Be transported to ancient Egypt without leaving your home, thanks to Google Arts & Culture.
Here are four ways to explore ancient Egypt without leaving your home:
Learn to read and write in hieroglyphic
Google’s new Fabricius platform teaches you to read and translate hieroglyphics. Fabricius is named after Georg Fabricius, who was the father of epigraphy (which means the study and interpretation of ancient inscriptions).
Through a step-by-step learning process, Fabricius teaches you to identify, write and read hieroglyphic symbols. Once you’ve learnt the basics, you can then create messages using hieroglyphs and download a digital postcard to share with loved ones. As you type, Fabricius will offer up pre-prepared common phrases, auto-suggested words and phrases ‒ and even emojis.
Once your loved ones receive their messages, they can also use Fabricius to decode the symbols and learn the ancient language for themselves.
Visit the ancient pyramids
Google Arts & Culture’s Ancient Egypt: Mummies and mysteries, developed in collaboration with Macquarie University and The British Museum, takes you on an educational journey to discover ancient Egypt, the practices, the people, the pyramids, and so much more.
To start, visit the ancient pyramids of Giza and the Great Sphinx and discover how they look today. Then look at real hieroglyphics up close. You can also learn about the Rosetta Stone, which was key to deciphering hieroglyphics to give us the understanding that we have today.
Have you ever wanted to meet a mummy? Take a look inside the mummies of seven animals and three humans at Lisbon’s National Archeology Museum.
Discover all of this, read stories about Nefertiti and Tutankhamen, look at paintings from the tombs, and even learn about how technology is being used in Egyptology (the study of ancient Egyptian history and culture) today.
Test your knowledge
Now that you’ve learned all about the fascinating history of Egypt, visited the pyramids and translated and written messages in hieroglyphs, it’s time to put all that new knowledge to the test.
You can take Google Arts & Culture quizzes as you scroll through Ancient Egypt: Mummies and Mysteries page. It has been proven that testing newly-learned information is one of the best ways to make sure you’ll remember it in future.
You can also plan a family quiz or get everyone to choose and share their five favourite facts from the day (even getting some other relatives or friends to join in via Google Hangouts).
Host a film night
After your long journey through Egyptian history, make some popcorn and curl up on the couch for a well-earned, relaxing family movie night. If you’d like to continue with the theme of the day, search for movies set in Egypt (try The Prince of Egypt, The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, or Cleopatra). Alternatively, you can look for documentaries to continue your education.