Q 01/05

Which English king's skeleton was found beneath a council car park in Leicester, more than 500 years after his death?

A) Harold Godwinson

B) Edward II

C) Richard III

D) Henry VI

Answer · why

C) Richard III

Richard III was killed at Bosworth in 1485 and hastily buried in a friary church. The bones turned up on the first day of the dig, and DNA from descen...

Q 02/05

What did farmers digging a well near the Chinese city of Xi'an stumble upon in March 1974?

A) Terracotta Army

B) Jade burial suits

C) Oracle bones

D) Peking Man fossils

Answer · why

A) Terracotta Army

The Terracotta Army stands guard beside the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor. More than 8,000 life-size clay soldiers fill three pits, and...

Q 03/05

Which slab, found by French soldiers in Egypt in 1799, repeats one priestly decree in three different scripts?

A) Palermo Stone

B) Rosetta Stone

C) Code of Hammurabi

D) Narmer Palette

Answer · why

B) Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone gave scholars a Greek text they could read beside two Egyptian scripts they could not. It was surrendered to British troops in 1801 ...

Q 04/05

Which 3.2-million-year-old skeleton, unearthed in Ethiopia in 1974, was named after a Beatles song played in camp?

A) Rita

B) Lucy

C) Michelle

D) Julia

Answer · why

B) Lucy

Lucy walked upright on two legs yet had a small, ape-like skull, evidence that walking came before big brains. The song was played loudly and repeated...

Q 05/05

Which crime novelist spent months each year on digs in Iraq and Syria with her archaeologist husband, Max Mallowan?

A) Agatha Christie

B) Dorothy L. Sayers

C) Ngaio Marsh

D) Daphne du Maurier

Answer · why

A) Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie met Mallowan while visiting an excavation in Iraq and married him in 1930. She made herself useful by photographing, cleaning and reco...