Ancient Egypt
Quiz by Selassie Quainoo
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- Q1
Where is the Upper Nile located?
in the southern part of Egypt
in the northern part of Egypt
to the east of the Nile Delta
on the top of the pyramids
120s - Q2
Menes was the ________.
British Egyptologist who discovered King Tut's tomb
first to unite Egypt
god of death, life and fertility
pharaoh who built the first pyramid
120s - Q3
Pharaohs had pyramids built to ________.
protect them from invaders
communicate with the gods
serve as their tombs
prevent the Nile from flooding
120s - Q4
What did archaeologists learn from the Rosetta Stone?
They learned that ancient Egyptians did not believe in an afterlife.
They learned that the pyramids were built with ramps.
They learned the location of King Tut's tomb.
They learned how to read hieroglyphics.
120s - Q5
Papyrus was made from ________.
the same cloth used to wrap mummies
silt from the Nile
reeds from the Nile
sandstone
120s - Q6
According to Egyptian mythology, in the afterlife ________.
the evil are reborn as crocodiles
the good live forever with the "lion of heaven"
the heart is weighed against the "feather of truth"
the soul is eaten by Osiris
120s - Q7
Ramses the Great was so admired that ________.
the people made him into a god
the Egyptians built him the largest pyramid
the capital city was renamed Ramses
many other pharaohs took his name
120s - Q8
Hatshepsut was ________.
a great female pharaoh
Thutmose's brother
a boy king
the first pharaoh buried in the Valley of the Kings
120s - Q9
Which of the following is a true statement?
The Nile flooded unpredictably and often destroyed the crops.
The desert, Nile and Mediterranean provided natural protection from invasion.
It was easy and safe to sail down the Nile River.
There were no farmers in ancient Egypts because of the infertile soil.
120s - Q10
A ____________ is an oval oblong figure enclosing a royal name.
pyramid
temple
cartouche
charcuterie
300s - Q11
What was the main purpose of cartouches?
it was a fashion trend; people wore it as jewelry
it was served as food for special events
it was a way to tell time
it was a name plate that helped ward off evil spirits and attract good luck
300s - Q12
Why did Egyptians mummify their dead?
The desert would have dried out the bodies very quickly.
In order for souls to exist in the afterlife, they believed their bodies had to be hidden from gods.
The soil was too hard to bury the bodies.
In order for their souls to exist in the afterlife, they believed their bodies had to be preserved.
300s - Q13
The Egyptians were some of the first people to ever write anything down. They used a system of symbols called hieroglyphics to communicate as early as 3300 BCE. There were as many as 2,000 symbols; each one represented an idea, object or even a sound. They were usually carved into stone. Some scribes made paper from papyrus reeds. They laid the reeds down and pounded them into paper, which was lighter and easier to transport than rocks. They called the paper papyrus.
For thousands of years after the end of the ancient Egyptian civilization, people couldn't read the symbols. This all changed in 1799, when archaeologists found a stone in an Egyptian town called Rosetta. This stone, now called the Rosetta Stone, has three different languages written on it. Because the same passage is written in Greek, demotic (another ancient language) and hieroglyphics, historians have been able to figure out the meaning of many hieroglyphic symbols. The stone effectively translated the language of ancient Egypt into words that historians could understand.
How did the Rosetta stone help historians understand hieroglyphics?
The people in Rosetta understood what each hieroglyphic stood for, and they shared the meanings with historians.
The stone had the same passage written in three different languages, so historians were able to translate the passage written in hieroglyphics.
The stone was an Ancient Egyptian dictionary of all of the hieroglyphics and their meanings.
Historians found piles of papyrus buried under the stone that included keys for understanding what each hieroglyphic symbol represented.
300s - Q14
Egyptians believed very strongly in an afterlife. We know from their Book of the Dead that after death, a person's soul travels to the hall of the dead. There, the dead person's heart is said to be weighed against a "feather of truth." If the heart weighed less than the feather, then it was considered a good heart. The person's soul was taken to Osiris, god of the afterlife. If the heart was heavy, though, it was said that a person was evil. That heart would be eaten by a demon that was part crocodile, part lion and part hippopotamus.
Even the pharaohs, or kings, were anxious about what happened to them after they died. They wanted to bring their favorite things with them, and they believed that in order for their soul to exist in an afterlife, their bodies must be preserved. Thus mummification was invented. They removed the internal organs and placed them in specially decorated urns called canopic jars, dried the body with special salts and oils and wrapped it with linens. And they did a good job of it: Some mummies were still whole when archaeologists opened their tombs 2,000 years later.
Which of the following is not true about mummification?
It meant that the soul didn’t have to be weighed by Osiris after death.
It was intended to preserve the body after death so the soul could continue to exist.
It involved removing organs, covering the body with salts and oils and wrapping it in linen.
It was so effective that mummified bodies are found still whole thousands of years later.
300s - Q15
Ancient Egyptian kings were called pharaohs. The first pharaoh historians know about was Menes, who ruled around 3100 BCE and is known for uniting all of the Egyptians communities. He set things up so that his family would be in power for a long time to come: He started a dynasty.
King Tut is probably the only Egyptian whose name is known to almost everyone in America. As pharaohs go, Tutankhamun (c. 1341-1323 BCE) wasn't much of one. He took the throne when he was still a boy of nine, and he died at the age of 18. He owes his legacy to British Egyptologist Howard Carter, who dug up his tomb in 1922. It was full of amazing gold and artifacts because it hadn't been looted the way so many Egyptian tombs had. Inside was a wealth of treasures and a lot of information about ancient Egyptian life. One of the men who opened King Tut's tomb with Carter died shortly thereafter, giving birth to the idea of the "curse of the mummy" that's been made into many movies since.
Why is King Tut so famous?
His mummy was the first one ever found by archaeologists.
His tomb was untouched by looters, and so was full of gold and artifacts.
He was the president of Egypt when Howard Carter found a famous tomb.
He was a great and influential pharaoh who ruled for a long time.
300s