshop. We learnt all about how to be an embalmer in Ancient Egypt. 

We carefully cleaned and prepared the mummies (giant dolls!) with guidance from our museum teacher. First, we pulled out the brains and fed them to the cat! Then we removed the other organs (stomach, liver, intestines and lungs) and put them in special canopic jars. After this, we learned that the Egyptians believed the heart was the soul and it was respectfully wrapped in bandages with a scarab beetle, and returned to the body. Then the body was covered in salt for 40 days. Finally we wrapped out mummies in lots of bandages and decorated them with jewellery, amulets and a death mask.

Our museum teacher told us that Ancient Egyptians believed in the afterlife and so would prepare the body to travel there, along with many of their possessions. She showed us how the god Anubis would weigh the heart against a feather to see if the person had been good in life and could travel to the afterlife. If not, the Great Devourer, would gobble it up!"