Ancient People Throughout the World Quiz

Answer: Egyptians

Most of the people in ancient Egypt lived near the Nile River. Mud from the river bed would fertilize the land near the river, allowing the Egyptians to grow more food. The building in the upper left of the picture represents the Great Pyramid. It was built over 4,000 years ago and stands almost 500 feet high.

It serves as a tomb for the Pharaoh Khufu (also called Cheops). The lower right shows an example of the hieroglyphs used by the ancient Egyptians for writing.

Answer: Romans

The Roman Empire originated in the city-state of Rome, located in the modern country of Italy. Over the centuries, Rome's control spread over parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia. The building on the left is the Flavian Ampitheater, also known as the Colosseum.

Here, armed fight between the gladiators took place for hundreds of years. The initials "SPQR" represent a phrase in Latin (language of the Romans), "Senatus Populusque Romanus": "the Senate and People of Rome".

Answer: Sumerians

The two rivers shown on the right side of the picture are the Tigris and the Euphrates. The land between them was known as Mesopotamia ("the land between the rivers"), and thousands of years ago, the Sumerians lived in the southern part of that land.

The building on the left is a ziggurat. At the bottom of the picture are two examples of Sumerian wedge-shaped writing known as cuneiform ("ear of wheat" and "star").

Answer: Soninke (Ghana)

Located in the Sahel (the area south of the Sahara Desert), the Soninke (who later formed the Empire of Ghana) were a trading people. Access to gold fields made them a popular trading partner. The Empire of Ghana was known for its exchange of gold (element symbol Au) and salt (NaCl) at a roughly even exchange rate.

The domestication of the camel in about 300 CE would prove a very useful tool.

Answer: Greeks

The mythology of the Ancient Greeks is known worldwide. (If you have read books by Rick Riordan, you may have read an interpretation of some of these myths.) The Greek alphabet features 24 characters (including three, delta, gamma, and pi, shown here). Ideas about democracy, geometry, and philosophy, can be traced back to this people who originated in a small land on a peninsula in southeastern Europe and its surrounding islands.

Answer: Japanese

The characters in the picture from the Japanese written language mean "Nihon", the Japanese name for Japan. Although there are other islands that are part of Japan, the four "Home Islands" are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku. The building shown, a pagoda, can be found in other countries such as China, but is also associated with Japan.

There are a few pagodas in Japan that are over 1,000 years old.

Answer: Celts

The building in the upper left is Stonehenge, built what is now southern England over 4,000 years ago. While Stonehenge was probably built by the people who lived there before the Celts, the Celts did use Stonehenge for religious ceremonies. The writing in the upper right is the word "Gaelic" in the Irish language (a modern Celtic language).

The cross in the lower right is known as a Celtic cross, and represents a later period when Christianity spread amongst many Celtic groups.

Answer: Olmecs

The Olmecs are the only people in this quiz who lived in the Americas. They lived in parts of southern Mexico (the country whose outline is in the picture) and Central America over 2,000 years ago. The lower right shows the Great Pyramid at Le Venta, one of the largest structures in the Americas at the time.

The upper right shows one of the giant heads that were sculpted out of basalt stone and stood between four and twelve feet high.

Answer: Indians

The map at the center of the drawing shows the modern nation of India, with the Himalayan mountains (home of Mount Everest) highlighted. At the lower left are some of the symbols used by the Indus Valley Civilization, one of the oldest in India. The pillar on the right side is one of several that had edicts (laws) issued by Ashoka, leader of the Mauryan Empire, engraved on it.

Answer: Chinese

The Great Wall of China was under construction for hundreds of years and eventually stretched across large portions of northern China. The characters shown on the left side mean "mountain" and "sun". For thousands of years (from the time of ancient legends to the 20th century), China was ruled by a series of Emperors.

Many inventions originated in China from paper, to gunpowder, to pasta.