Our Rosetta S[croll]

Hey Carpe Diem! This is a little report of the Rosetta Stone project from the Asia region. After reading some of the blogs about those who did the stone engravings, I feel like ours was a bit easier to complete. Maybe that just means we had a more advanced civilization!

I had the opportunity to work with Shuan and Montana from group 8 and Alicia from group 6. We represented countries such as China, Cambodia, and Japan. The medium that we were originally going for was rice paper. This was a traditional medium used by Asian civilizations and is made from parts of the rice plant stem. My rice garden just froze over last week, so weren't able to do that one. Instead, we decided to go with bamboo.



As we worked on our project, we quickly found why bamboo was such a popular and advantageous medium for writing. It is extremely light and portable. The scrolls that we used for our project were 19x14 inches and it couldn't have weighed more than a pound or two. A piece of sheet rock that size would not be as friendly. The method of painting on the bamboo is extremely convenient and easy as well. There are no hammers or chisels required. Just some paint and a brush. However, with portability, as you might imagine, comes a decrease in durability.



As Alicia described to the class last week, bamboo scrolls were often given as gifts to friends and children. The sayings on the scroll often resemble advice and counsel to those on the receiving end and that is what we modeled ours after. Our group was each responsible for different parts of the transcribing, translating, and production of the bamboo scroll.



Many learning outcomes can be drawn out of this project. The historical aspect of our class came out as we were able to replicate an ancient artifact that would have been accurate for the time period we were studying. What a great opportunity it was to learn how the ancient Asian, Mayan, or other cultures kept their records. It definitely made me appreciate typing on my computer a bit more! We also hit communicating knowledge right on the head. As each group presented their medium I was impressed with how different civilizations adapted to their environment and made use of nature to help them keep records. Stone, plant leaves, bamboo, clay, etc. It was fun to search these things out and learn how knowledge was communicated in different parts of the world in different time periods. Finally, as we shared our thoughts and ideas about how we as groups were going to tackle this project, learned a great deal about civilizations other than our own. This project was perfect in terms of incorporating the learning outcomes into our unit assessment....and it was FUN!