ANCIENT EGYPTSong Book

Age 5 – 11

©©Words and Music by Donna Minto

Lyrics Version

ANCIENT EGYPT

1. The Nile2. Mummies

3. Mighty Pyramid4. Hootin’ Rootin’ Tutankhamun!

5. Hieroglyphics6. The Curse Of Tutankhamun

7. Building A Pyramid8. The Sphinx

9. Toys And Games10. Gods And Goddesses

1. The NileChorus:

The Nile a mighty river,The longest in the world.

Providing Egypt’s life forceAs it slowly curls.

From Aswan in the south,To Cairo in the north.

Making farm land fertile,Bringing crops forth.

1. Heroditus said, and it is true:“Egypt is the gift of the Nile”.

Without its water what could you do?You’d be left with desert all the while.

2. Predicting the floods was hard to do.Ancient Egypt thought out a plan.The huge Nilometers gave a clue.Was it feast or famine in the land?

Nilometer

2. Mummies

Get rid of all the moisture,Taking forty days.

Internal organs are removed.The brain it cannot stay.

Pack the body,Cover it with natron, natural salt.

Then the coffin goes into a sarcophagus,that’s a vault.

Mummification,Makes the body last.

Thousands of years laterWe learn about the past.

3. Mighty PyramidMany years of strife.All of Pharaoh’s life.

Building a grave.Mighty Pyramid,

Where nobody would live,But for all time the Pharaoh

Would unite with Re,Great Sun God Re.

So many gods to please,Pharaoh get on your knees.Fill your great monumentWith precious gold, silver,

jewelsand take your army.

For you may need to fight,Before sun god Re unites.The jackal, Anubis, will

Protect the dead.

4. Hootin’ Rootin’ Tutankhamun!Chorus:

Hootin’, rootin’, tootin’ Tutankhamun.Hootin’, rootin’, tootin’ Tutankhamun.

Born to be Pharaoh.Died at an early age.

Then he was a mummy for a very long time.

1. One, three, three, six to one, three, two, seven

B.C. equals long, long ago.King at age nine, died at eighteen.

Buried in the Valley of the Kings you know.

2. He was discovered inside his tomb.Nineteen twenty two was the date.There was so much treasure inside.

All the archaeologists thought it was great.

5. HieroglyphicsChorus:Hieroglyphics, Egyptian writing.It has been around five thousand

years.Using almost seven hundred

signs,Scribes all wrote and made it

clear.

1. Painted on wood or papyrus.Carved on stone or clay.

From the symbols we can decipherWhat the hieroglyphics say.

2. One slab of stone from Rosetta,Found there by the French.Jean Francois Champollion

Figured out what it all meant.

The Rosetta Stone

6. The Curse Of Tutankhamun!

1. At the opening of the tombThere were twenty six in total present

there.But within a decade, six had died,

Some a quite unusual death.

2. Only two who watched the Sarcophagus being opened

Died within ten years.Many of the people most involved,

Lived into old age that’s clear.

Chorus:What could be worse than an ancient curse?

“Death comes on wings to he who enters Pharaoh’s tomb.”Did Lord Carnarvon simply die

Or was he cursed and met his doom?

7. Building a PyramidWork, work, work, work.Work, work, work, work.

1. Building in the sunIs hard for everyone,

Working on a pyramid.Logs to roll along,

Great big blocks of stone.That’s what the Egyptians did.

2. All the working menWere put in teams of ten,

Under foreman’s watchful eye.Working from a camp,Using earthen ramps,

Building up towards the sky.

3. Giza’s Pyramid,The biggest one there is,

Built to please the sun god Re.It took twenty years,

Blood and sweat and tears,And two million stones they say.

Work, work, work, work.Work, work, work, work.

Work, work, work until it’s done!

8. The Sphinx

1. It didn’t look so grand,

Buried in the sand,

Only pharaoh’s head was seen.

In nineteen twenty five,

People did arrive,

They had to intervene.

Chorus:

The sphinx……

2. The limestone of the sphinx,

Suffered from a jinx,

Germs were carried in the air.

Pollution overload,

Caused it to erode,

They should have left it there.

Chorus:

The sphinx ......

Chorus:

The sphinx is enigmatic, full of mystery.

A lion with a Pharaoh’s head from long ago in history.

9. Toys and Games

1. Inside Tutankhamun’s tomb was a game of senet.Thirty squares on a board.

What score could you get I wonder?Images could stand for perils or advantages,

In the struggle getting to the kingdom of Osiris.

2. Ball games were a popular pastime for Egyptians.Leaping high in the air,

Sometimes piggy back position.Balls were made of clay and sometimes filled with little seeds.

When you threw them they would rattle, might help you succeed.

3. In the game of snake the board looked like a coiled serpent.Small stone balls, sometimes carvedWith the names of Egypt’s Pharaohs.

Move the balls around the board, if you want to enter.Now to win you must make sure you’re first one to the centre.

4. Khuzza Lawizza is known nowadays as leap frog.Children had wooden toys,

Cats and dogs and other creatures.Storytellers told of magical enchantment.

Boys had soldiers, girls had dolls to give them their amusement.

10. Gods and GoddessesChorus:

Many gods in Egyptian lifeTo help each day, to keep you safe

And protect you from strife.All these gods were to keep you from

harm.They had the heads of animals

But were often drawn in human form.

1. Scarab beetles symbolized Khepri,Sun God in the morning.

By the evening he became Atum,Or he could be Re Harakhty too.

2. Thoth the Moon God, Ibis for a head,

Beak a crescent moon shape.So the bird became the symbol

Thoth,God of wisdom and of healing

too.

3. Tawaret the hippopotamus,God of all the children.

Sekhmet had a lionesses head.Vengeance was her job so please

take care!

4. Khnum, the ram’s head,God of all the Nile,

Always spoke to Hapy.Every year the flooding of the NileWas arranged by Khnum and Hapy

too.

5. Amun Re was King of all the godsAnd protected Pharaoh.

Akhenaten banished all the rest.Tutankhamun brought them back once

more.

Chorus:Many gods in Egyptian life

To help each day, to keep you safe

And protect you from strife.All these gods were to keep you

from harm.They had the heads of animalsBut were often drawn in human

form.