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