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LEICESTERSHIRE YOUNG ARCHAEOLOGISTS’ CLUB
ALL ABOUT ANCIENT EGYPT
Test your knowledge with these 10 questions about Ancient Egypt
1. Most of Egypt is desert, so people living there depended on a river for water to drink and grow
their crops. What is the name of this river?
o
o
o
o
Tigris
Amazon
Jordan
Nile
2. The ancient Egyptians were ruled by kings who were called pharaohs. There was one pharaoh
named Hatshepsut. What was unusual about Hatshepsut?
o
o
o
o
Hatshepsut was not an Egyptian
Hatshepsut was very tall
Hatshepsut did not want to be pharaoh
Hatshepsut was a woman
3. One early pharaoh named Khufu wanted to build himself the greatest tomb the world had ever
seen. Even though it was built over 4,500 years ago, it is still standing. It has sloping sides that come
to a point at the top. What is it called?
o
o
o
o
The Great Square
The Great Pyramid
Khufu's Masterpiece
The Really Big Tomb
4. The ancient Egyptians enjoyed eating, just like we do. If you had lived in ancient Egypt, which of
these foods might you have eaten?
o
o
o
o
Cheese
Chocolate
Spaghetti
French fries
5. The Egyptians had a special way of writing that involved pictures called hieroglyphs. For a long
time, no one could read this writing. Then something was discovered that allowed hieroglyphs to
be translated. What was it?
o
o
o
o
A dictionary
The Amarna Tablet
The Book of the Dead
The Rosetta Stone
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LEICESTERSHIRE YOUNG ARCHAEOLOGISTS’ CLUB
6. Is ancient Egypt mentioned in the Bible?
o
o
Yes
No
7. The Egyptians had a substance a lot like paper that they used to write on. It was made from plants
and used to record all kinds of things, like medical treatments, legal records, and even stories. What
do we call this ancient Egyptian invention?
o
o
o
o
Vellum
Cardboard
Parchment
Papyrus
8. The ancient Egyptians believed that it was important to preserve the body after death. It would
be dried out, rubbed with spices and ointments, and wrapped in linen bandages. What are these
dead Egyptians called?
o
o
o
o
Vampires
Mummies
Dummies
Creepies
9. Perhaps the most famous pharaoh is one who became king when he was only about nine years
old, and died when he was around 18. His tomb was found in 1922 by a man named Howard Carter,
and today he is famous all over the world. What is this pharaoh's name?
o
o
o
o
Farouk
Ramses the Great
King Tutankhamun
The Scorpion King
10. The ancient Egyptian civilization lasted for thousands of years, but eventually it came to an end.
The last pharaoh was not a man, but a woman. She is said to have ended her life by letting a snake
bite her when her army was defeated by the Romans. What was her name?
o
o
o
o
Sobekneferu
Nefertiti
Nefertari
Cleopatra
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LEICESTERSHIRE YOUNG ARCHAEOLOGISTS’ CLUB
ANSWERS
1. Nile
The Nile is the world's longest river. It flows throughout the entire length of Egypt. The ancient
Egyptians were so dependent on this river that Egypt is sometimes called "the gift of the Nile." Each
year the Nile would flood and deposit rich soil along its banks. If it did not flood, people could not grow
enough food and sometimes did not have enough to eat.
2. Hatshepsut was a woman
The Egyptians considered their pharaoh to be a living god. They were so in awe of him that they did
not even call him by his name or titles. Pharaoh comes from two Egyptian words that mean "great
house," because the pharaoh lived in a palace.
Hatshepsut was not the first woman pharaoh, and she was not the last, but she was one of the most
famous. When her husband, Thutmose II, died, Hatshepsut's half-brother, Thutmose III, should have
become pharaoh, but he was still a young boy. Hatshepsut decided to proclaim herself pharaoh. Since
the Egyptians were used to being ruled by men, Hatshepsut would often dress like a man, and even
wore a false beard!
Hatshepsut enjoyed a long and peaceful reign, and built many beautiful temples and monuments. After
she died, however, her statues were destroyed and her name erased from many monuments. It is still
not known for certain when or why this happened. It might have been because she was not regarded
as a rightful ruler, or it might have been just because the Egyptians did not want to remember that
they had once been ruled by a female pharaoh.
3. The Great Pyramid
Khufu began building his tomb, or pyramid, around 2550 BC (nobody knows the exact date). It was the
biggest structure anyone had ever built. The Great Pyramid contains over 2,300,000 limestone blocks,
and each block weighs over two tons. It was originally 481 feet (146.5 meters) high, and was the tallest
structure on earth for over 3,800 years. It is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Other
pharaohs built pyramids as well, but none was as large or grand as the Great Pyramid.
4. Cheese
The ancient Egyptians did not enjoy many of the foods we take for granted today. For example, they
could not have eaten chocolate, French fries, or spaghetti because they did not know about these
foods. They did, however, eat many things that are familiar to us, such as bread, cheese and fish.
5. The Rosetta Stone
For a long time, no one could read Egyptian writing. Then a large stone was found that had an
inscription in both Greek and hieroglyphs. It was called the Rosetta Stone because it was found near a
village called Rosetta. A man named Jean-François Champollion used the Rosetta Stone's inscriptions
to make the first translation of ancient Egyptian writing. Today the Rosetta Stone is in the British
Museum in London.
