Egypt and the Nile: floods, farming, pharaohs, pyramids and hieroglyphs
Grade 6 Social Studies Worksheet
Circle the best answer.
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Egyptian tools and materials
Tool or material How it was made or worked Used for Papyrus sheet strips of papyrus pith laid in two layers at right angles, hammered while moist, dried under pressure writing; sheets were joined into scrolls Shaduf a long pole on a pivot, with a bucket at one end and a counterweight lifting water from the river to the fields Hieroglyphs more than 1,000 different signs for words and sounds formal writing; quicker scripts, hieratic and demotic, came from them How was a papyrus sheet made, Ari asks?
- A pole on a pivot with a bucket
- Two layers of pith strips hammered and dried
- Signs pressed into wet clay
- More than 1,000 signs
About how many different signs did hieroglyphs use, Esme asks?
- About 60
- More than 1,000
- About 10
- 26, like our alphabet
Jun puts the papyrus steps in order. Which comes first?
- Join sheets into a scroll
- Hammer the two layers
- Cut the pith into strips
- Dry the sheet under pressure
Why join papyrus sheets into scrolls, Luz asks?
- Because each sheet was a scroll
- To turn them into boats
- To make room for longer writing
- To make the sheets heavier
A shaduf has a counterweight on the end of the pole away from the bucket. How does that help, Milo asks?
- It balances the bucket, so lifting is easier
- It stops water from spilling
- It makes the bucket heavier
- It pumps the water uphill
Why would a shaduf help in a land where the Nile was low for part of the year, Noah asks?
- It made the Nile flood
- It brought rain to the fields
- It made the fields lower
- Water could be lifted up from the low river
Some historians think the shaduf began in Mesopotamia; others think Egyptians invented it. What should Pia write?
- No one used a shaduf
- Egypt invented it, for certain
- Mesopotamia invented it, for certain
- Its origin is debated
Why might hieroglyphs take longer to learn than our alphabet, Ren asks?
- They were written in clay
- There were more than 1,000 signs to learn
- There were far fewer signs than letters in our alphabet
- They had no signs for sounds
Quicker scripts, hieratic and demotic, came from hieroglyphs. Why might writers want a quicker script, Tala asks?
- Because hieroglyphs came from them
- To make writing harder to read
- To write everyday records faster
- To carve stone more deeply
Which two items in the chart worked together for writing, Zee asks?
- The shaduf and hieroglyphs
- Papyrus sheets and Egyptian scripts
- Clay tablets and a reed pen with black ink
- The shaduf and papyrus