Egypt

A corridor leading to the Pharaoh's tomb is ten meters longer than three times the length of its base. If the base is twenty-five meters long, how long is the corridor?

The peak of a certain pyramid contains four bricks. The perimeter of each descending layer contains four more bricks than that of the layer above it. If there are a thousand layers, how many bricks are around the base of the pyramid?

A clever treasure hunter discovered an Ancient Egyptian tomb after a treacherous journey through the dark corridors of a pyramid. He saw six bags of intricately carved gold pieces. The inscriptions on the wall of the chamber warned would-be grave robbers that five of the bags contained false gold and that the trip back would be impossible with more than one bag. The hieroglyphs also showed that each of the real gold pieces was 1.1 Egyptian units of measurement and the false gold was one unit each. The tomb contained a special scale that would work only once, and when the amount to be weighed was placed on the scale, no pieces could be added or removed to watch the weight fluctuate. The writings warned that if the scale was misused the tomb would collapse. How could the treasure hunter use the scale to determine which bag to take?

You are an archaelogist and you have just uncovered an ancient Egyptian palace. Your colleague has translated the hieroglyphs on the walls and the writings describe the royal family who inhabitated the palace. Before she could finish figuring out the family tree she mysteriously disappeared. Use the notes (below) she left behind to help her match Nephat, Samhut, and Akham to their duties (Pharaoh, High Priest, and Scribe).

Zepssa is wife to the Pharaoh, her grandmother's brother, the High Priest, has no daughters, one son and three grandsons, only one of the grandsons (Samhut) is a father (of Nephat's nephew). The Pharaoh's brother-in-law is a scribe who has one set of living grandparents; the scribe's grandfather (Akham) has no nephews but a niece who is a mother. The Pharaoh has no brothers, one sister and his parents are dead. Nephat's sister has married a descendent of the High Priest and has a child

Mummimals:

Archaeologist's Challenge:

There are 4,000 bricks around the base of the pyramid.

Place one piece from bag one, two pieces from bag two, three pieces from bag three...on the scale. If the resulting weight is 21.1, the real gold was in bag one. If the weight is 21.2 it was in bag two. 21.3 would be bag three, 21.4 would be bag four, 21.5 would be bag five, and 21.6 would be bag six.

Nephat is the Pharaoh, Akham is the high priest, and Samhut is the scribe.

Irrigation Nation:

The Nile River cuts its way through the deserts of Egypt. During the yearly floods the rich black soil, or kemet, was left behind. The Egyptians used the fertile soil to grow their fields of wheat and barley. Once the floods receded and the fields dried, the plants would wither and die. The Egyptians solved this problem by digging canals. Water that poured into these canals flowed out the fields irrigating the land.

A shaduf is an ancient water-raising device used by early Egyptians. It consists of a container made of animal skins or clay attached to a lever counterbalanced by stones. The container is dipped into the river, when full it is lifted out and dumped into a canal.

It takes about twenty liters of water to irrigate one square meter of land for one day. How much water is required to irrigate a 500 square meter field?

The shaduf by the museum can hold 20 liters of water. Using that information, how many times does it have to be worked to irrigate the field daily?

The first pyramid built was the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. It was built for the Pharaoh Djoser more than 4600 years ago. It was made of limestone blocks quarried across the river at Tura. Djoser's Step Pyramid is 204 feet high and was the largest known manmade structure of its time.

The Bent Pyramid of Snefru at Dashur gets its name from the change in the angle halfway up its sides. The Bent Pyramid was Snefru's second pyramid. His first pyramid at Maidum collapsed during or just after its construction.

The largest of the pyramids was the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. His pyramid stands at 481 feet tall (as tall as a forty story building) and each side is almost 200 meters long!

Do You Know?

Secrets of the Nile