Lesson video

Hello everyone, and welcome to your fourth lesson on Ancient Egypt.

My name is Mrs. Tipping, and in this lesson, we are going to tackle the question, "How did the Ancient Egyptians travel and trade?" In this lesson, we will learn about how the Ancient Egyptians used the River Nile for the majority for their travel, and to trade with other countries.

So, let's begin.

Now, for this lesson, make sure you're sat somewhere comfortable, so that you haven't got any distractions, and that you can make sure you can capture all the knowledge from this lesson.

You're going to need a couple things, an exercise book, or paper, a pencil, or pen, and your fantastic brains.

Now, if you haven't got any of those things, go and quickly get them now, and we can get started.

Okay, so let's take a look at the lesson structure.

First, I'm going to share some keywords, then, we're going to talk about how the Ancient Egyptians travelled.

Then, we'll explore how boats were important to the Ancient Egyptians, before looking at what they traded.

And we'll finish with our end of lesson quiz.

So, let's start with some keywords.

The first word is "underworld".

My turn, your turn, underworld.

The underworld is the Ancient Egyptian land of the dead.

The next word is "archaeologist".

My turn, your turn, archaeologist.

An archaeologist is someone who studies the past by looking at artefacts, and other physical remains.

And the third word is "deben".

My turn, your turn, deben.

A deben is a weight used to measure the cost of items in Ancient Egyptian times.

So, we'll begin with how the Ancient Egyptians travelled.

The River Nile was the quickest and easiest way to travel in Egypt.

The Ancient Egyptians didn't build roads, as most of the major cities in Ancient Egypt were located along the banks of the River Nile.

Temples and palaces were often connected to the River Nile using manmade canals.

The Ancient Egyptians became experts in building boats, and navigating the river.

It allowed them to trade items with other people.

Boats were used to carry everything, from grain, to cattle, to coffins, and building blocks.

Some boats were specialised for fishing and travelling, while others were designed for carrying cargo, or going to war.

Cargo are different types of goods.

Let's take a pause now, and look at this statement.

Boats were the quickest and easiest way to travel around Ancient Egypt.

Is that true or false? Have a think, say your answer out loud, or you could write it down.

What do you think, true or false? Hopefully, you guessed true.

Because Egypt is mostly desert, it was difficult to travel on foot for a long time.

The Ancient Egyptians used boats to travel along the River Nile, which was connected to the whole of Egypt.

If you remember from our other lessons, Egypt is 90% desert, so boats were very handy.

Let's take a look at how the boats were made.

The earliest boats were called skiffs, which moved around using ores, and were made of bundles of papyrus reeds tied tightly together.

Yes, that's right, the papyrus that makes paper in Egypt also makes boats.

The boat was long and thin, and each end came up to a point out of the water.

These boats could travel small distances, or could be used for fishing.

So, have a look at this picture here of a model of what the boat would've looked like.

You can see the long ore at the back, and that would be used to be able to steer and move the boat.

And you can see the boat coming up at the point there.

So, let's pause the video and complete this task.

What were the earliest Egyptian boats made of? So, I'd like you to draw a picture of a typical early Egyptian boat, and label the key features of its design.

So, label what it was made of, and what things it had to help it maybe move, or what it looked like in particular.

So, when you're finished, restart.

Okay, let's have a look here at what we could've drawn.

So, an early Egyptian boat was simple, here is what it was made of.

So, a boat made of papyrus reeds tied tightly together, and the two features of its design was it was long and thin, and it also had an ore to help move.

Now, I'm sure your drawing is much better than mine.

After boats were made out of papyrus reeds, the Egyptians started to make boats out of wood with sails to move them.

Now, wood was something that wasn't easy to get in Egypt, they used acacia wood that came from Egypt, and they also brought in cedar wood from Lebanon.

They built the wooden boats without nails, and instead, the Egyptians used short planks that they hooked together and tied tightly with ropes.

A square sail was placed in the middle of the boat, so they could catch the wind when heading upstream.

A large ore was at the back to help steer.

These boats were used to carry goods, and they were much bigger than the fishing boats.

So, let's have a little look at this question, what were the Ancient Egyptian boats made from? Select two options.

Was it A, metal, B, plastic, C, wood, or D, papyrus? What were the Ancient Egyptian boats made from? Select two options.

Have a think, write it down, or shout it out loud.

What do we think? If you said C and D, you are correct, well done.

The early boats were made out of papyrus, and the boats after that were made out of wood.

So, let's look at why boats were important to the Ancient Egyptians.

Very few boats from Ancient Egypt have survived for archaeologists to study.

However, because of the religious importance of boats, there are many surviving models and pictures of them.

