Ancient Egypt & Rome & Greece - LEGOs

How Legos have influenced my life...

As a three year old, I received my very first Lego set. It was for a castle, and I loved it! I was hooked on Legos, and got many more sets through the years. They inspired my love of history and design, and were my largest creative outlet for a long time. Working with Legos helped me learn how to read directions, look at schematics, learn how pieces are able to fit (or not fit) together. In later years, I had to learn how to work around the constraints of a square-based block to make my own creations. I have used the Lego Digital Designer to create my own ships, castles, and one enormous traction city. Oftentimes, my designs would become large and complicated enough that they crashed the program. 

At sixteen years old, I have spent most of my life designing and creating things. My grandfather was a carpenter, and my father showed me a lot about metalworking, so I grew up around tools a lot and used them often. They also taught me how to do things like design machines and structures. Mostly I used these skills for historical recreation and traditional craftsmenship, but they are useful for modern use also, and often I would fix machines and items with the knowledge they gave me and knowledge acquired on my own through research and experimentation. I soon learned the usefulness of spatial skills and the ability to think in three dimensions, as well as the interpretation of schematic drawings and sketches. Perhaps the most important thing I learned though was the value of extensive research and prime sources; too many times, I have made the mistake of using uncited sources and inadequate research! Off-time research has perhaps been one of the best activities for furthuring my knowledge.

Following the Legos through the timeline of ancient civilizations...

ETA:  This Parthenon is my own creation!  I designed it using the Lego Digital Designer, and then earned the money to purchase the pieces and build it.  What do you think?

In Ancient Egypt, the crocodiles and zombie mummies guard the underworld in the Valley of the Kings.

The Pharaoh's Mummy comes back to life and uses his magic asps to control everyone!

In Ancient Rome, Julius Caesar is resting in his palace while the guards protect him.  Then he declares that there will be war!

The soldiers and legionnaires gather together to conquer new land.

In Ancient Greece, the gods and monsters are all gathering...

Medusa, the Cyclops, and the Minotaur want the monsters to have more control.

But Poseidon and Athena know that the gods need to stay in control, and they will do whatever it takes to keep their power.

The Greek gladiators get some help from the gods, and are allowed to use Pegasus to defeat the monsters.

.......stay tuned until next time, when we will zoom through the dark ages and time of exploration!

Roman Household

• Use two ionic columns pieced together from Lord Business' Office Tower.   
• You can also find columns from the Atlantis Temple set.
• Put them on a baseplate, then add a Roman couch in between the columns (made from four regular yellow bricks).  
• For the top, use a grey baseplate with a fence piece on it.  
• Make marble walls from three white, regular half-bricks.  
• Use single-piece circles to finish off the ionic columns.

Roman Chariot

• Use a regular black horse with a red horse helmet, and top with a fire piece from a Ninjago set.
• Take two wagon wheels and connect them to axles.  Connect these with two 3x3 baseplates.
• Put two regular 2x2 bricks in the front center of the baseplate.
• Use four 2x2 'macaroni bricks' (two in each stack) and add to the sides of the chariot, on either side of the center.  Use a flat piece across the top to hold them all together.
• To connect the horse to the chariot, use a hinged 2x2 brick.
• Most of these pieces came from the Lego Movie Castle Calvary set.

This is our Roman chariots (we made more than one) beside our Roman house....and my brother wouldn't get out of my picture!!!

I want to build a Lego Coliseum, but don't have enough of the right kind of bricks.  If you want to create a Coliseum, maybe you can convince your mom to get this set.  It's not Lego, but it's similar!

Lego ancient history

This is an updated version of the Lego chariot which now has a better standing area and two horses.

I now have three Lego Legionaries which I have placed in phalanx formation, but I wish I could have put them in testudo formation. Next to them is their Commander. 

The Lego roman structure has been enlarged and has more columns now than the previous structure. 

These are my new Arabian Soldiers with a snake charmer.

These are my new Egyptian soldiers. I decided that living soldiers were much better than living mummies.

The ones on the right are my Greek Hoplite mini-figs which I ordered of off Brick Forge.
The other one is the series 2 Spartan Warrior

These are my Persian soldiers I got them form the Battle of the Alamut set.

This is my the biggest piece in my Lego ancient history theme the viking longship, complete with Jormungandr (aka the world serpent).

