Pyramids Trivia
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56 free Pyramids trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Pyramids are the one building type almost every ancient civilisation seems to have arrived at independently, and this quiz treats them that way. It starts at Giza, with the Great Pyramid's original height, its 2.3 million blocks, the caliph who tunnelled into it, the papyrus logbook that names it, and the hidden void found with cosmic-ray detectors. Then it works back through the experiments that made it possible: Djoser's six-tier Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the collapsed 'false pyramid' at Meidum, the Bent Pyramid's emergency change of angle, and the Red Pyramid that finally got it right. From there it heads south to Sudan, which has more pyramids than Egypt, and across the Atlantic to the Great Pyramid of Cholula, the largest by volume anywhere, El Castillo's 365 steps and equinox serpent, Teotihuacan's Avenue of the Dead and Uxmal's Pyramid of the Magician. The last stretch covers the copies and homages: Rome's Pyramid of Cestius, I. M. Pei's glass entrance at the Louvre and its 666-pane rumour, the Luxor's sky beam and San Francisco's Transamerica Pyramid. The easy questions suit anyone who has seen a photograph of Giza; the expert tier reaches Shepseskaf, Piankhy and the Diary of Merer. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the individual monuments, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question. If you want to go deeper on the biggest one, there is a separate Great Pyramid of Giza quiz.
30 of 56 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Egyptian ruler lived closer in time to the first Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid?
Cleopatra
Cleopatra died in 30 BC, some 2,500 years after the Great Pyramid was built; by her day Greek writers had already listed it among the Seven Wonders, and it is the only one still standing.
Q 02At about 146 metres when new, the Great Pyramid stood taller than which of these landmarks?
The Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty stands 93 metres from ground to torch, well short of the pyramid, which has itself lost about 8 metres since its smooth outer casing was stripped away.
Q 03For roughly how long was the Great Pyramid the tallest structure that humans had built?
About 3,800 years
About 3,800 years passed, by the usual reckoning, before Lincoln Cathedral's spire outreached it in 1311, and that spire then blew down in a storm in 1548.
Q 04Roughly how many large stone blocks were quarried to build the Great Pyramid?
About 2.3 million
About 2.3 million blocks went into the Great Pyramid, but most never travelled far: they were cut from a quarry just south of the building site.
Q 05The granite lining the Great Pyramid's King's Chamber was quarried at which distant place?
Aswan
Aswan: its granite also forms five tiers of huge slabs stacked above the chamber, most likely to shield the ceiling from the immense weight of the masonry overhead.
Q 06The Great Pyramid's Robbers' Tunnel is said to have been forced for which medieval ruler?
Abbasid caliph
Abbasid caliph: by tradition al-Ma'mun's workmen cut their way in, then dug around the stone plugs that blocked the passage up to the chambers.
Q 07Which Greek historian claimed that gangs of 100,000 men built the Great Pyramid?
Herodotus
Herodotus: writing some 2,000 years after the event, he also said the work took twenty years; the builders' town found at Giza points to a far smaller workforce.
Q 08Bakeries and heaps of cattle bone at the Giza workers' town overturned the belief that who built the pyramids?
Slaves
Slaves: the town fed its crews beef in quantity, and workers were buried in tombs beside the pyramids, an honour that points to valued labourers.
Q 09Robots have climbed narrow shafts blocked by small stone doors from which room of the Great Pyramid?
Queen's Chamber
Queen's Chamber: a robot found the first door in 1993, and when another drilled through it in 2002 it met only a second stone slab.
Q 10What technique found the hidden cavity above the Great Pyramid's Grand Gallery in 2017?
Muon radiography
Muon radiography: these cosmic-ray particles pass more easily through empty space than through stone, so detectors revealed a void at least 30 metres long, nicknamed the Big Void.
Q 11The Step Pyramid at Saqqara, Egypt's first pyramid, was built for which Third Dynasty king?
Djoser
Djoser, a Third Dynasty king of about 2650 BC, was buried beneath the Step Pyramid at Saqqara; the monument reopened to visitors in March 2020 after a 14-year restoration.
Q 12The Step Pyramid at Saqqara began as which kind of tomb?
Mastaba
Mastaba: builders first enlarged the flat tomb, then raised it in stages until six stepped tiers stood over the burial shaft.
