Quiz 001

Episode 1 Quiz

Welcome to the quiz for Episode 1: The Tower of Babel. See what you remember about Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, and most of all, cuneiform by clicking “START” below!

1 / 15

The 3,100 BCE inscription that says “2. Sheep. God. Inanna,” discovered in the ruins of Uruk, probably means what?

The neighboring cities of Kish and Lagash were sheepish before Uruk's goddess, Inanna.

Two sheep were donated to the temple of the goddess Inanna.

Two lovers were as low as sheep in their supplications to Inanna.

Inanna's breasts were as pale as sheep's wool.

2 / 15

The first named writer in the historical record lived in the early 2200s in Sumer. Her name was:

Nintuda

Siduri

Girin

Enheduanna

Mushezibti

3 / 15

A stone object, about the size and shape of a lipstick tube or pill bottle, with shapes carved into its sides, designed to be rolled onto a flat sheet of clay, is called what?

An etemenanki

A cylinder seal

A giparu

A picture rod

A Mesopotamian straw

4 / 15

The 7th-century Assyrian monarch Ashurbanipal was a fierce conqueror who guzzled wine after dismembering his foes. We have extensive evidence that another of his hobbies was. . .

. . .breeding and entering into competitions with sheepdogs.

. . .collecting and warehousing Mesopotamian texts.

. . .inventing more efficient designs for reed boats, based on Hurrian ones.

. . .an early version of pole vaulting.

. . .making hats out of bulrushes from along the Euphrates.

5 / 15

Initially, writing appeared in the Ancient Near East in order to do what?

Proto-cuneiform writing first appears in the form of love poetry.

Its purposes were apotropaic (or designed to ward off evil) inscriptions on temples.

It helped reed boat surveyors record the shifts of the Euphrates.

Writing arose in Sumer as a cryptographic way to exchange information about the movements of the Elamites to the east.

Writing helped record economic transactions and exchanges.

6 / 15

This monarch is the most famous ruler of Old Babylon, a civilization that rose in the 1900s and 1800s BCE.

Labashi-Marduk

Shalmaneser

Hammurabi

Nabopolassar

Kudur-Enlil

7 / 15

On October 12th, 539 BCE, in the city of Babylon. . .

. . .the resurgent city of Ur was in the midst of a cultural renaissance.

. . .the Etemenanki tower at the heart of Babylon was mysteriously destroyed by an unknown force.

. . .the Persian leader Cyrus the Great invaded Babylon, deposed a decaying Babylonian regime, and allowed the Judahites to return home.

. . .Alexander the Great crested the slopes of the Zagros mountains and began the first major western expedition into the Persian plateau.

8 / 15

Consider the following statement: “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” Who says this, and where does it appear?

Nabonidus, the 6th-century Babylonian king, on an inscription at Tayma, in relation to the Persian Empire.

Gilgamesh, or Bilgames, on a tablet from Sippar about the newly ascendant Akkadian regime.

The Old Testament God, in Chapter 11 of the Book of Genesis, about the beautiful and ancient city of Babylon, near modern day Baghdad.

Ashurbanipal, on a wall relief in the palace at Nineveh, in a castigation of the impious Hurrians.

9 / 15

The chronological order of Mesopotamia’s dominant civilizations, from oldest to youngest.

(1) Babylon, (2) Assyria, (3) Persia, (4) Sumer

(1) Persia, (2) Babylon, (3) Sumer, (4) Assyria

(1) Sumer, (2) Babylon, (3) Assyria, (4) Persia.

10 / 15

The Sumerian city of Ur saw a major resurgence during these two centuries:

1100-900 BCE

3400-3200 BCE

5100-4900 BCE

2200-2000 BCE

1500-1300 BCE

11 / 15

The last king of Babylon, who had a bookish temperament and ruled from 556-539 BCE, was:

Sennacherib

Nabonidus

Sargon

Tiglath-Pileser

Enheduanna

12 / 15

The Bible’s historical books and Biblical archaeology generally agree that a key subset of ancient Judah’s population were forcibly relocated from Jerusalem to Babylon. During which century did this take place?

The 300s BCE.

The 700s BCE.

The 500s BCE.

The 900s BCE.

The 100s BCE.

13 / 15

The end of this episode proposes that:

The Tower of Babel story is about the Ziggurat of Ur, rather than Etemenanki, the structure at the heart of Babylon.

The Tower of Babel story is about the decline of Second Temple Jewish solidarity during the rise of the Pharisees and Essenes and other splinter groups.

The Tower of Babel story is about the blasphemous Persians and their wicked leader.

The Tower of Babel story is about the decline of cuneiform under the pressure of migrating language groups like the Aramaeans who used phonetic writing systems.

14 / 15

In the 1890s CE, archaeologists discovered a large mass of _________ from around the 1340s BCE in Amarna, Egypt.

cuneiform tablets

Persian lyres

Gallic ewers

beached trading vessels

Chinese terra cotta figures

15 / 15

What are “tells?”

Archaeological dig sites with multiple layers.

The wooden casing used to pack river clay into bricks.

Plants related to desert mesquite used by Sumerians as an analgesic.

Another name for sheepfolds, a common feature of ancient Sumerian life.

Your score is