Ancient War Technology : Siege Tower

Wooden Siege Tower for a Lego War!

Supplies :

• Siege Tower Kit
• Glue
• Lego knights

Directions :

• Learn the history of siege towers with this cool DVD that shows you all about ancient war technology.
• -OR- Read about it, you like books better.
• Follow the instructions in the kit.
• Line up your good guys and bad guys and have an ATTACK!!

Greece : Vases

  We live in a world of steel and concrete. Our structures, our machines and our jobs, are built around these two fundamental parts of modern life. It is difficult to imagine a world without these two materials. We would have no cars, cans, or electronics. There would be no roads, foundations for buildings, or bridges. In short we would be more primitive than our ancient predecessors; living out of crude wood houses with mud or wood floors. Yet we have forgotten where all this remarkable advancement came from. In fact we often look down upon this seeming simple item as being as primitive as those huts and serving no more purpose to people than a bow and arrow does anymore. If indeed they think of it at all, they may think that it once was important but surely things like the car or the radio were far more noteworthy. Thus it is looked over in museums, ignored at gardening stores, but this simple little item built civilization. I speak of course, of the simple ceramic pot.

  It is the tendency of people to think that clay pottery is simply mud that has been shaped and baked in an oven or kiln. And while to a degree this is true, it is far more than that. The material used for making pottery often called clay has a simple enough make up. It uses either a carbonate of silicate based mixture with various oxides and trace minerals that affect properties such as strength and hardness. Mineral pockets like these run in the ground through veins in most areas of the world. These minerals form tiny crystals in the shape of tiles. The addition of water can loosen the tiles from each other allowing them to slide over each other. It can them be molded and shaped as the artist pleases. When it dries there is still a small amount of water left in between the crystals and while this may not affect the pot when in ideal conditions, when wetted there is still aa large enough gap between the crystals that it will dissolve. Soon, people realized the clay could be baked to draw all the water out. This caused the gaps to get much smaller blocking the water so the clay would no longer dissolve. Now our ability to understand the molecular structure of these ceramics has grown greatly. While people tend to think of them of fragile, one of the hardest materials known to man, tungsten carbide, is a ceramic and used in hundreds of items.

  Then came the discovery of glazes which is similar to a glass coating over the pot. It was in this way that people discovered the secret to making glass. Soon people realized that they could add minerals to the glaze to change the color similarly to what they did with the clay itself and that when fired the glaze would change color. As people continued to experiment with glazes sometimes they would begin to see a bead of shiny metal form on the sides of their pots. This was the origin of smelting. Certain metals make bright colors when used in a glaze. Often when it was heated to a high temperature the metal oxides would break their bonds and pool together at the bottom. Since metal is so much heavier than its impurities, when it reaches its melting point, it runs down and joins with other molten metal. Eventually metallurgy broke off into a different art. It began with copper evolving into bronze. Soon furnaces could melt iron and steel was born.

  Long before concrete was the preferred building material people used brick. Bricks, like pottery, were once just make by packing mid into a mold and left in the sun to harden. But like early pottery these mud bricks dissolved in water so could only be used in dry arid climates. Also like pottery, they discovered that firing bricks could make it resistant to water damage. As people experimented further, concrete and mortar slowly evolved and often both were used together with bricks. Fragments of pottery and straw were used as binding agents and mortar was used to cement bricks in place. In a traditional idea that continues to this day, brick is used for facing by creating two thin parallel walls. Then a mixture of concrete and scraps of pottery and rocks are poured in the gap making a strong water resistant wall. Whereas stone once had to be cut from a quarry and transported to a site to be shaped, now stone could be molded in place. At last the day came. Pozzolana was a roman concrete based on volcanic ash. Most concretes at the time had to dry to cure but pozzolana didn’t cure by drying. It cured by a chemical reaction similar to the way plaster can dry underwater. This was one of the first great steps in concrete development. Now foundation could be poured in the water. Columns and pillars could be cast instead of cut and stacked. Modern concrete itself is not much different and follows the same type of chemical reaction. In combination with steel bracing like rebar concrete could be used to make beams and cables where stone could never be used before. The concrete protects the steel; the steel holds the concrete together.

