Pharaohs, Pyramids and Egypt Gods – answers and explanations
Here are the answers to all 15 questions in the Pharaohs, Pyramids and Egypt Gods quiz, each with a short explanation. Journey along the Nile through pyramids, mummies and mighty gods. Haven't played yet? Take the quiz first and compare your score.
Play the quiz · 15 questions1. The Great Sphinx at Giza has the body of which animal?
Answer: A lion
The Great Sphinx of Giza is a recumbent lion with a human head wearing a royal nemes headdress, carved from limestone bedrock around 2500 BC, most likely during the reign of King Khafre, whose face it is thought to show.
2. Which jackal-headed god was believed to watch over mummification and the dead?
Answer: Anubis
Anubis, shown as a jackal or jackal-headed man, was the Egyptian god of embalming and guardian of cemeteries, and he features in Book of the Dead scenes weighing the heart against the feather of Maat. Horus was falcon-headed, Thoth ibis-headed and Sobek crocodile-headed.
3. Which familiar language on the Rosetta Stone was the key to decoding hieroglyphs?
Answer: Ancient Greek
The Rosetta Stone carries the same decree of Ptolemy V from 196 BC in hieroglyphs, Demotic and ancient Greek; because scholars could read Greek, it provided the key that led Jean-Francois Champollion to announce his decipherment in 1822.
4. Which pharaoh had the four giant seated statues at Abu Simbel carved?
Answer: Ramesses II
The Great Temple at Abu Simbel, cut into a Nubian cliff around 1264 BC for Ramesses II, is fronted by four seated colossi of the king about 20 metres high. The temples were moved uphill in the 1960s to escape the rising waters behind the Aswan High Dam.
5. During mummification, which organ was normally left inside the body?
Answer: The heart
Embalmers usually left the heart in place because it was considered the seat of intelligence and character and had to be weighed against the feather of truth in the afterlife; the brain was pulled out through the nose and discarded, while liver, lungs, stomach and intestines went into canopic jars.
6. Which female ruler of Egypt was often depicted wearing a king's false beard?
Answer: Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt as king around 1473-1458 BC, had herself portrayed with full pharaonic regalia including kilt, headcloth and false beard, following artistic convention for kingship rather than attempting to appear male.
7. Whose tomb, found nearly intact by Howard Carter in 1922, held a gold death mask?
Answer: Tutankhamun
Howard Carter found Tutankhamun's largely intact tomb (KV62) in the Valley of the Kings in November 1922; the solid gold mask inlaid with lapis lazuli covered the mummy's head inside the innermost coffin.
8. The Nile's yearly flood left behind what, making farmland fertile?
Answer: Rich black silt
The Nile's annual inundation spread a layer of dark, nutrient-rich silt over the floodplain, which is why Egyptians called their land Kemet, the 'black land'. The yearly flood ended in 1970 with the Aswan High Dam.
9. Which Egyptian god was ruler of the underworld and judge of the dead?
Answer: Osiris
Osiris ruled the Duat, the Egyptian underworld, and judged the dead in the Hall of Two Truths; murdered by his brother Set and revived by Isis, his main cult centre was at Abydos.
10. The vast temple complex of Karnak stands beside which modern Egyptian city?
Answer: Luxor
The Karnak temple complex lies on the east bank of the Nile at modern Luxor, the site of ancient Thebes, and is linked to Luxor Temple about 3 km south by the Avenue of Sphinxes.
11. The Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest of the three, was built as a tomb for whom?
Answer: Khufu (Cheops)
The Great Pyramid of Giza was built around 2600 BC as the tomb of Khufu, known to the Greeks as Cheops, the second king of Egypt's Fourth Dynasty. The Egyptians called it Akhet Khufu, 'Khufu's Horizon', and it stood about 146 metres tall.
12. What were the special jars called that held organs removed during mummification?
Answer: Canopic jars
Canopic jars held the lungs, liver, stomach and intestines removed during mummification, each guarded by one of the Four Sons of Horus whose heads appear on the lids. The heart was usually left in the body, as it was thought to be the seat of the soul.
13. Ancient Egyptians made paper-like sheets for writing from which Nile plant?
Answer: Papyrus reed
Sheets for writing were made from the pith of Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge once abundant in the Nile Delta; strips were layered crosswise, pressed and dried. The English word 'paper' derives from papyrus, used in Egypt from about 3000 BC.
14. After Julius Caesar's death, Cleopatra VII allied herself with which Roman leader?
Answer: Mark Antony
After Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, Cleopatra VII became the ally and lover of Mark Antony, who summoned her to Tarsus in 41 BC. Their partnership ended with defeat by Octavian at Actium in 31 BC and their suicides the next year.
15. In Egyptian myth, the goddess Isis was the devoted wife of which god?
Answer: Osiris
Isis was the sister and wife of Osiris; when Set murdered him she gathered his body and revived him long enough to conceive their son Horus. The story made her a goddess of magic, motherhood and funerary protection.