Finders Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mark Lehner

American archaeologist, Lehner, first went to Egypt during the 1970s, drawn to the mysteries of the land by the work of Edgar Cayce, also known as the "Sleeping Prophet". He developed the hypothesis that the initial ideas we held about the Nile civilisation could not be matched with the realities of the conditions of the Gaza Plateau.

He would spend the next thirty odd years excavating numerous objects, from those as large as buildings to ones as small as pollen spores, and delivering them to a wide range of scientific experts in an effort to get a better understanding of the way of life of those that had lived on the mighty Nile River.

Answer: Leonard Woolley

Leonard Woolley was a British archaeologist that helped usher in a new methodical approach to excavations with kept detailed records to try and better understand and reconstruct ancient history. Woolley's first excavation at Ur began in 1922 and his expedition uncovered a royal cemetery and animal sculptures, many of which would later be found in the British Museum. Woolley's contributions to archaeology were recognized by his being knighted in 1935.

Answer: Kathleen Kenyon

Regarded as one of the most influential archaeologists of the 20th century, Dame Kathleen Kenyon spent most of her time studying the "Fertile Crescent" of the Middle East. Her work in the excavations of Jericho made her famous around the globe. Her discoveries of the Neolithic (the last era of the Stone Age) cultures in this area were considered ground-breaking.

As a result of her findings, Jericho would come to be seen as one of the oldest continuously occurred settlements in history.

Answer: T. E. Lawrence

Thomas Edward Lawrence was a prolific traveller with one of his early expeditions being a 1,000 mile trek on foot through Syria exploring castles and Carchemish where dozens of sculptures were retrieved for the British government. In addition to his work as an archaeologist Lawrence was known as a prodigious writer and for his work with the British military during the Arab Revolt.

The critically acclaimed 1962 film "Lawrence of Arabia" was based on his life and it starred Peter O'Toole in the title role.

Answer: Zhao Kangmin

Zhao Kangmin was one of the archaeologists who in 1974 went to have a look at the pieces of terracotta unearthed by a few farmers in the Shaanxi province. He is officially credited with the discovery, as he was the one who, upon carefully examining them, deduced the importance of this army - to escort Emperor Qin Shi Huang into the afterlife.

He and his team pieced together the small fragments that made up the warriors and oversaw the excavation of thousands of these figures. He died in 2018, aged 81.

Answer: Arthur Evans

Evans' discovery of the palace on the Greek island of Crete helped to define the concept of the Minoan civilisation that existed throughout the East Mediterranean. Evans' achievements did not end there as he became one of the first archaeologists the Cretan scripts of both Linear A and Linear B.

He is also held in high regard for his work on Aegean civilisations during the Bronze Age in conjunction with Heinrich Schliemann. He was knighted for his services to archaeology in 1911 by King George V.

Answer: Heinrich Schliemann

In addition to his work at Troy, the German Heinrich Schliemann also led teams that explored the sites of Mycenae and Tiryns. Schliemann was an staunch believer that Homer's "Iliad" was a historical work rather than fiction and his discoveries helped give credence to this. Controversially Schliemann's team used dynamite while excavating various levels of archaeological remains at Troy possibly destroying historical artefacts in the process.

In total he would make four excavations at Troy with the last ending in the year of his death in 1890.

Answer: Stuart Struever

Struever began excavations at the site known as Koster in Greene County, Illinois in 1968 as part of a means of raising funds for his foundation through archaeological education. Their first thoughts were to research the Woodlands period and, whilst their findings were significant, these remains were found, primarily, at the surface of their digs.

They sunk a number of test pits and, in the process, discovered fourteen different horizons which went as far back as the Archaic period ("Meso-Indian period" in North America, believed to be from around 8000 to 1000 BC).

This soon became one of the largest digs in the USA, secured Struever's reputation and became the feature of numerous magazine articles and documentaries.

Answer: Athanasius Kircher

Born in Geisa, Germany in 1602, Kircher was a Jesuit scholar who was obsessed with Egyptian hieroglyphics and was credited with pioneering the study into the understanding of those mysteries. He was an inveterate inventor - he constructed the first known Aeolian harp, and a magnetic clock and proposed a universal language.

He contracted the bubonic plague (and survived!) and examined microorganisms under a microscope, inventing the germ theory of disease. Though not universally popular and, with many of his theories forbidden, his teaching and extensive writings have recently been re-examined, with the conclusion that he was one of the greatest thinkers of his or any age.

Answer: Howard Carter

Colloquially known as "King Tut", Tutankhamun, the 18th Dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh, lay in rest until November, 1922, when his "intact" tomb was discovered by Howard Carter. Lord Carnarvon, who funded the search, had received permission to excavate in the "Valley of the Kings" region in 1914 but Carter, who was leading the teams, had had little joy for several years.

In 1921 Carnarvon gave the one last season to search before he called it quits. Carter switched his search back to a line of huts that had been abandoned three seasons before as not worthwhile.

After removing the huts and debris they'd still not had success and it was the accidental discovery of a stone, by their water boy, that led to the discovery of a set of steps. These steps would lead the way to the tomb.