What does the excavated workers' settlement at Giza suggest about the pyramid builders?

They were organised Egyptian work crews who were fed and housed

They were foreign slaves captured in war

They were criminals serving sentences

They were priests of the royal funerary cult

A sealed pit beside the Great Pyramid, opened in 1954, was found to contain what?

A dismantled full-size wooden boat

New Kingdom pharaohs gave up pyramids in favour of what kind of tomb?

Rock-cut tombs hidden in a desert valley

Mudbrick tombs inside temple walls

Shafts sunk beneath their palaces

Open stone sarcophagi in the desert

How is this quiz scored?

Every correct answer adds to your score, and there is no penalty for a wrong one. Your result is shown at the end with a full review of each question.

Do I need an account to play?

No. Every quiz is free and playable without signing in. An account is optional and only used to save your progress across devices.

Are explanations included?

Yes. Every question is followed by a short explanation of why the correct answer is right, so the quiz is useful whether you score well or not.

Ancient Egypt Hard ⚡ 10 Questions ⏱️ ~8 Mins +100 XP

Building the Pyramids

Q: Can I retake this quiz?

Yes. You can replay any quiz as many times as you like, and the questions and answer options are reshuffled each time.

The pyramids are less mysterious than they are enormous. Ten questions on how they were laid out, what they were made of, and who did the lifting.

Start Quiz

Questions

~8m

Duration

Hard

Difficulty

+100

Max XP

About this topic

Pyramid building was a short, intense phase of Egyptian history. The serious ones went up over about five centuries in the Old Kingdom, and by the New Kingdom the whole idea had been dropped in favour of hidden rock-cut tombs. Everything in between is a story of engineers learning on the job, sometimes visibly, as the Bent Pyramid shows. Much of what we now know comes from unglamorous archaeology rather than the monuments themselves: bakeries, rubbish tips, gang graffiti and a workers' cemetery. That evidence has quietly demolished the older picture of slave armies driven by whips, and replaced it with something more like a state construction project.

Questions & answers

Building the Pyramids: all 10 questions and answers

Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.

Play it instead

Show all answers and explanationsHide answers

1The Bent Pyramid at Dahshur, which changes angle partway up, was built for which king?
- A Menkaure
- B Sneferu Correct
- C Djoser
- D Khufu
Answer: B. Sneferu

Why: The builders reduced the slope from roughly 54 degrees to about 43 partway through, most likely because the structure was showing signs of strain. Sneferu is credited with more than one large pyramid and moved more stone than any other Egyptian king.
2The three main pyramids at Giza were built for Khufu, Khafre and which third king?
- A Menkaure Correct
- B Djedefre
- C Userkaf
- D Shepseskaf
Answer: A. Menkaure

Why: Menkaure's pyramid is much the smallest of the three, standing around 65 metres against Khufu's original 146. Its lower courses were faced with granite brought hundreds of kilometres downriver from Aswan.
3What was the outer casing of the Great Pyramid made of?
- A Granite
- B Sandstone
- C Basalt
- D Fine white limestone Correct
Answer: D. Fine white limestone

Why: The casing came from quarries at Tura on the east bank of the Nile and would have made the finished pyramid gleam. Most of it was stripped away in the medieval period and reused for building in Cairo.
4Roughly how tall was the Great Pyramid when it was finished?
- A About 210 metres
- B About 265 metres
- C About 146 metres Correct
- D About 92 metres
Answer: C. About 146 metres

Why: It stood around 146 metres and is now closer to 138 after the loss of its casing and capstone. It remained the tallest structure built by human beings for something like 3,800 years.
5What does the excavated workers' settlement at Giza suggest about the pyramid builders?
- A They were priests of the royal funerary cult
- B They were organised Egyptian work crews who were fed and housed Correct
- C They were foreign slaves captured in war
- D They were criminals serving sentences
Answer: B. They were organised Egyptian work crews who were fed and housed

Why: Digging at the workers' town and cemetery turned up bakeries, breweries, fish stores and evidence of medical treatment for broken bones. Graffiti left in the monuments records the names of individual gangs, one of them calling itself the friends of Khufu.
6What stone lines the King's Chamber inside the Great Pyramid?
- A Granite Correct
- B Alabaster
- C Marble
- D Basalt
Answer: A. Granite

Why: The chamber is built of massive granite blocks quarried at Aswan, roughly 800 kilometres to the south. Five hollow relieving chambers sit above it to spread the weight of the masonry overhead.
7Egyptian pyramids were almost always built on which side of the Nile?
- A The east bank
- B On islands in the river
- C On the Mediterranean coast
- D The west bank Correct
Answer: D. The west bank

Why: The west was where the sun set, so it was the side associated with the dead, and the great cemeteries cluster there. Temples for the living gods tended to be built on the east bank instead.
8Which pyramid at Giza still keeps some of its original casing near the summit?
- A Menkaure's
- B Djoser's
- C Khafre's Correct
- D Khufu's
Answer: C. Khafre's

Why: A cap of smooth limestone survives at the top of Khafre's pyramid and shows how all three once looked. Khafre's also sits on higher bedrock, which makes it look taller than Khufu's from many angles even though it is slightly smaller.
9A sealed pit beside the Great Pyramid, opened in 1954, was found to contain what?
- A A hoard of copper tools
- B A dismantled full-size wooden boat Correct
- C A store of grain
- D Sacrificed horses
Answer: B. A dismantled full-size wooden boat

Why: The pit held a cedar vessel more than 40 metres long, taken apart into more than a thousand pieces and later reassembled. Whether it ever floated or was built purely for the funeral is still argued over.
10New Kingdom pharaohs gave up pyramids in favour of what kind of tomb?
- A Rock-cut tombs hidden in a desert valley Correct
- B Mudbrick tombs inside temple walls
- C Shafts sunk beneath their palaces
- D Open stone sarcophagi in the desert
Answer: A. Rock-cut tombs hidden in a desert valley

Why: From roughly 1500 BC kings were buried in tombs cut into the rock of the Valley of the Kings, on the west bank opposite Thebes. The hope was to hide them from robbers, and it did not work in almost every case.

Read alongside this quiz

How we learned to read hieroglyphs

For fourteen centuries nobody could read ancient Egyptian. The decipherment took a broken slab, a rivalry and one correct guess.

4 min read

Frequently Asked Questions

How is scoring calculated for this quiz?

Each correct answer awards 10 XP. There is zero point penalty for incorrect guesses, encouraging learning through exploration.

Can I retake this quiz?

Yes! You can retake any quiz as many times as you like, or use the Practice Mistakes mode at the end to review questions you missed.

Are explanations provided for every question?

Absolutely. As soon as you select an option, QuizKite displays a detailed explanation card explaining why the answer is correct.

QuizKite Quality Guarantee

Every quiz on QuizKite is researched, written and fact-checked by hand against reliable references, with an explanation for each answer. Read our full Editorial Policy to learn more about our content standards.

Keep going