Hieroglyphs are written in the form of pictures. Some stand for entire words, and others stand for
sounds, like the letters of our alphabet. One strange thing about hieroglyphs is that until very late in
Egyptian history, only the consonants were written, so scientists have to guess what the vowels were.
Hieroglyphs were last used for writing around 400 AD.
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LEICESTERSHIRE YOUNG ARCHAEOLOGISTS’ CLUB
6. Yes
Egypt is mentioned many times in the Bible. The most famous story about Egypt in the Bible is in
Exodus. The Egyptians were a strong military power and conquered many smaller countries, including
Israel. The Bible tells us that the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites, and forced them to work building
their cities, until Moses freed them and led them out of Egypt. No one is sure who the cruel pharaoh in
Exodus was. Many different rulers have been mentioned. Other Bible stories that mention Egypt
include that of Joseph, who was sold as a slave by his brothers and became a powerful official in the
Egyptian government; and in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles we read that a pharaoh named Shishak
conquered Jerusalem and carried off its treasures. Shishak is believed to be the Pharaoh Sheshonk I
who ruled from 943 to 922 BC. Later, when the cruel King Herod ordered all the young boys in
Bethlehem to be killed, Joseph and Mary took the baby Jesus to Egypt for safety.
7. Papyrus
Papyrus is actually a Greek word, from which we get our word "paper." The ancient Egyptians called it
"djed" or "tjufi." Papyrus was a plant that grew in marshy areas; to make papyrus, the outer part of
the plant was removed, and the inner part was cut into strips. Two layers of strips were laid across
each other at right angles while they were still wet, and a heavy weight, such as a stone, was placed
on top of them. After about 21 days the weight was removed, and they had something like a sheet of
paper that they could write on. Sometimes the surface was smoothed out by rubbing it with a round
rock or pebble. Several pages of papyrus were often glued together to make a longer strip, which could
be rolled up to form a scroll. Papyrus was very fragile, but because the climate of Egypt is very dry,
many documents written on papyrus have survived for thousands of years.
8. Mummies
Not just kings and queens were turned into mummies! Every Egyptian wanted to be mummified after
they died, because they believed this was necessary for them to enjoy their afterlife. There were
different kinds of mummification procedures, depending on how much a person could pay. It was an
expensive process, and took up to 70 days to make a mummy. But some bodies are still wonderfully
preserved after thousands of years. Kings and queens, of course, got the best treatment, and were
buried in large and beautifully decorated tombs. Poorer people were often buried together in mass
tombs; some tombs have been found that contain over 10,000 mummies! The very poorest people,
who could not afford any form of mummification, would often bury their loved ones in the desert,
hoping that the dry sand would preserve them. By the way, mummies don't really come back to life the
way they do in some movies!
9. King Tutankhamun
Each Egyptian pharaoh had many names; King Tutankhamun's (Tut's) full name was Kanakht Tutmesut
Neferhepusegerehtawy Werahamun Nebrdjer Wetjeskhausehetepnetjeru Heqamaatsehetepnetjeru
Wetjeskhauitefre Wetjeskhautjestawyim Nebkheperure Tutankhamun Hekaiunushema. No wonder
we just call him King Tut, or Tutankhamun! Tutankhamun means "the living image of Amun." Amun
was the name of an Egyptian god. Actually, when he was born his name was Tutankhaten. His name
was changed later when people stopped worshiping the sun disc, or Aten, and returned to worshiping
Amun, whose worship had been forbidden by Tut's father.
At the time when King Tut ruled Egypt the pharaohs were buried in a place called the Valley of the
Kings on the west bank of the Nile river. Their tombs were all robbed in ancient times by thieves who
wanted the magnificent treasures buried along with the pharaohs. If you were caught robbing a tomb
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LEICESTERSHIRE YOUNG ARCHAEOLOGISTS’ CLUB
in ancient Egypt, you would be put to death, but the tombs, with the exception of King Tut's, were all
robbed anyway. King Tut's tomb survived more or less intact because a later king built his tomb nearby,
and the the stone chips that were carved out by workers building his tomb fell and covered up the
entrance to Tut's tomb. King Tut was a relatively minor pharaoh, but his tomb still contained hundreds
of precious golden objects, including a solid gold coffin weighing hundreds of pounds. No wonder the
thieves took such great risks to steal the pharaohs' treasures.
10. Cleopatra
Alexander the Great had conquered Egypt in 332 BC. After his death, one of his generals, a man named
Ptolemy, declared himself pharaoh, and his family ruled Egypt for hundreds of years. Cleopatra was
the last of his descendants.
In 47 BC, Julius Caesar led a Roman invasion of Egypt, but Cleopatra charmed him into marrying her,
even though he already had a wife in Rome. They had a son named Caesarion, and she remained
pharaoh. After Caesar was killed, she married Marc Antony, another Roman. A civil war broke out
between Marc Antony and Caesar's nephew, Octavian. Antony and Cleopatra's forces were defeated.
Rather than be made a prisoner and taken to Rome, she allowed herself to be bitten by a poisonous
snake and died in 30 BC. Octavian had her son Caesarion put to death, and there were no more
pharaohs after her. Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire.
Quiz courtesy of www.funtrivia.com