Q 01/05

The name Mesopotamia comes from Greek roots meaning what?

A) Between rivers

B) Land of the sun

C) Fertile plain

D) Two kingdoms

Answer · why

A) Between rivers

Mesos means 'middle' and potamos means 'river'; Arabic and Syriac names for the region carry the same sense, and most of it lies within one modern cou...

Q 02/05

Which two rivers frame the historical region of Mesopotamia?

A) Nile and Jordan

B) Tigris and Euphrates

C) Amu Darya and Syr Darya

D) Danube and Rhine

Answer · why

B) Tigris and Euphrates

Tigris and Euphrates: farmers along them grew such a surplus of grain that people could settle in cities.

Q 03/05

Mesopotamia corresponds roughly to the territory of which modern country?

A) Iran

B) Syria

C) Iraq

D) Jordan

Answer · why

C) Iraq

Southwestern Iran lies just beyond it, where the land rises into the Persian plateau.

Q 04/05

What were most of the earliest Mesopotamian written records used for?

A) Recording laws

B) Keeping accounts

C) Writing hymns

D) Telling stories

Answer · why

B) Keeping accounts

Keeping accounts: as cities grew, their institutions needed records of the goods going into and out of their stores.

Q 05/05

Which explorer built a reed boat in Iraq in 1977 to test whether ancient Mesopotamians could have traded by sea?

A) Jacques Cousteau

B) Tim Severin

C) Thor Heyerdahl

D) Ranulph Fiennes

Answer · why

C) Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl: after about five months at sea, he burned the boat in Djibouti in protest at the wars raging around the Red Sea.