Q 13Which royal official, later worshipped as a god, is credited with designing Egypt's first step pyramid?
Imhotep
Imhotep: the credit comes from later tradition, and some 2,000 years after his death Egyptians were praying to him as a god of medicine; his tomb has never been found.
Q 21What was found dismantled in a sealed pit beside the Great Pyramid in 1954?
A boat
A boat: its cedar timbers lay in 1,224 pieces, which restorers spent years fitting back together; the rebuilt vessel moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum in 2021.
Q 22How did Egyptian builders create the body of the Great Sphinx of Giza?
Carved it from the bedrock
Carved it from the bedrock: the rock around it was quarried for nearby monuments, and much of the lower body is now covered by later repair masonry.
Q 23A popular but false story blames whose troops for breaking off the Great Sphinx's nose?
Napoleon's
Q 14The partially collapsed monument at Meidum is known in Egyptian Arabic by a nickname meaning what?
The false pyramid
Locals call the Meidum monument el-heram el-kaddab, 'the false pyramid', because the collapse of its outer layers left a tower-like core rising from a mound of rubble.
Q 15Why is the Bent Pyramid thought to change slope partway up?
Signs of instability
Signs of instability: builders are thought to have eased the slope from about 54 to 43 degrees to stop the pyramid collapsing as it rose.
Q 16Sneferu's Bent Pyramid stands at which royal necropolis south of Cairo?
Dahshur
Dahshur: the Bent Pyramid there has kept most of its smooth limestone casing, and in 2019 its chambers opened to visitors for the first time since 1965.
Q 17Egypt's first successful smooth-sided 'true' pyramid, built by Sneferu, is known by which colour name?
Red
The Red Pyramid takes its name from the reddish limestone of its exposed core; it was originally cased in white limestone and is Egypt's third-largest pyramid.
Q 18Sneferu, builder of the Bent Pyramid, founded which Egyptian dynasty, the one that went on to build at Giza?
The Fourth
The Fourth Dynasty began with Sneferu, who built at least three pyramids; the lessons of his failures went into the Great Pyramid of his son Khufu.
Q 19Why does Khafre's pyramid look taller than the neighbouring Great Pyramid, though it is shorter?
It stands on higher bedrock
It stands on higher bedrock, and its steeper sides add to the illusion; Khafre's pyramid is in fact smaller than the Great Pyramid in both height and volume.
Q 20Which of the three main pyramids at Giza is the smallest?
Menkaure's
Menkaure's pyramid was the first target when a 12th-century sultan tried to demolish Giza's pyramids; his workers gave up, leaving only a gash in its north face.
Napoleon's troops arrived in 1798, yet a drawing by Frederic Norden, published in 1755, already shows the Sphinx without its nose.
Q 24The Great Sphinx has the head of a human and the body of which animal?
A lion
A lion: the statue also once wore a stone beard; fragments found between its paws in 1817 are now in the British Museum.
Q 25On the Dream Stele, the Great Sphinx promises Thutmose the throne for doing what?
Clearing its sand
Clearing its sand: the prince had dozed off in the statue's shade while out hunting, and once he was king he set up the granite slab to record the dream.
Q 26The Pyramid Texts, first carved inside the pyramid of Unas, are a collection of what?
Afterlife spells
Afterlife spells: meant to help Unas rise to the gods, they were later adapted for the coffins of non-royal Egyptians and grew into the Book of the Dead.
Q 27The steep-sided royal pyramids of ancient Nubia stand in which modern country?
Sudan
Sudan: in 1834 the Italian treasure hunter Giuseppe Ferlini wrecked several of its pyramids while searching them for gold.
Q 28The Nubian pyramids of the Nile Valley were built by the rulers of which ancient kingdom?
Kush
The Kingdom of Kush ruled Nubia from Napata and later from a capital further upstream; its kings adopted pyramid burial and ruled Egypt as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty.
Q 29The last Nubian royal pyramid went up around AD 350 at which site?
Meroë
The royal cemetery at Meroë, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, received the last Nubian pyramid around AD 350, when the kingdom that built it collapsed.
Q 30Piye, the Nubian king credited with reviving pyramid burial, had which animals buried near his tomb?
Horses
Horses: his four favourites were given graves of their own at el-Kurru, close to the tomb where his pyramid once stood.