Easy
Ancient Egypt
Pharaohs & Pyramids
Monuments, rulers and the writing we spent centuries decoding.
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The Great Pyramid at Giza was built as a tomb for which pharaoh?
Writing, Work & Daily Life
Away from the kings and the gods, Egypt left an unusually detailed record of ordinary life. Ten questions on how people wrote, worked, drank and passed the time.
About this topic
Egypt is one of the few ancient societies where you can read the complaints. Dry conditions preserved not just monuments but shopping lists, court records, love poems, school exercises and letters from workmen arguing about pay. The village of Deir el-Medina, home to the men who cut the royal tombs, has given up thousands of these scraps. What they show is a working society with a calendar built around the river, a diet built around bread and beer, and a bureaucracy that wrote everything down. The questions here lean on that everyday material rather than the tomb treasures.
Questions & answers
Writing, Work & Daily Life: 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.
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1Egyptian writing sheets were made from what?
- A Stretched animal skin
- B Woven flax cloth
- C Pounded palm bark
- D The stem of the papyrus plant Correct
Answer: D. The stem of the papyrus plant
Why: Strips cut from the papyrus stem were laid in two crossed layers and pressed together into a sheet. The English word paper comes from papyrus, although true paper is made in a completely different way.
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2Who announced the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822?
- A Giovanni Belzoni
- B Flinders Petrie
- C Jean-François Champollion Correct
- D Howard Carter
Answer: C. Jean-François Champollion
Why: Champollion showed that the script mixed signs standing for sounds with signs standing for meanings, which had defeated earlier attempts. The Englishman Thomas Young had made real progress on the same problem shortly before him, and the two are often credited together.
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3Which flowing script did Egyptian scribes use for everyday documents in the Old and Middle Kingdoms?
- A Cuneiform
- B Hieratic Correct
- C Demotic
- D Coptic
Answer: B. Hieratic
Why: Hieratic is a rapid brush-written shorthand of hieroglyphs, used for letters, accounts and literature. Demotic replaced it for daily business from around 650 BC, and Coptic, written mostly in Greek letters, came later again.
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4What was the everyday drink of Egyptians at every level of society?
- A Beer Correct
- B Wine
- C Milk
- D Tea
Answer: A. Beer
Why: Barley beer was drunk daily by labourers, scribes and priests alike, and bread and beer were standard components of wage rations. It was thick and only lightly alcoholic, closer to a liquid food than a modern pint.
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5Which village housed the workmen who cut the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings?
- A Amarna
- B Abydos
- C Bubastis
- D Deir el-Medina Correct
Answer: D. Deir el-Medina
Why: The village was lived in for roughly four centuries and its rubbish heaps preserved thousands of written scraps. They include court cases, sick notes and a record of workers downing tools over late rations under Ramesses III.
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6Which board game, played on thirty squares, was popular in Egypt for thousands of years?
- A Go
- B Mancala
- C Senet Correct
- D Backgammon
Answer: C. Senet
Why: Senet boards appear in tombs from the Old Kingdom onwards and were sometimes buried with the dead. Over time the game picked up a religious meaning as a journey through the afterlife, though the exact rules have not survived.
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7Egyptian eye paint was mainly ground from which materials?
- A Burnt cork
- B Galena and malachite Correct
- C Powdered pearl
- D Crushed lapis lazuli
Answer: B. Galena and malachite
Why: Black kohl came from galena, a lead ore, and green eye paint from the copper ore malachite. As well as looking striking it cut the glare of the sun, and some researchers think it may have helped against eye infections.
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8How was the ancient Egyptian civil year divided?
- A Three seasons of four months Correct
- B Four seasons of three months
- C Two seasons of six months
- D Six seasons of two months
Answer: A. Three seasons of four months
Why: The three seasons were named for the river: inundation, the emergence of the fields, and harvest. Twelve months of thirty days gave 360, and five extra days were added at the end to reach 365.
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9What was a shaduf used for?
- A Grinding grain into flour
- B Weighing gold
- C Levelling foundations
- D Lifting water from the river into fields Correct
Answer: D. Lifting water from the river into fields
Why: A shaduf is a pivoted pole with a bucket at one end and a counterweight at the other, worked by one person. It was still in everyday use along the Nile within living memory.
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10In Egyptology, what are ostraca?
- A Wooden boards coated in wax
- B Rolls of leather kept in archives
- C Flakes of pottery or limestone used for writing and sketching Correct
- D Clay tablets sealed inside jars
Answer: C. Flakes of pottery or limestone used for writing and sketching
Why: Papyrus was expensive, so receipts, letters, drafts and doodles were scratched onto broken pottery and chips of stone. Thousands survive from Deir el-Medina alone, including artists' sketches that never made it onto a tomb wall.
Frequently asked questions about Writing, Work & Daily Life
How many questions are in Writing, Work & Daily Life?
Writing, Work & Daily Life has 10 questions and takes about 7 minutes to finish. It is rated Medium and sits in our Ancient Egypt category.
How is Writing, Work & Daily Life scored?
Each of the 10 correct answers adds 10 XP, up to 100 XP for a clean run. Wrong answers cost you nothing, and your full question-by-question review is shown at the end.
Are the answers to Writing, Work & Daily Life explained?
Yes. All 10 questions carry a written explanation of why the correct answer is right, so the quiz works as a study sheet as well as a test.
Can I replay Writing, Work & Daily Life?
Yes, as often as you like. The questions and the answer options are reshuffled on each run, and you can use Practice Mistakes afterwards to retry only the ones you missed. No account is needed to play.
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