  Very few people know this remarkable story and even fewer realize what it means to a world like ours. The foundation of our technologically based world has its origins in a hole in the ground, some fire, and a curious human. The influences of this primitive art have wormed its way into every aspect of our electronic life. So next you see a skyscraper, and see its impressive modern design of a concrete skeleton, reinforced with steel, and panned with glass, think back to the humble pot and it startling influence on a world we take for granted.

Ancient Greek Pottery

Supplies :

• Play-doh
• Clean soup can
• Black paint
• Greek Myths coloring book (has good stories and good designs)

Directions :

• Roll the play-doh out into a long rectangle, very flat.  Keep a little bit off to the side if you want to make handles.
• Wrap the play-doh around the soup can and mold it to the can.  
• Create a handle for your pot.  Mold it onto the pot.
• Have your mom put it into the oven at 100 degrees for about twenty minutes.
• After it cools, use black paint to put designs on your vase.
• Let the paint dry, then have your mom stick it in the oven for another twenty minutes.
• Now you have an antique vase!

Roman Leather Armor

My mom and I made this gladiator costume while we were studying Rome.  It can go with the Roman body armor, helmets, and shield.  We like to act out the scenes when she reads to us from We Were There with Caesar's Legions, which is a really old book, but really cool!

We're finishing our unit on Rome and are starting a unit on Greece, so I will be making lots of Greek sculptures and art in the next couple of weeks.  

Gladiator Costume Tutorial

Supplies :

• McCalls pattern M5905
• Faux leather material
• red yarn
• cardboard
• tin foil
• gold accents
• velcro

Directions :

• Following directions on pattern, cut pieces to fit.  Sew with sewing machine.  Be sure to sew pieces together correctly the first time, as seam-ripping with this material is difficult and leaves large holes!

• Using velcro, finish belt and helmet straps.  We made two settings for each, so that both boys would be able to use the costume.

• The pattern called for feathers, but we found these very difficult to use and came up with this idea instead.  It worked well, and was considerably cheaper.  Cut a piece of cardboard to fit within the top helmet pieces.  Glue red yarn pieces across both sides to create the red headdress.  Once glue is dry, carefully stitch piece into leather sides with a large sewing needle.

Roman Soldier : Shields and Helmets

Roman Solider Costume :  Shields

Supplies :

• cardboard (about a box)
• paper
• invisible tape
• exacto knife 

Directions :

• Cut one box until its about 3 feet high and 1 1/4 feet wide for a soldiers shield. Then cover the surface with paper. There are two different types of roman shields ,soldier and legionary(see photo).  
• For the legionary shield make it about 7 foot perimeter and for shape see picture  above. 

You can see my tutorial for the helmet / arm guards and body armor at these two posts.

Roman Solider Costume :  Helmet & Leg Guards

Helmet

Supplies :

• cardboard (about 2 boxes)
• aluminum foil
• invisible tape
• exact-o knife 

Directions :

• Cut a piece of cardboard about as round as your head.
• Cut long narrow triangle down it as shown.

Leg Guard 

Supplies:

• cardboard
• exact-o knife
• aluminum foil
• brown yarn

Directions:

•  Cut the into a sort of rectangular type shape.
• Cover it with the shinier side of the  aluminum foil.
• Poke a hole in the top and bottom corners and tie brown yarn into the holes.

You can see my tutorial for the shield and Body armor at these two posts.

Roman Soldier : Helmet & Leg Guards

Roman Solider Costume :  Helmet & Leg Guards

Helmet

Supplies :

• cardboard (about 2 boxes)
• aluminum foil
• invisible tape
• exact-o knife 

Directions :

• Cut a piece of cardboard about as round as your head.
• Cut long narrow triangle down it as shown.

Leg Guard 

Supplies:

• cardboard
• exact-o knife
• aluminum foil
• brown yarn

Directions:

•  Cut the into a sort of rectangular type shape.
• Cover it with the shinier side of the  aluminum foil.
• Poke a hole in the top and bottom corners and tie brown yarn into the holes.

You can see my tutorial for the shield and Body armor at these two posts.

Roman : Laurel Wreath

How to Make a Roman Laurel Wreath

Supplies :

• Glue
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Construction Paper
• Ruler

Directions :

• Make a leaf template.
• Cut out paper leaves about an inch 1/2 long and 2/3 an inch wide.
• Glue the leaves overlapped like roof tiles.
• Then do this half way around, then do the other half facing the opposite direction.