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

Copper piping followed in Egypt by 2400 BC, linking the Pyramid of Sahure to its temple complex.

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

By the third century AD the city had eleven aqueducts, feeding mostly its public baths, all moving water by gravity alone.

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

It began as an open canal to drain marshes, is named for the goddess Cloacina, and parts of it are still in use today.

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.