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100 free Ancient History trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
12 free Ancient History trivia questions with answers. Explore the depths of human civilization with our Ancient History trivia quiz. Whether you're a history buff or casual learner, these 100 questions will test your knowledge of iconic empires, legendary figures, and pivotal moments that shaped our world. Take the quiz now and discover how much you really know about history's greatest achievements.
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Q 01Which ancient civilization developed cuneiform, the wedge-shaped script that is one of the earliest writing systems?
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia's Sumerians developed cuneiform around 3500 BCE for record-keeping; its wedge-shaped marks evolved from pictographic proto-writing.
Q 02Howard Carter found the nearly intact tomb of which pharaoh in the Valley of the Kings in November 1922?
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun's tomb was the best-preserved pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings, one of the few royal burials left largely undisturbed by grave robbers.
Q 03In Greek mythology, who was considered the king of the gods?
Zeus
Zeus was the supreme ruler of the Olympian gods, associated with the sky, thunder, and justice. He was often depicted with a lightning bolt and an eagle.
Q 04Which power was Rome's primary adversary in the three Punic Wars?
Carthage
The Punic Wars were a series of three major conflicts between the Roman Republic and Carthage, a powerful maritime empire located in modern-day Tunisia, fought for control of the Western Mediterranean.
Q 05Which dynasty is considered the first imperial dynasty of China, unifying the country in 221 BCE?
Qin Dynasty
Qin Dynasty, founded by Qin Shi Huang, ran only from 221 to 206 BCE, yet the word 'China' itself may derive from its name.
Q 06The Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders, were said to be in which ancient city?
Babylon
Babylon, near present-day Hillah in Iraq, is where legend places them, built by King Nebuchadnezzar II for his wife.
Q 07Which renowned Greek philosopher was a student of Plato and later tutored Alexander the Great?
Aristotle
Aristotle spent 20 years at Plato's Academy, then tutored Alexander until the boy was 16 and later founded his own school, the Lyceum.
Q 08Which French scholar announced the decipherment of Egyptian scripts in Paris in 1822, using the Rosetta stone?
Jean-Francois Champollion
Jean-Francois Champollion announced the decipherment in his Lettre a M. Dacier, read in Paris in September 1822, after matching the Rosetta Stone's three parallel versions of a single Ptolemaic decree.
Q 09Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by a group of senators on which date in 44 BC?
The Ides of March
The Ides of March, 15 March 44 BC: Caesar was stabbed at a Senate meeting in the Curia of Pompey, inside the Theatre of Pompey complex, about a month after being named dictator in perpetuity.
Q 10The Great Pyramid of Giza was built as the tomb of which pharaoh?
Khufu
Khufu, second king of Egypt's Fourth Dynasty, had the Great Pyramid built around 2560 BC; his vizier Hemiunu is credited by many scholars as its architect.
Q 11Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were the great cities of which Bronze Age culture of north-western South Asia?
The Indus Valley Civilisation
The Indus Valley Civilisation lasted from about 3300 to 1300 BCE; Harappa and Mohenjo-daro flourished in its mature urban phase between 2600 and 1900 BCE.
Q 12Born Gaius Octavius, who reigned as Rome's first emperor from 27 BC to AD 14?
Augustus
Augustus, meaning 'the revered one', was the honorific the Senate granted Octavian on 16 January 27 BC; he ruled until his death at Nola in August AD 14.
Q 13The stele bearing the Code of Hammurabi was rediscovered in 1901 at which site in present-day Iran?
Susa
Q 21What was the background of Ptolemy I Soter, founder of Cleopatra's dynasty?
Macedonian Greek general
Ptolemy I Soter was a Macedonian Greek general of Alexander the Great who took the satrapy of Egypt after Alexander's death in 323 BC and proclaimed himself king in 305 BC.
Q 22What name was given to the son of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar?
Caesarion
Caesarion, 'little Caesar', was the nickname of Ptolemy XV Caesar, born in 47 BC; Cleopatra made him co-ruler after her brother Ptolemy XIV died in 44 BC, and Octavian had him killed in 30 BC.
