Q 01/05

According to Manetho, the priest who sorted Egypt's kings into dynasties, which animal killed Menes?

A) A desert lion

B) A hippopotamus

C) A spotted hyena

D) A wild boar

Answer · why

B) A hippopotamus

A hippopotamus carried Menes off, Manetho reports, after a reign that included a victorious campaign abroad. Different copies of the text give him 30,...

Q 02/05

In a legend recorded by the Greek historian Diodorus, which animal carried the fleeing Menes across a lake?

A) A giant turtle

B) A wild donkey

C) A crocodile

D) An ostrich

Answer · why

C) A crocodile

A crocodile ferried him to safety on its back, and the grateful king is said to have founded a city in its honour. Historians treat the tale as a temp...

Q 03/05

Lower Egypt, the Nile Delta kingdom that Menes is said to have conquered, lay in which part of the country?

A) The south

B) The north

C) The east

D) The west

Answer · why

B) The north

The north was 'Lower' Egypt because the Nile flows downhill from the highlands of East Africa to the Mediterranean. Upper Egypt, where tradition place...

Q 04/05

The line of pharaohs that tradition begins with Menes ended about 3,000 years later with which famous queen?

A) Cleopatra

B) Nefertiti

C) Hatshepsut

D) Nefertari

Answer · why

A) Cleopatra

Cleopatra died in 30 BC, when Egypt became a Roman province. That puts her roughly a thousand years closer to the present day than to the reign of Men...

Q 05/05

The title 'pharaoh', not used for kings until long after Menes, comes from an Egyptian phrase meaning what?

A) Living god

B) Son of the sun

C) Great house

D) Lord of the river

Answer · why

C) Great house

Great house first meant the royal palace, and became a word for the king himself more than 1,500 years after Menes. Calling him a pharaoh is a modern ...