The Land by the Nile

Question 1

When was king Menes ruling over Egypt?

Answer 1

It was 3100 BC (5100 years ago).

Question 2

Who was ruling over Egypt during 3100 BC?

Answer 2

King Menes.

Question 3

What country was king Menes ruling over?

Answer 3

Egypt.

Question 4

What would you ask if you wanted to know exactly where Egypt is located?

Answer 4

A swallow.

Question 5

Why would you ask a swallow where Egypt is located?

Answer 5

Every autumn, when it gets cold, swallows fly south. Over the mountains to Italy and on across a little stretch of sea and then they’re in Africa, in the part that lies nearest to Europe. Egypt is close by.

Question 6

Over the mountains to ______ and on across a little stretch of ____ and then they’re in ____, in the part that lies nearest to ____.

Answer 6

Italy,
Sea,
Africa,
Europe.

Question 7

Egypt doesn’t get a lot of rain, but why don’t they seem to find that a problem?

Answer 7

The Nile flows right through the middle of the country, from one end to the other. Twice a year, when heavy rain filled its sources, the river would swell and burst its banks, flooding the whole land.

Question 8

What were people forced to do when the land was found flooded?

Answer 8

People were forced to take boats to move among the houses and the palm trees.

Question 9

What happens when the water is all withdrawn ?

Answer 9

When the waters withdrew, the earth was wonderfully drenched and rich with oozing mud.

Question 10

Where did the grain grow?

Answer 10

Under the hot sun, the grain grew as it did nowhere else.

Question 11

What did the Egyptians worship?

Answer 11

The Egyptians worshiped the Nile as if it were God himself.

Question 12

Why were the Egyptians singing to their river?

Answer 12

They were thanking the Nile because it helped their land grow rich and powerful.

Question 13

What were the Egyptian Kings called?

Answer 13

They were called Pharaohs.

Question 14

Describe Pharaohs.

Answer 14

A pharaoh was immensely powerful. He lived in a great stone palace with massive pillars and many courtyards, and his word was law. All the people of Egypt had to work hard for him if he ordered.

Question 15

Who was another pharaoh?

Answer 15

Another pharaoh was King Cheops, who lived in about 2500 BC.

Question 16

What did King Cheops want?

Answer 16

He wanted a building like a mountain, and he got it.

Question 17

What was the name of King Cheops building?

Answer 17

The Great Pyramid of Cheops.

Question 18

Describe how big the Great Pyramid of Cheops was.

Answer 18

It was so big a cathedral would fit comfortably inside. Clambering up its huge stone blocks is like scaling a mountain peak.

Question 19

Who piled these gigantic stones?

Answer 19

It was human beings who piled those gigantic stones on top of each other. They had to pull and shove every single block by hand.

Question 20

What did the Kings overseer do?

Answer 20

The king’s overseer was sure to drive them on with his hippopotamus-skin whip, as they dragged and heaved those immense loads, all for their king’s tomb.

Question 21

Why did the pharaoh build such gigantic tombs?

Answer 21

It was all part of his religion.

Question 22

Who was the sun god?

Answer 22

The sun god, Amon, was a special god.

Question 23

Who ruled the Kingdom of the dead?

Answer 23

The Kingdom of the Dead had its own god, Anubis, and he had a jackal’s head.

Question 24

What did the pharaohs have in common?

Answer 24

Each pharaoh, they believed, was a son of the sun god, which explains why they feared him so much and obeyed all his commands.

Question 25

What did the Egyptians do in order of their gods?

Answer 25

In honor of their gods they chiseled majestic stone statues, as tall as a five-storey house, and built temples as big as towns. In front of the temples, they set tall pointed stones, cut from a single block of granite. These are called obelisks.

Question 26

Where can you see obelisks?

Answer 26

In some of our own cities you can still see obelisks that people brought back from Egypt. There’s one in London by the Thames.

Question 27

What animal was scared in Egypt?

Answer 27

Cas.

Question 28

What is the Sphinx?

