Q 01/05

What were Ottoman troops storing inside the Parthenon when a Venetian mortar round blew the temple apart in 1687?

A) Gunpowder

B) Grain stores

C) Olive oil

D) Silver coin

Answer · why

A) Gunpowder

Gunpowder wrecked a temple that had stayed basically intact for more than 2,000 years, even through its conversions into a church and a mosque.

Q 02/05

How did Greek temples such as the Parthenon originally look, in contrast to the bare white marble seen today?

A) Clad in polished bronze

B) Brightly painted

C) Covered in gold leaf

D) Faced with dark granite

Answer · why

B) Brightly painted

Brightly painted reds and blues once stood out against the white stone or stucco of a Greek temple. The idea of pure white classical buildings is a la...

Q 03/05

Which American city built a full-scale replica of the Parthenon as the centrepiece of an 1897 exposition?

A) Philadelphia

B) St. Louis

C) Nashville

D) Chicago

Answer · why

C) Nashville

Nashville called itself the 'Athens of the South', which is why the temple was chosen for Tennessee's Centennial Exposition. The replica now holds an ...

Q 04/05

The Greek gymnasium, a training ground for athletes and a place of learning, takes its name from a word meaning what?

A) Strong

B) Swift

C) Young

D) Naked

Answer · why

D) Naked

Naked is the meaning of the Greek word gymnós, because athletes trained and competed without clothes. The same buildings later hosted lectures and dis...

Q 05/05

What name is given to the sculpted female figures that stand in place of columns on the Erechtheion's porch in Athens?

A) Caryatids

B) Maenads

C) Nereids

D) Hesperides

Answer · why

A) Caryatids

Caryatids take their name from the 'maidens of Karyai', a town in the Peloponnese. Six of them carried the porch roof in Athens, and one ended up in t...