Papyrus Flop

Before our move, Casia was studying Ancient Egypt. We read lots of books, saw some movies, and attempted to mummify a chicken. Unfortunately, we had to move before we were able to see the end results of that project and sadly our papyrus making efforts failed miserably as well. 

We had bought this convenient kit from the art museum while on a field trip to look at Egyptian artifacts. We followed the step-by-step instructions, but couldn't make it work. I hadn't intended to include it in the blog, but then reconsidered; even in our failures we learn something.

The first step was to soak the strips in room temperature water for 3 days.

They floated, so we had to weigh them down.

After soaking them, Casia used a rolling pin to flatten them.
She needed my help because she wasn't able to put enough
force on them to really squeeze out the water.
Then we placed them in clean water and soaked again for another 3 days.

Notice the change from the narrower pieces at the beginning.
She rolled (with help) and soaked them a second time.

After repeating the process a couple more times, the papyrus
finally was ready (it sunk in the water on its own).
The next step was to overlap them and lay a second layer perpendicular to the first.

Casia had a waterproof place-mat on the table, 

with several layers of newspaper underneath to absorb the water.

She covered them with another layer of newspaper and then rolled them one last time.

Casia then piled heavy books on top of the papyrus. 

She replaced the newspaper after a couple of hours. 

After a day under the weight, we had expected to have a small piece of homemade papyrus. Instead, none of the pieces actually stuck together and we had a bunch of flat pieces of papyrus stems. This all happened within a couple of weeks before our moving day. That is about the time when I started wildly running through the house packing everything that didn't move. It got to the point where if someone laid a book or other item on a table for too long, I'd snatch it up and put it into a box. I heard Casia say to Garrett once while I was exiting the room, "We better not sit here too long, Garrett, or she might pack us up, too." 

So the dried out papyrus pieces got packed; maybe to be revisited again or maybe not. At first we were both disappointed with the failure. But looking back, it was a good lesson for both of us; to remember that these projects that we attempt and the topics we cover, they are about the process and not the product. The ultimate goal is to learn through the experience, not end up with a finished craft project for the scrapbook. 

We had spent two to three months studying mummies and mythology, pyramids and pharaohs, and the geography, culture, and history of ancient Egypt. I felt like we'd exhausted her interest in Egypt. We've now turned our attention to the next area of study: Ancient Greece.