Unit 1-2

Question 1

By 2800 BCE, scribes began using wedge-shaped letters to make a script called ______________, which was used to compose The Epic of Gilgamesh.

Answer 1

Cuneiform

Question 3

The Phoenicians developed a system of writing with 22 simple signs for consonants and four symbols for vowels.

A. True ​​B. False

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The myth of ____________ describes how the King of Tyre taught the Greeks to write with Phoenician letters.

A. Io​​​ B. Sisyphus​​ C. Cadmus ​​D. Icarus

Answer 4

Cadmus

Question 5

The Myceneans on the island of Crete has a writing system called ________, but it disappeared along with their society around 1200 BCE.

Answer 5

Linear B

Question 6

War between Athens and Sparta (the Peloponnesian War) begins in ________.

Answer 6

431 BCE

Question 7

Unlike Athens, ancient Rome was never a democracy.

A. True ​​B. False​

Answer 7

True

Question 8

Unlike the epic works The Odyssey and The Iliad, ____________ was conceived as a written work intended for scholars and members of the royal court.

Answer 8

Epic of Gilgamesh

Question 9

To escape his own mortality, King Gilgamesh seeks out __________, who survived the Great Flood and was granted immortality by the gods.

Answer 9

Utanapishtim

Question 10

Homer’s The Odyssey alludes several times to the story of ___________, whose wife, Clytemnestra, plotted to kill her husband when he returned from war.

Answer 10

Agamemnon

Question 11

When Odysseus returns home, one of the slave women named __________ recognizes him by the scar on his leg.

Answer 11

Eurycleia

Question 12

At the end of The Odyssey, Penelope asks one of their slaves to bring Odysseus’ bow and arrows and tells him to shoot their bed as a final ‘test.’

A. True​​​​ B. False​

Answer 12

False

Question 13

Athenian drama was usually performed at two religious festivals: the Dionysia and ______________.

Answer 13

the Lernaea

Question 14

The god Dionysus, at whose festivals tragedies were often performed, was the god of wine and ___________.

Answer 14

Overturning rules and conventions

Question 15

Nearly all the complete works of Greek drama to survive to the present day were written by Aeschylus, Euripides, and ____________.

Answer 15

Sophecles

Question 16

One of Sophocles’ theatrical innovations was to expand the chorus from twelve to _________ members.

Answer 16

Fifteen

Question 17

When he was an infant, Oedipus’ father, King Laius, and mother, Jocasta, abandoned him to die on Mount Cithaeron.

A. True​​​​ B. False​

Answer 17

True

Question 18

In Poetics, Aristotle argued that Oedipus was the best Greek tragedy because it has two plot patterns that were essential: peripeteia and __________.

Answer 18

anagnorisis

Question 19

When he is a young man, Oedipus solves the riddle of _______, which is “What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?” with the answer “Man.”

Answer 19

the Sphinx

Question 20

Oedipus’ name can be translated as _____________.

Answer 20

“know-foot” or “swell foot”

Question 21

While a common translation of hamartia describes it as a ‘tragic flaw,’ for Greeks the meaning of this word was closer to “mistake” or “error.”

A. True​​​​ B. False

Answer 21

True

Question 22

After he discovers Jocasta has killed herself, Oedipus ____________.

Answer 22

blinds himself

Question 23

Both The Iliad and The Odyssey depict the Trojan War, which was an actual conflict between Athens and Sparta.

A. True ​​​​B. False

Answer 23

False

Question 24

The oral poets, or bards, of ancient Greece used a six-beat line called hexameter.

A. True​​​​ B. False

Answer 24

True

Question 25

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh finds a magical plant that will grant him immortality, but a _____________ steals it from him.

Answer 25

The serpent

Question 26

When __________ tries to seduce Gilgamesh, he insults her, and as a result she brings the Bull of Heaven to destroy Uruk.

Answer 26

Ishtar

Question 27

When Polyphemus asks his name, Odysseus tells him that it is ___________.

Answer 27

Noman

Question 28

In The Odyssey, Circe tells Odysseus that he must go to Hades to speak with ____________.

Answer 28

Tiresias

Question 29

Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit have a common linguistic ancestor that scholars have called ___________.

Answer 29

proto-Indo-European

Question 30

The Indo-Harappan people who settled Pakistan and western India from 2600 – 1900 BCE had their own system of writing that remains untranslated to this day.

A. True​​​​ B. False

Answer 30

True

Question 31

The first written works on the Indian subcontinent were ________, or ‘revealed knowledge.’

Answer 31

Vedas

Question 32

Vedic hymns are not classified as poetry, or _________, because they are sacred and divine in origin.

Answer 32

Kavya

Question 33

The Hindu cannon was transmitted orally by priests and scholars in the ___________ caste, who memorized literature from childhood.

Answer 33

brahmana

Question 34

In Hinduism, ____________ is the original matter in the universe from which all things originate and into which all things eventually return.

Answer 34

the godhead

Question 35

The Bhagavad-Gita addresses how karma, or human action, accords with __________, or divine law.

Answer 35

dharma

Question 36

The text of The Bhagavad-Gita includes two layers of interpersonal dialogue: one between Sanjaya and Dhrtarastra and one between ______________.

Answer 36

Arjuna and Krishna

Question 37

____ 38. In chapter 2 of The Bhagavad-Gita, Lord Krishan says that a wise man will withdraw from his senses like a(n) __________ (couplet 58).

Answer 37

tortoise

Question 38

The story of the Mahabharata focuses on conflict between two branches of a royal dynasty in northern India: the Kauravas and the __________.

Answer 38

Pandavas

Question 39

In chapter 11 of The Bhagavad-Gita, Arjuna asks Lord Krishna to _________.

Answer 39

reveal his divine form

Question 40

1. The earliest written documents (from about 3300 – 2990 BCE) that scholars have recovered and translated were found in ____________, a region whose names means literally “the place between the rivers.”

A. Mesopotamia​ B. Egypt ​​C. Crete​​ D. Punjab

Answer 40

Mesopotamia