Narrative Art/Scroll Painting

Grade level: Elementary. May be adapted for upper grades.

Objectives for students:
· to recognize some of the unique features of Egyptian art

· to acquire some knowledge about intentions and social contexts of Egyptian art

· to create their own narrative scroll, communicating a story through visual images

Visual material

Section from a Book of the Dead

Advance preparation

Be familiar with the information about the image and the section Looking at Egyptian Art.

Class discussion:
Discuss how stories can be told in a variety of ways, through pictures, words (written or spoken), television, movies, dance, sign language, and so on. Ask students to identify some stories that they have read themselves, stories that their parents have made up or told from memory, or television programs, movies, or plays they might have seen.

Explain that artists in many cultures are narrators. Their creations have symbolic, religious, or magical meaning, and the story they tell in art speaks to us across the years and gives us information about the people to whom it had meaning.

Show the section from a Book of the Dead. Ask students to look for the main character or characters. What is going on in the scene? After discussing the story depicted, read students the information accompanying the image. Explain that some of the deities are depicted symbolically; for example, Thoth, god of wisdom and writing, can be portrayed as a baboon.

Discuss how the test of Nany's life on earth is a very important reflection of Egyptian belief in an afterlife. Explain that this scene is the central one in a scroll that is about seventeen feet long. There are other scenes showing Nany's arrival in the afterlife and what her existence in the afterlife will be like.

What features of Egyptian art can be identified in this painting? Students may notice that the figures are represented partly in profile and partly from the front. Students may also notice that the figures are arranged in registers or horizontal rows, almost like written narratives. Inscriptions of what is being said by the main characters accompany the figures.

Activity
Materials:

6 x 18-inch piece of construction paper (12 x 18-inch, cut in half lengthwise)
crayons, markers, or paints
rulers or straightedges

Preparation: Precut paper into long strips.

Explain that students will have a chance to create their own picture story showing events in sequence like an Egyptian scroll. First they should write their story in three sentences, one giving the beginning, one the middle, and one the end.

Placing the paper horizontally on their desks, they should work from left to right and draw their story along the bottom of the paper. They may use rulers to divide the scroll into registers if they wish. (Nany's scroll was written and illustrated from right to left. Why?)

Remind students of symbols and inscriptions they may wish to incorporate into their stories.

Older students may go more deeply into the afterlife beliefs of ancient Egypt and the political climate that inspired the creation and burial of such scrolls. Since this is a very dramatic scene, highlighting an intense moment of confrontation and decision, they may wish to create a similarly dramatic narrative scene.

Connections
Language Arts: Have students write out their stories in narrative form and display them with the scrolls.

Science: This scroll was made from papyrus. Research how papyrus was made and used by the Egyptians. How did such a fragile medium survive over thousands of years? Paper is made today for a variety of uses: newspapers, textbooks, library books, paperbacks, scholarly texts. Is the same paper used for all these purposes? How does its use affect its need to be made permanent?

Social Studies: Many religions of the present and past incorporate an afterlife where individuals are judged by their lives on Earth. What other religions believe in an eternity based on one's deeds? Are there any features in common, for example, truthfulness or doing good works?

Drama/Dance/Music: Dramatize the story of Nany's ordeal before Osiris. Using the visual materials and classroom activities in the resource guide, create costumes, jewelry, and masks. Paint a mural backdrop to represent the papyrus background.