Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. You are an Egyptian boy (sorry ladies!) of about five years of age who wants to become a scribe. Unfortunately, you have to attend school and lots of it. Your carefree days playing along the river are over. At school you are likely to jostle elbows with students striving to become priests, another profession requiring reading and writing skills. Above the entrance to the building where you will be studying is a sign. What does it say?
2. On your first day at school, you are issued with a palette, reed pens and cakes of ink. As apprentice, you are only allowed to practice on potshards because papyrus is too expensive to waste. You receive two powdery cakes of ink that you have to mix with water. What two colours will you be using?
3. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, you listen to the teacher's instructions. If you don't pay attention, you are likely to find your backside beaten. Before you put your reed pen to the potshard in your hand, your teacher instructs you to shake a couple of ink drops to the ground. Why does he require you to do this?
4. You do not simply start scribbling hieroglyphics all over the place. The first script you have to master is hieractic, a type of shorthand hieroglyphic. You are going to spend five years copying texts, such as 'The Teaching of Amenemhat' about morality and 'The Kemyt' about grammar. However, you favourite may well turn out to be 'The Satire of the Trades,' drawn up in the Middle Kingdom period. You might even smile as you copy it out for the five hundredth time. The wise scribe Khety teaches that becoming a scribe is the very best trade to acquire. You memorize some of the benefits of the trade. What of the following can you look forward to?
5. If you attend a school in the temple of Abydos along the Nile valley or Sais in the delta, you are likely to bump into boys studying for a different trade, but also one requiring a sound knowledge of reading and writing. You might even decide to change your career and become what?
6. Years of arduous study have paid off. You are now a qualified scribe - congratulations! You are sent out with your tools into the vast administration system that keeps Egypt going. You expect to help calculate and collect taxes, estimate the harvest, write up accounts, complaints, judicial decisions, draw up wills and marriage contracts. As well as your own talent, what other factor may well influence your chance at promotion?
7. Your first assignment is in the local court. As day breaks, you set out for the whitewashed court building. A long day lies ahead listening to the complaints ranging from neighbours squabbling over stolen water to merchants charged with using false weights in the marketplace. With lawyers not yet invented, each person argue their own case before the judge. You note down the proceedings, testimony of witnesses and finally the verdict. Lastly, a young woman takes her turn, seeking a divorce from her philandering husband. What is the verdict likely to be?
8. Your next assignment is calculating the value of a property on the river bank. It is the dry season so you don't have to wade through muddy fields. Walking to and fro at your leisure, you measure the piece of land in terms of royal cubits, the length of forearm from elbow to the tip of middle finger. You scribble down the figure '100 cubit-sided square,' the basis of most area calculations. What would be the modern equivalent of a royal cubit?
9. It is harvest time. You have received a promotion and are sent out to a farmer's plot to survey the harvest and measure the size of the grain. You sit back in the shade while the farmer cuts down the ears, packs it into big baskets and whips the donkeys to deliver it to the threshing floor. After the oxen trample the sheaves and the grains are sifted, you stroll over with your pen at the ready to see if the result agrees with the estimate. Luckily for the farmer, it does and he avoids a beating. Who is the superior you report to?
10. You are promoted again and sent to a mining site to collect information about the undertaking. Although the journey there is long and hot, the assignment represents greater responsibility and you are determined to prove yourself. The manual workers toil under a relentless sun while the shouts of the overseers resound in the desert air. Luckily, you brought your own fan bearer. You listen to the reports of the overseers and learn that it is not a gold or copper mine. They don't mine for malachate or garnets. Finally, something clicks and excitedly you pen down the word 'hd' on the papyrus. Could it be your ticket to further promotion - eventually even to the palace itself? What is the meaning of the word you just wrote down?
Source: Author
sterretjie101
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor
bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.
