Use the stickers to make the wall of an Egyptian temple. Are you going to make it look new with all its painted colours, or old where the paint has been weathered away?

• What story could you tell in your wall relief?
• How long do you think wall reliefs would have taken to create?
• What do you notice about how the figures are shown?

Wall reliefs were extremely popular in Ancient Egypt and covered nearly every surface in temples and tombs. They recorded history and myths and contained magic spells that were thought to help the deceased in the afterlife. This type of artwork has told us lots about Egyptian life and belief.

The Egyptian style of carving is 'sunk relief', where the 3-D images were carved into the surface of the stone using copper chisels and stone tools. In the strong light of the Egyptian sun the edges were intended to really stand out.

They would have originally been brightly painted too using the six main colours: white, black, red, green, blue and yellow. Each colour had a symbolic meaning. Nowadays, in many cases, most of the paint has worn off, leaving bare stone.

Before they create their own art, it's a good idea to show children some examples of Egyptian reliefs.

Why not combine this activity with ‘Hieroglyphic codes’? The guidance there tells you more about how to read and right in hieroglyphics. Or use ‘Write about an Egyptian artwork’ to look in more detail at Ancient Egyptian art.