Answer 28

The creature we know as the Sphinx, which has a human head on a lion’s body, was a very powerful god.

Question 29

What does the Sphinx do?

Answer 29

The Sphinx has been guarding the tombs of the pharaohs for more than five thousand years.

Question 30

What was the Egyptians most important part of their religion?

Answer 30

The most important part of the Egyptians’ strange religion was their belief that, although a man’s soul left his body when he died, for some reason the soul went on needing that body, and would suffer if it crumbled into dust.

Question 31

What did the Egyptians event?

Answer 31

They invented a very ingenious way of preserving the bodies of the dead.

Question 32

Who invented a very ingenious way of preserving the bodies of the dead.

Answer 32

The Egyptians.

Question 33

What did The Egyptians do to preserve the body's?

Answer 33

They rubbed them with ointments and the juices of certain plants, and bandaged them with long strips of cloth so that they wouldn’t decay.

Question 34

What is the name process of a body being preserved?

Answer 34

A body preserved in this manner is called a mummy.

Question 35

Where were the mummies placed?

Answer 35

A mummy was placed inside a coffin made of wood, the wooden coffin in one of stone, and the stone one buried, not in the earth, but in a tomb that was chiseled out of the rock.

Question 36

What would have happened if you were rich?

Answer 36

If you were rich and powerful like King Cheops, “Son of the Sun,” a whole stone mountain would be made for your tomb.

Question 37

What was a tomb intended for?

Answer 37

A tomb was intended to be a dwelling for the soul when it returned to visit its body.

Question 38

Why did they put food, furniture and clothes in the tombs?

Answer 38

A tomb was intended to be a dwelling for the soul when it returned to visit its body. For this reason they put in food and furniture and clothes.

Question 39

How were bodies shown?

Answer 39

Bodies are shown from the front and hands and feet from the side, so they look as if they have been ironed flat.

Question 40

What did the Egyptians do?

Answer 40

They used great nets to catch ducks on the Nile, they paddled their boats and fished with long spears, they pumped water into ditches to irrigate the fields, they drove their cows and goats to pasture, they threshed grain, made shoes and clothes, blew glass, they shaped bricks and built houses.

Question 41

What could you have seen in noblemen's tombs?

Answer 41

In noblemen’s tombs we can see embassies arriving from abroad, laden with tribute, and the king rewarding faithful ministers with decorations.

Question 42

How does the long-dead noblemen prayer go?

Answer 42

Their arms raised before the statues of their gods, or holding banquets in their houses, with singers plucking harps, and clowns performing somersaults.

Question 43

What do you often see next to these brightly colored paintings?

Answer 43

Next to these brightly colored paintings you often see lots of tiny pictures of all sorts of things, such as owls and little people, flags, flowers, tents, beetles, and vases, together with zigzag lines and spirals, all jumbled up together.

Question 44

What are the brightly colored paintings called?

Answer 44

They aren’t pictures, they are hieroglyphs—or “sacred signs”—the Egyptian form of writing.

Question 45

How did the Egyptians feel about their writings?

Answer 45

The Egyptians were immensely proud of their writing—indeed, they were almost in awe of it. And of all professions, that of scribe was the most highly esteemed.

Question 46

What would they do if they wanted to write the name of their god?

Answer 46

If they wanted to write the name of their god, Osiris, they would draw a throne, which was pronounced “Oos,” and an eye, which was pronounced “iri,” so that the two together made “Os-iri.” And to make sure that no one thought they meant “Throne-eye,” they often drew a little flag beside it, which meant that person was a god.

Question 47

What did Christians draw next to someone's name to indicate that they were dead?

Answer 47

Christians used to draw a cross after a name, if they wanted to show that the person was dead.

Question 48

What was the stone called?

Answer 48

It’s called the Rosetta Stone—in the British Museum in London.

Question 49

Where was the Rosetta Stone found?

Answer 49

The British Museum in London.

Question 50

Where does the word "paper" come from?

Answer 50

The Greek name for these reeds is papyrus, from which our name for paper comes.