Q 01/05

Which animals were released from cages into an arena for Assyrian kings to kill with arrows, spears or swords?

A) Lions

B) Bears

C) Tigers

D) Wolves

Answer · why

A) Lions

Lions had been reserved for royalty to kill for over a thousand years in Mesopotamia, and carvings of the staged hunts now fill a room at the British ...

Q 02/05

To which Assyrian capital does the Bible's Book of Jonah send its reluctant prophet to preach?

A) Arbela

B) Nineveh

C) Harran

D) Carchemish

Answer · why

B) Nineveh

Nineveh was the largest city in the world for about fifty years, and a shrine to the prophet stood on one of its ruin mounds until 2014.

Q 03/05

Which ancient epic, famous for its flood story, was pieced together from tablets found in an Assyrian royal library?

A) The Odyssey

B) Enuma Elish

C) Gilgamesh

D) The Ramayana

Answer · why

C) Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh caused a sensation in 1872, when George Smith translated its flood tablet and a London newspaper paid for him to go and hunt for the missing...

Q 04/05

Which Wonder of the Ancient World may really have been built by an Assyrian king, scholar Stephanie Dalley argues?

A) Colossus of Rhodes

B) Temple of Artemis

C) Statue of Zeus

D) Hanging Gardens

Answer · why

D) Hanging Gardens

The Hanging Gardens have left no trace at Babylon, and Dalley's theory moves them north to a palace fed by an 80-kilometre chain of canals and aqueduc...

Q 05/05

Which modern country holds the ruins of all four great Assyrian capitals, one of them inside the city of Mosul?

A) Iran

B) Syria

C) Iraq

D) Jordan

Answer · why

C) Iraq

Iraq's Assyrian sites sit close together: a second capital lies just 30 kilometres south of Mosul, and a third only 15 kilometres to its northeast.