Rediscovered Treasures Quiz – Printable Version
20 multiple-choice questions with an explained answer key, ready to print.
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- Who discovered the Lascaux cave in the Dordogne in September 1940?
- A. Abbé Breuil, the prehistorian
- B. A truffle hunter and his dog
- C. A winegrower digging a cellar
- D. Four teenagers
- In 1974, near Xi'an, what were the farmers who discovered the Terracotta Army doing?
- A. Ploughing a rice paddy
- B. Digging a well
- C. Building a road
- D. Looking for coal
- Who discovered the shipwreck that held the Antikythera mechanism?
- A. Sponge divers
- B. Jacques Cousteau
- C. German archaeologists
- D. A trawler fisherman
- In 2009, how did Terry Herbert find the Staffordshire Hoard, the largest Anglo-Saxon treasure ever discovered?
- A. By ploughing his field
- B. By digging a pond
- C. With a metal detector
- D. By extending his house
- In 1939, the Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo was uncovered. Who started the excavation?
- A. The British Museum, after an aerial survey
- B. Soldiers digging a trench
- C. A farmer while ploughing
- D. The landowner
- Who discovered Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings in November 1922?
- A. Howard Carter
- B. Auguste Mariette
- C. Jean-François Champollion
- D. Flinders Petrie
- Where was the stele of the Code of Hammurabi, king of Babylon, found in 1901?
- A. In Babylon, Iraq
- B. In Susa, Iran
- C. In Nineveh, Iraq
- D. In Ur, Iraq
- In 1911, who led American explorer Hiram Bingham to Machu Picchu?
- A. A local farmer
- B. A Spanish missionary
- C. A French geographer
- D. A Peruvian army officer
- Why is the wreck of the Vasa, a Swedish warship sunk in 1628, so well preserved?
- A. The low-salt Baltic has no shipworms
- B. It was locked in ice for three centuries
- C. It was covered with a thick layer of tar
- D. It lay sheltered in an underwater cave
- The Mary Rose, raised in 1982, was the flagship of which English monarch?
- A. Richard the Lionheart
- B. Elizabeth I
- C. Charles I
- D. Henry VIII
- The Roman Mildenhall Treasure was found in 1942 by a ploughman. What did his employer do with it until 1946?
- A. Melted it down to sell the metal
- B. Used the silver dishes at home
- C. Reburied it in his garden
- D. Gave it to the village church
- What name did Arthur Evans, who excavated Knossos (Crete) from 1900, give to the civilisation he uncovered?
- A. Mycenaean
- B. Cycladic
- C. Achaean
- D. Minoan
- What technique, invented in 1863 by Giuseppe Fiorelli, lets us see Pompeii's victims in their final posture?
- A. Mummifying the bodies
- B. Pouring plaster into the hollows left by the bodies
- C. Casting the cooled lava
- D. Scanning the ash layers
- Are the paintings in the Chauvet cave (Ardèche), discovered in 1994, older than those of Lascaux?
- A. No, they are about the same age
- B. No, they are half as old
- C. Yes, they are about twice as old
- D. Yes, they are ten times as old
- A year before Lindow Man (1984), a skull found in the same English peat bog had led to… ?
- A. The closure of the bog
- B. A confession from a man who had killed his wife
- C. The arrest of a relic smuggler
- D. A false dinosaur alarm
- The Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós, 23 gold vessels found by a farmer in 1799, is now displayed… ?
- A. In Budapest
- B. In Vienna
- C. In Bucharest
- D. In Belgrade
- The votive crowns of the Guarrazar Treasure, near Toledo, decorated with hanging letters, come from which people?
- A. The Romans
- B. The Moors
- C. The Celtiberians
- D. The Visigoths
- What did the divers who found the Lava Treasure (Corsica) in the 1980s do with it?
- A. Handed it to the Ajaccio museum
- B. Kept it secret and sold it on the quiet
- C. Were rewarded by the State
- D. Threw it back out of superstition
- What cargo was the Greek Kyrenia shipwreck (Cyprus, c. 300 BC) carrying besides its amphorae?
- A. Gold ingots
- B. Horses
- C. Marble statues
- D. Thousands of almonds
- Why did the 1960 excavation of the Cape Gelidonya wreck (Turkey) go down in history?
- A. It is the deepest ever excavated
- B. It lasted more than 50 years
- C. It was the first wreck excavated entirely underwater by archaeologists
- D. It was the first wreck located by satellite
Answer key — Rediscovered Treasures Quiz
- D. Four teenagersMarcel Ravidat, 18, spotted a hole left by a fallen tree, then came back on 12 September with Jacques Marsal, Georges Agniel and Simon Coencas.
- B. Digging a wellDuring a drought, villagers dug a well and hit fragments of statues.
- A. Sponge diversIn 1900, Greek sponge divers sheltering from a storm near the island of Antikythera found a 1st-century BC wreck loaded with statues.
- C. With a metal detectorA keen detectorist for years, Terry Herbert was searching a farmer friend's field and brought up more than 3,500 items: about 5 kg of gold and 1.4 kg of silver, mostly fittings from 7th-century swords and weapons.
- D. The landownerCurious about the burial mounds on her estate, Edith Pretty hired self-taught archaeologist Basil Brown in 1938.
- A. Howard CarterFunded by Lord Carnarvon, Howard Carter had been digging in the Valley of the Kings for years.
- B. In Susa, IranA paradox: the stele was found not in Mesopotamia but in Susa, by the French archaeological mission of Jacques de Morgan.
- A. A local farmerBingham was looking for Vilcabamba, the last city of the Incas.
- A. The low-salt Baltic has no shipwormsTop-heavy, the Vasa capsized in Stockholm harbour on her maiden voyage after barely more than a kilometre.
- D. Henry VIIIThe Mary Rose sank in 1545 before Henry VIII's eyes, during a battle against the French fleet off Portsmouth.
- B. Used the silver dishes at homeGordon Butcher's plough struck some dishes. His employer, Sydney Ford, cleaned them and kept them, claiming to believe they were pewter, and even used two large platters at festive meals.
- D. MinoanEvans bought the land and uncovered a vast palace with so many corridors that he saw in it the Minotaur's labyrinth.
- B. Pouring plaster into the hollows left by the bodiesBuried in AD 79 under several metres of ash, the bodies decomposed, leaving hollow imprints.
- C. Yes, they are about twice as oldThree cavers, Jean-Marie Chauvet, Éliette Brunel and Christian Hillaire, felt a draught and cleared a passage.
- B. A confession from a man who had killed his wifeIn 1983 a local man whose wife had disappeared believed her skull had been found and confessed to killing her.
- B. In ViennaFound in a town then in Hungary, now Sânnicolau Mare in Romania, this treasure of about 10 kg of gold was acquired by the Habsburgs and went to Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum.
- D. The VisigothsIn 1858 heavy rain exposed tombs and revealed crowns of gold and precious stones offered by 7th-century Visigothic kings.
- B. Kept it secret and sold it on the quietIn the Gulf of Lava, near Ajaccio, divers got hold of hundreds of 3rd-century Roman gold coins.
- D. Thousands of almondsFound in 1965 by Cypriot diver Andreas Cariolou, the wreck kept much of its wooden hull, a very rare case.
- C. It was the first wreck excavated entirely underwater by archaeologistsReported by a sponge diver, the wreck of a Bronze Age ship (c.