Ancient Egypt Jeopardy

Pharaohs, pyramids, and the gift of the Nile in a free classroom game. Copy the board, hand out the join code, and students buzz in on their phones.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

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Every clue on this board

This page is public, so anyone can read the answers — copy the board and swap a few clues before game day.

Pharaohs

$200
This title given to ancient Egypt's rulers originally meant "great house" and referred to the royal palace before it named the king himself.
What is pharaoh?
$400
This boy king's nearly intact tomb, discovered in 1922, made him ancient Egypt's most famous ruler today.
Who is Tutankhamun?
$600
This female pharaoh ruled Egypt for about two decades and is often depicted wearing the false beard of kingship.
Who is Hatshepsut?
$800
This pharaoh, who ruled for around 66 years and built extensively at Abu Simbel, is often called Ramesses the Great.
Who is Ramesses II?
$1,000
This pharaoh tried to shift Egyptian religion toward worship of a single sun disk god and moved the capital to a new city.
Who is Akhenaten?

Pyramids and Monuments

$200
This complex of three large pyramids just outside modern Cairo also sits near a massive stone lion with a human head.
What is Giza?
$400
This oldest of Egypt's great pyramids, built for the Pharaoh Djoser, rises in a distinctive stepped shape.
What is the Step Pyramid?
$600
This largest of the Giza pyramids was built for the Pharaoh Khufu and remained the tallest structure on Earth for millennia.
What is the Great Pyramid?
$800
This limestone statue with a lion's body and a human head guards the Giza plateau near the pyramids.
What is the Sphinx?
$1,000
This narrow desert valley on the Nile's west bank near Thebes served as the burial site for New Kingdom pharaohs.
What is the Valley of the Kings?

Gods and the Afterlife

$200
This falcon-headed god of the sky was closely associated with Egyptian kingship.
Who is Horus?
$400
This process of preserving a body through drying and wrapping was meant to prepare it for the afterlife.
What is mummification?
$600
This jackal-headed god presided over embalming and guided souls into the afterlife.
Who is Anubis?
$800
In the Egyptian afterlife, a person's heart was weighed against this symbol of truth and order to judge their worthiness.
What is the feather of Maat?
$1,000
This sun god was believed to sail across the sky by day and through the underworld by night.
Who is Ra?

The Nile

$200
This African river, the longest in the world, made agriculture possible in an otherwise desert land.
What is the Nile?
$400
Egyptians depended on this yearly event, in which the river overflowed and deposited fertile soil on the fields.
What is the inundation?
$600
This fertile, dark soil left behind by the river's floodwaters gave Egypt its ancient name, meaning black land.
What is silt?
$800
This device, a long pole with a bucket and counterweight, let farmers lift river water to irrigate fields above the bank.
What is a shaduf?
$1,000
This sea, into which the Nile empties, connected Egypt to trade routes across the ancient world.
What is the Mediterranean Sea?

Hieroglyphs and Scribes

$200
This ancient Egyptian writing system used pictures and symbols to represent sounds and ideas.
What is hieroglyphics?
$400
This material, made from a Nile marsh plant, served as ancient Egypt's paper.
What is papyrus?
$600
This profession, requiring years of training, gave literate Egyptians one of the most respected and secure careers in society.
What is a scribe?
$800
This cursive script, faster to write than formal hieroglyphs, was used by scribes for everyday records.
What is hieratic script?
$1,000
This French scholar is credited with deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics in the 1820s using a trilingual inscription found near a Nile delta town.
Who is Jean-Francois Champollion?

Daily Life

$200
This grain, ground into flour for bread and brewed into beer, was a dietary staple for most ancient Egyptians.
What is wheat?
$400
This board game, found in tombs including Tutankhamun's, was a popular pastime featuring a race along a track of squares.
What is senet?
$600
This lightweight fabric, woven from flax, was the most common clothing material in ancient Egypt's hot climate.
What is linen?
$800
This eye cosmetic, worn by Egyptian men and women alike, was believed to protect against eye disease and the sun's glare.
What is kohl?
$1,000
This purpose-built village on the Nile's west bank housed the skilled artisans who carved and painted the royal tombs.
What is Deir el-Medina?

Final Jeopardy — Cracking the Code

Discovered in 1799, this stone slab carries the same decree in three scripts and gave scholars the key to reading hieroglyphs.

What is the Rosetta Stone?

How to run this board

Mummies and monuments hook students on their own; this board uses that hook to review the whole civilization - why the Nile made Egypt possible, how pharaohs held power, what Egyptians believed about the afterlife, and how scribes actually wrote.

Middle schoolers tend to know the pyramids cold and stumble on daily life and geography, so do not be surprised if the flashy categories clear first.

Running teams by table group works well for this age; give each table one phone and rotate the buzzer after every clue so one fast thumb does not dominate the game.

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