These models and pictures tell archaeologists a lot about how the boats were constructed, and how they were used.

The Egyptians believed that the souls of the dead journeyed to the Underworld by boat.

They placed model boats in tombs to help them on their journey.

So, I'd like you to pause the video now to complete this task.

Complete the passage using the words below.

So fill in the gaps with those four words at the bottom there, write the passage out in your exercise book or on paper, and restart once you're finished.

Okay, hopefully you've given that a good go, let's have a look at what the answers are.

So, few Ancient Egyptian boats have survived for archaeologists to study.

The Ancient Egyptians believed they would travel to the Underworld on a boat.

They put model boats inside tombs to help them on their journey.

Hopefully, you got those all correct, and if not, just have a little bit of a cross out, and write the correct answers above.

A small model of a boat was buried with a person.

Pharaohs and other wealthy Egyptians would often have a full size boat included in their tombs.

It is said that Tutinkhamoun's tomb contained around 35 boats of some different types.

Archaeologists and scientists excavated an ancient boat that was buried in a pit next to Pharaoh Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza.

The boat had been carefully dismantled into 1,000 pieces, that means breaking them up into 1,000 pieces, before being buried along with hieroglyphic instructions of how to reassemble it, how to put it back together for use in the afterlife.

The planks were extremely fragile, and a temperature controlled laboratory was constructed to restore the pieces on site.

It was 44 metres long when they put the boat together, that is a huge boat.

So, please pause the video now to complete this task.

Answer the following questions, who usually had a full size boat buried with them? How many pieces made Pharaoh Khufu's boat? How long in metres was Pharaoh Khufu's boat when it was put back together? So, pause the video now, and restart once you're finished.

Okay, let's have a look at the answers.

So, a Pharaoh would usually have a full sized boat buried with them, but if you put wealthy Egyptian as well, that's also correct.

The boat was in 1,000 pieces, and it was 44 metres long.

Well done, if you got those answers correct.

Now, let's take a look at what the Ancient Egyptians traded.

Trade was important for the Ancient Egyptians, the Ancient Egyptians exported many items. Now, an export is something that is taken from the country.

So, some items that were taken from Ancient Egypt included papyrus, linen, and grain.

Beans, cotton, wheat, and flax were important and abundant crops that could also be easily stored and traded.

Ships sailed along the River Nile exporting goods to various ports.

So, they took the Ancient Egyptian goods to other places.

The Ancient Egyptians wanted items from other countries, such as Lebanon and Punt.

They imported items, like cedar wood, from Lebanon.

An import is something that is brought into a country.

The Ancient Egyptians imported ebony and ivory from Punt, they also imported gold from Nubia, and lapis lazuli from Badakhshan, which is modern-day Afghanistan.

All right, I'd like you to pause your video now to complete this task.

So, I'd like you to add in, draw a table, like what is on the screen here, and add in at least two examples of items that came from Ancient Egypt, now, those are the exports.

And then, I'd like you to add in items that were traded from other countries, those are the imports, okay.

So exports, things from Ancient Egypt, imports, things from other countries, like Lebanon and Punt.

And when you're finished, restart the video.

Okay, hopefully you've given that a good go.

Here are some of the exports you could have had, papyrus, linen, or grain, those are the things that come from Ancient Egypt.

And the things that were brought in from other countries were cedar wood, lapis lazuli, ivory, and you could've also put gold.

So, those are the things that came from countries, like Lebanon and Punt.

Good job.

Okay, now, Egyptians did not use money like we use today.

The cost of things were measured by a deben.

A deben was a piece of copper that weighed around 90 grammes.

They had fixed prices on their goods, so they would know what the goods were worth, and what could be traded for them.

So, for example, if a scroll of papyrus cost one deben, and a pair of sandals were also worth one deben, then the sandals and the papyrus scroll could be swapped, as they both, equally, cost the same amount.

Now, that could be the same if, for example, three jugs of beer cost one deben, and a day's work also cost a deben.

So, a person could be fairly paid three jugs of beer for one day of work.

Let's take a pause now, and look at this statement.

The Ancient Egyptians used coins to trade with.

Is that true or false? Have a think, write down your answer, or say it out loud.

True or false? And the answer is false, they didn't use coins, or money, like we have.

The Ancient Egyptians used a deben, a copper weight, to measure the cost of items. They could be swapped, they could swap items of equal value, for example, a papyrus scroll could be swapped with sandals, or anything else that was equal value.

Great work today! That's another lesson on Ancient Egypt finished, and you worked really hard, so big well done.

I'm hoping that you will join me for the next lesson very soon, after you've completed your end of lesson quiz, and I'll see you then.

Thank you very much, and see you soon, bye.