Ancient Civilizations

Question: What word means "of the Middle Ages"?

Answer: "Medieval" comes from the Latin phrase medium aevum, meaning "middle ages." This is the period between antiquity and the modern era.

Question: Which metal is associated with the end of the Stone Age?

Answer: The Bronze Age, marking the beginnings of metallurgy, followed the Stone Age.

Question: Which of these was not an ancient Phoenician deity?

Answer: The chief gods of the Phoenician religion were the god Baal and the goddess Astarte. In times of great difficulty, human sacrifices were offered to the god Moloch.

Question: Where did the ancient Phoenicians live?

Answer: Phoenicia was located on a narrow strip of the Syrian coast. The area now includes Lebanon and parts of Syria and Israel.

Question: Which was not an achievement of ancient Egyptians?

Answer: The ancient Egyptians developed a highly sophisticated understanding of mathematics and architecture, and an effective system of medicine. They were not known, however, to play golf.

Question: Who colonized Tunisia in ancient times?

Answer: In ancient times Tunisia was a colony of the Phoenicians, a people from what is now Lebanon. About the 800s BCE, the Phoenicians founded Carthage in the area of what is now Tunis.

Question: The Stone Age is called that because of its:

Answer: The Stone Age carries that name because archaeologists discovered great numbers of stone tools in association with that period of human prehistory.

Question: Which of these is an early period in the Bronze Age?

Answer: The Chalcolithic Period, or Copper Age, is an early stage of the Bronze Age. During that time, humans are believed to have invented the wheel and domesticated horses.

Question: What structure was built during the Old Kingdom in Egypt?

Answer: The Sphinx, or The Great Sphinx of Giza, is a limestone statue depicting a mythical creature with a lion’s body and a human head. It was built during the Old Kingdom of Egypt, a period lasting from about 2700–2200 BC.

Question: Which of these was not an ancient Phoenician city?

Answer: The main cities of Phoenicia were Sidon, Tyre, and Berot (modern Beirut).