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Quiz about Hieroglyphs Anyone
Quiz about Hieroglyphs Anyone

Hieroglyphs, Anyone? Trivia Quiz


Shedding some light on how the seemingly impossible task of deciphering them was accomplished.

A multiple-choice quiz by russalka. Estimated time: 3 mins.
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Author
russalka
Time
3 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
375,062
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
6 / 10
Plays
413
Awards
Top 10% Quiz
Last 3 plays: Guest 107 (6/10), Guest 24 (7/10), Agghost (5/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. What does the term "hieroglyphs" mean? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. Who is credited with deciphering the hieroglyphs? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. What is the original meaning of the word cartouche? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. Which cartouche, inscribed in the Rosetta Stone, was a vital key for the decipherment of the hieroglyphs? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. What do hieroglyphs consist of? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. Vowels are usually not indicated in hieroglyphic script.


Question 7 of 10
7. What is a determinative? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. Which of these languages was instrumental in hieroglyphic decipherment? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. In what direction are hieroglyphs NOT written? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. In Egyptian society, scribes were NOT: Hint



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Most Recent Scores
Mar 26 2024 : Guest 107: 6/10
Feb 17 2024 : Guest 24: 7/10
Feb 14 2024 : Agghost: 5/10

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quiz
Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. What does the term "hieroglyphs" mean?

Answer: Holy writing

The word's etymology from the Greek is: hieros = holy or sacred and gluphein = to carve or to write. They were called holy or sacred because they were mostly used in religious contexts.
2. Who is credited with deciphering the hieroglyphs?

Answer: Jean Francois Champollion

Champollion (1790-1832) possessed the ideal qualities for succeeding in the decipherment: he had an extraordinary genius for languages (Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Coptic and others), an outstanding visual memory, drawing skills, logical reasoning and finally, stubborness.
He was plagued by ill health, poor finances, political turmoil, envy and jealousy from rival scholars, but he persisted on his quest on and off for almost 23 years, until he achieved success.
3. What is the original meaning of the word cartouche?

Answer: Cartridge

Cartouche is the oval shape that encircles the names of the pharaohs. In French it means cartridge. The French soldiers who arrived in Egypt with Napoleon in 1799, noticed these oval shapes in the inscriptions on the monuments and called them cartouches because they reminded them of their ammunition.
4. Which cartouche, inscribed in the Rosetta Stone, was a vital key for the decipherment of the hieroglyphs?

Answer: Cleopatra's

The Rosetta Stone, discovered by Napoleon's soldiers, had three inscriptions in two languages, Egyptian and Greek, and three scripts: hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek. Demotic was a cursive form of hieroglyphic, from the Greek "demos" = common people.
The scholars noticed two cartouches in the hieroglyphic script, and the names of Cleopatra and Ptolemy in the Greek script. The decipherment of these two royal names was the first step on the long road ahead.
5. What do hieroglyphs consist of?

Answer: A combination of all three

Champollion's genius was to realize that hieroglyphs included all these different characters. Up to then, all the other scholars and he himself, had followed the theory that hieroglyphs were primarily ideograms, each representing a single word.
6. Vowels are usually not indicated in hieroglyphic script.

Answer: True

This posed another problem for the scholars.
The most common solution has been to insert an e for the missing vowels, so "nfr" becomes "nefer".
But we will never know how it was really pronounced by the ancient Egyptians.
This is why many names and words have different spellings. For instance, the name of the god Amun can also be spelled Amon and Amen.

The first writing system to include vowels was the Greek alphabet.
7. What is a determinative?

Answer: A clarifier

The absence of vowels could pose a problem of interpretation in some cases.
If, for example, in English we had the two letters d and r, they could read either deer or door.
In a similar situation, the Egyptians added the determinative at the end of the word, a special character that clarified whether the word represented an idea, an object, an animal or a person, as the case may be.
Determinatives have no phonetic value.
8. Which of these languages was instrumental in hieroglyphic decipherment?

Answer: Coptic

Coptic is the language still used in the liturgy of the Christian Egyptians, and had developed from demotic.
Champollion's knowledge of this language was crucial in his quest, because the Coptic language uses a Greek-type alphabet and includes vowels in the spelling.
Unfortunately, its usefulness was only limited, because it is separated from old Egyptian by over 2,000 years.
Another source are foreign languages, like Greek or Babylonian, which used vowels and sometimes furnished fully vocalized transcriptions of Egyptian words - but there are only few such instances.
9. In what direction are hieroglyphs NOT written?

Answer: From bottom to top

Ancient Egyptians liked harmony and symmetry and paid attention to the spaces they inscribed.
For instance, in a doorway, they wrote horizontally at the top, and vertically on the sides.
To decide whether to read the horizontal lines from left to right or from right to left, the heads of the living creatures represented are always turned toward the beginning of the sentence.
10. In Egyptian society, scribes were NOT:

Answer: Lower class copyists

Few people could read or write.
Long years of studying were required.
The minimum number of hieroglyphs to be learned would have been from a minimum of 200 to a maximum of 3,000.
A scribe's kit consisted of a case with reed pens, a palette with two cakes of ink, one black for normal writing, one red for titles, catchwords, etc. Also a water jar for softening the ink and a string to connect all these items together, so they could be carried over the shoulder.
Source: Author russalka

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
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