Q 01/05

The word plumber comes from the Latin plumbum, which means what?

A) Lead

B) Pipe

C) Copper

D) Water

Answer · why

A) Lead

The first effective pipes in the Roman era were made of lead, and the metal's chemical symbol Pb comes from the same root.

Q 02/05

Standardised earthenware pipes with sealed flanges appeared by 2700 BC in which civilisation?

A) Old Kingdom Egypt

B) The Indus Valley

C) Minoan Crete

D) Sumerian Mesopotamia

Answer · why

B) The Indus Valley

The Indus Valley cities used standardised earthenware pipes with broad flanges, sealed with asphalt against leaks, by about 2700 BC.

Q 03/05

Rome's first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, was built in which year?

A) 112 BC

B) 12 BC

C) 312 BC

D) 212 BC

Answer · why

C) 312 BC

The Aqua Appia was built in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, who also began the Appian Way that year; the city eventually had eleven aqued...

Q 04/05

The Cloaca Maxima, one of the world's oldest sewers, served which ancient city?

A) Babylon

B) Alexandria

C) Athens

D) Rome

Answer · why

D) Rome

The Cloaca Maxima drained Rome's Forum valley, beginning in the sixth century BC as an open canal under the Tarquin kings; its outfall into the Tiber ...

Q 05/05

The Roman hypocaust was an early form of what?

A) Underfloor central heating

B) A gravity flush toilet

C) A sand water filtration bed

D) A rainwater cistern

Answer · why

A) Underfloor central heating

Hot air from a furnace circulated beneath raised floors and up through wall pipes, a forerunner of modern central heating.