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Puppetry at the Atkinson

This is a blog post about the making of my puppets, and the Egyptology activity I did at the Atkinson in August 2023.
Howard Carter Puppet
Part of my services as an Egyptologist, is doing activities for children. One of the activities I did over the summer holidays was teaching children about how the pharaoh, Tutankhamun, was discovered by archaeologist, Howard Carter. 
Colourised image of Carter and Tutankhamun
The discovery 
Howard Carter was born in 1874. He fell in love with Egyptology when he was a young man, and he went off to Egypt on many archaeological digs. It wasn’t until 1909 when he started his own excavations, which is when he met Lord Carnarvon, who financed the trips. Unfortunately, the First World War stopped the dig for a number of years. When he returned, he had found proof that royals were buried in the area, including Tutankhamun. It was in 1917, when he started looking for his tomb, and no one else believed that it was hidden in the Valley of the Kings. 

Hussein was the water carrier, Hussein. He took water across the dig site, where he tripped on a very smooth rock. It looked very different to the other stone Carter and the team had found. Carter removed the sand and rubble from the stone, and below it was a staircase to a door with the name Tutankhamun on it. Carter sent word to Carnarvon and Evelyn, who were in England at the time. When they arrived, they had cleared the rubble and could see the full doorway. “With trembling hands, I made a tiny breach in the upper left hand corner. Candle tests were applied as a precaution against possible foul-smelling gases, and then I widened the hole a little. An eternity – it must have seemed to those two standing by – I was struck dumb with amazement. Carnarvon asked, “Can you see anything?”. All I could do was get out the words, “Yes. I see wonderful things.” 

A journalist for the New York Times made Tutankhamun more famous! When he visited the tomb, another Egyptologist reported that a messenger was sent to Carter’s house where they heard a faint cry. It turned out that his pet bird was eaten by a cobra, and the curse of Tutankhamun had hit for the first time! It was believed the curse had hit another time when Lord Carnarvon died. Though, he died after nicking a mosquito bite when shaving and it got infected.

The puppet session 
What my session included was a short play, written by myself, about the discovery. I have 5 puppets altogether: Howard Carter, Hussein (the water carrier), Lord Carnarvon, Lady Evelyn, and the journalist who made the Curse of Tutankhamun famous. 
Puppet session at the Atkinson
After the story, the children received worksheets to go upstairs into the museum and discover the treasures in, and drew their favourite objects.

The process of the making the puppets 
I have received a few questions about how I made the puppets. I went on YouTube to find some easy patterns, and I found Puppet Nerd. He has a website (link below) where I bought his Small Fry pattern in the sale*. 

After printing the template and cutting out the pieces, I finally got the sewing machine out, where I attached the main body together. It was really tricky to use the machine to attach the mouth, so I bled a couple of times hand sewing all 6 of them. I hot glued some semicircular pieces of cardboard to the inside of the mouth, which makes it easier to open the mouth of the puppets when the characters speak.
Cutting out the fabric
The pattern states that small pieces of foam should be cut out and glued together to make the shape of the head, and attached to the cardboard piece at the top of the mouth, so there is support for when the hand opens the mouth. However, due to the time limit and the fact that I almost set fire to the foam when I used the wrong glue (oops!), I only managed to do it to one head. Hopefully before my first school session, I will have finished off the heads.

So, there we are. That's everything you need to know about the puppets. The next blog post will be about my walking tour of the town, Southport, that will be out next week!. While work has been a little slow, I haven't been able to post as frequently as I would like, so I think the blog post will be posted as and when I do something. Thanks for reading!

*Please note that this sale has long finished and the price of the pattern is quite expensive.

(Edit: Forgot to say a huge thank you to all of the staff and volunteers involved for all of my sessions: Sandy, Sarah, Vittoria, Leo, Dominic, Michael, Jemma, Caroline, Andrea, and the entire Operations team)

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