Q 23Which river did Julius Caesar cross in January 49 BC to ignite civil war with the Senate?
The Rubicon
Susa, the Elamite capital, is where Jacques de Morgan's French expedition unearthed the stele in the winter of 1901-02; the Elamite king Shutruk-Nakhunte had carried it off from Babylonia around 1158 BC.
Q 14Which museum has held the stele of the Code of Hammurabi since 1902?
The Louvre
The Louvre has held the 2.25-metre stele since 1902, the year after French excavators found it at Susa; it stands in the Richelieu wing's Mesopotamian galleries.
Q 15For roughly how long did the Great Pyramid of Giza remain the world's tallest human-made structure?
More than 3,700 years
More than 3,700 years: finished around 2560 BC at 146.6 metres, the Great Pyramid was the tallest structure on Earth until Lincoln Cathedral's spire topped it around 1311.
Q 16The Great Pyramid of Giza was built from an estimated how many large stone blocks?
2.3 million
About 2.3 million blocks, mostly local limestone averaging over two tonnes each, went into the Great Pyramid, a total mass of roughly 6 million tonnes.
Q 17The three texts on the Rosetta Stone are hieroglyphic, Ancient Greek and which other script?
Demotic
Demotic, the cursive script of everyday Egyptian, is the stone's middle text; all three versions carry the same decree issued in 196 BC for Ptolemy V, which made the stone the key to decipherment.
Q 18The Rosetta Stone was found in July 1799 by an officer of which country's army?
France
France: Lieutenant Pierre-Francois Bouchard of Napoleon's expeditionary army spotted the stone in July 1799 while his men rebuilt Fort Julien near Rashid, the Rosetta of the Nile Delta.
Q 19Alexander the Great died in June 323 BC at what age?
32
32: born in July 356 BC, Alexander died in June 323 BC in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II at Babylon, a month short of his 33rd birthday, while planning an Arabian campaign.
Q 20At the capital of which ancient kingdom did Alexander the Great 'undo' an unsolvable knot?
Phrygia
Phrygia: its capital Gordium held the ox-cart knot of Gordias, which legend said only the future ruler of Asia could undo; Alexander reputedly cut it with his sword in 333 BC.
The Rubicon, the stream dividing Caesar's province of Cisalpine Gaul from Italy, was crossed with Legio XIII around 10 January 49 BC; Suetonius records the words 'alea iacta est'.
Q 24Which calendar, introduced in 45 BC, replaced Rome's republican lunisolar calendar?
Julian
The Julian calendar, in force from 1 January 45 BC, fixed a 365-day year with a leap day every fourth year; Pope Gregory XIII's reform replaced it in Catholic Europe in 1582.
Q 25What larger royal research institution in Alexandria included the famous Great Library?
The Mouseion
The Mouseion, the Ptolemies' royal research institute, housed salaried scholars such as Euclid and Eratosthenes, and the Great Library was one of its departments.
Q 26The Library of Alexandria's daughter library stood in the temple of which god?
Serapis
Serapis, a god fusing Osiris with the Apis bull and promoted by the Ptolemies, had his great Alexandrian temple, the Serapeum, which gained a daughter library under Ptolemy III Euergetes.
Q 27The Epic of Gilgamesh, the world's oldest surviving narrative, concerns the king of which Sumerian city?
Uruk
Some of the best copies were found in the ruined library of the 7th-century BCE Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.
Q 28The Hittite Empire, which peaked in the 14th century BC, was centred on which capital city?
Hattusa
Hattusa, near modern Bogazkale, was the Hittite capital; its royal archive of clay tablets included a copy of the Egyptian-Hittite peace treaty that followed the Battle of Kadesh.
Q 29The Hittites settled in the early 2nd millennium BC in the north-central part of which region?
Anatolia
Anatolia: by about 1650 BC the Hittites held the central plateau inside the bend of the Kizilirmak (Halys) river, with their heartland around modern Bogazkale.
Q 30Who founded the Achaemenid Empire in 550 BC after defeating the Medes?
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great overthrew his Median overlord Astyages around 550 BC and took Babylon in 539 BC; at its peak the Achaemenid Empire covered about 5.5 million square kilometres.