Egyptian Barbie Mummies

Barbie goes into the afterlife after being mummified. We had three Queens. We had no recently deceased Ken or GI Joe to use as a Pharaoh. Good thing for them.

We are using Mystery of History from Creation to Resurrection. They recommended making a mummy out of a toilet paper roll. Well, that sounded boring to me. After searching the internet for other ideas. I found how to mummify a chicken, mouse, rat, and even an apple. If you are more realistic and not afraid to use an animal-go for it! One site used clay and made a shape of a person and wrapping it up like a mummy. That is how Barbie came to me. I didn’t want to mess with a dead animal . Shaping clay to look like a person is another idea on the web- I don't think Bug would get it. I will save the animals for biology in a few years. Around a month ago I ran across this homeschool blogger while looking at her lapbooks. She had also mummified a Barbie. So, I am glad to see that I am not that crazy and other homeschool moms think like me! Some told me that it was stupid mummifying a Barbie! They just don't know how to have fun.

We also read this book“ You wouldn’t want to be an Egyptian mummy! Disgusting things you’d rather not know.” It made us laugh out loud. It explained the mummification process with a lot of humor. Like the three different mummification process according to what you can afford and someone trying to shove the intestines in the canopic jar. Lots of crazy stuff like that. I highly recommend it. Thanks, Desiree for showing me your book. I couldn’t resist and had to have my own copy.

Making the incision to remove the organs. Bug has a Barbie knife. I used a red permanent marker for the cut.

The kid's are washing the body with natron (table salt) mixed in water. Afterwards we let them dry out for 40 days (40 seconds) We had to wash it off afterwards.
We actually did this first before the incision. But, for some reason I can't move the picture around

 Bug is pulling the intestines out of the incision which we used brown yarn.

We are now pretending to remove the brain through the nose and discarding it afterwards

The white beads are the pretend onions for the false eyes. Prince Philip is the priest wearing the Anubis mask to over see the embalming process. Mixing up the flour solution. We used 1 yard of muslin cloth for 3 Barbies. The flour mixture was 1 part flour to around 3 parts water. It was thinner than pancake batter. I would say the strips are around 1 inch width.

What a mess! I had to scrub the kids and myself. I smelled like dough all day and I'm still pulling it out of all of our nails!

The Canopic jar's for the organ storage .

Here is an overview of what we did-

1.The Queens first had to be taken to the ibu “tent of purification” We had to put the names of Barbie on each one by labeling the bodies with wooden labels so we wouldn’t mix up the bodies. (paper labels) First we had to come up with names. bug named her Queen Bug, Little man named his Queen Girly dog(don‘t ask I have no idea where that name came from), and Sierra Queen is Elizabeth.

2. We used Natron in water (table salt) to wash and had a priest wearing the Anubis mask (Prince Philip from Sleeping Beauty) to ritually purified Barbie’s body. Anubis we learned is the god of the mummification process and of the dead. Let it sit for 40 days ( yea right, more like 40 seconds)

3. We had the other Barbie’s take the deceased to the Wabet, “the place of embalming” to remove the inner organs. We had to get a “slicer priest” to cut a slit in the left side of the body. We marked the incision with a marker. We removed the intestines ,(string) the liver, (peanut), stomach (fruit snack), and the lungs (raisin). We pretended to remove the brain (fruit snack) with a hook through the nose. Threw the brain out and soaked the other organs in natron for 40 days (40 seconds) We also drew a heart on the chest.

4. Bug wanted to reenact having the “slicer priest” pretend to run away after he made the cut in Barbie side while throwing rocks at him. Because, his work was insulting to the gods with all the blood. ( see they do actually listen when you read to them) what mom can turn that request down.

5. After the body has dried for 40 days. We take the queens to the per Nefer “beautiful house” and rub the dolls with palm wine, juniper oil. (we used oil with some cinnamon) and put frankincense (nutmeg) on the body. Another of Bug’s request is putting in false eyes. Since no onions available to fit Barbie’s eyes we found white pony beads and pretended to put them in the eye sockets. We then stuffed the body cavity for the mummification process and put a carving of the protective eye of the sun god, Horus on the incision . (paper picture of the eye). We pretended to wrap the organs in linen and put the organs in the canopic jar’s for storage. (baby jar) If Bug had it her way we would have actually had to wrap the organs in linen. the” maybe next time worked.”

7. Since Barbie is plastic we had to clean off the oil, which isn’t done in the mummification process. We put finger and toe caps on since we have three queens. (yellow marker).

8.We pretended it took 15 days for 20 layers. We wrapped the head first and then the groin in the linen. Next was the chest and then we did the limps. Make sure you take the excess mixture out of it each time. I just threw a bunch of the strips in the mixture and let them sit. I also found out that after the first layer you can put a dry linen on and then squeeze Barbie and it coats that strip. I had to rub a little of the mixture on it with my fingers. After all that wrapping was done. We added amulets into the linen wrapping. I just used sequins and foam pieces. Then one final wrap all around the body. We didn’t have enough cloth to wrap them in shrouds. Then we put on our gold face. ( A piece of paper they colored and then we taped on).

9. We hired professional Barbie mourners to weep and wail and carry the Queens possessions during the funeral procession. We can’t forget the priest to burn incense and his other duties like the weighing of the heart ceremony. Which was attended by Anubis and Thoth and used the scarab beetle for the ceremony. Barbie’s dog Tanner and cats were spared until next time. Bug wanted to add them in the mummification process.

Little man and Sierra got a little tired during the wrapping part and needed a lot of help. I am sure they didn't get it. But, they had fun and will remember something about the Egyptians. Little man would of loved the real animal mummifications.

Here are our three queens. It took around two hours.

Of course, during are study of Egypt and of all their gods, the afterlife we had a good discussion of what the bible says about these practices. We talked about what God says about idol worship and what happens to the believer in Yeshua after we die. Then we talked about those who do not know about Yeshua as their Lord and Savior and what happens to them. I was happy to see the kids bring up some things that they noticed in the Egyptian practices even before I did.

I don’t think the kids will ever forget this day and how to mummify a Barbie . We had a lot of fun and got real silly. I am thankful to see that my kids can recognize at such a young age what God says in His Word, the Bible. We have been study Ancient Civilizations this year and have ran across many different beliefs. My desire is for the kids to have a good understanding of history. I love how the Mystery of History has both biblical and the other civilizations mixed together chronologically. History is one of my favorite subjects that I am passionate about and I think it is rubbing off on the kids.

Now the only problem is that Bug wants me to un-mummify the Barbie’s so she can play with them! I don’t know about that! They have harden pretty good, we may experiment with that later. I can image Barbie’s hair being moldy and smelly. Maybe we can pretend to be archaeologist that find the tomb. Next, we make a lapbook on what is an archaeologist. We will just have to be Egyptologist instead an take Barbie's wrappings off. That might work.