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Materials From History #1

Can you name these materials that played an important part in world history?
Inspired by this quiz from MaxStickies
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: February 21, 2020
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First submittedFebruary 21, 2020
Times taken30,123
Average score63.2%
Rating4.47
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Hint
Answer
Prospectors flocked to California in 1849 looking for this
Gold
Chinese emperors were buried in suits made of this green stone
Jade
The dome of the Pantheon in Rome was built from this. Today, it is possibly
the world's most-used building material.
Concrete
Paper-like writing material first used in ancient Egypt
Papyrus
The U.S. Constitution is written on this type of material, made from animal skins
Parchment
The Stone Age came to an end when people starting working with this copper alloy
Bronze
The Digital Age took off in 1960 thanks to chips made mostly
from this semiconductive element
Silicon
Rifles got a big improvement in the 1600s when they started using this
stone to create a spark
Flint
This semiprecious stone was ground into powder to make ultramarine,
the most expensive blue pigment used by Rennaissance painters
Lapis lazuli
Superhard steel named for a city in the Middle East. Scientists still don't fully
understand the secret of its construction.
Damascus steel
The Chinese monopoly on this fabric ended in the 6th century when Byzantine monks
smuggled out the materials needed to make it
Silk
The first emperor of China was buried with an "army" of 8000 soldiers made
from this earthenware material
Terracotta
Daguerreotypes (an early type of photography) used a sheet of copper
plated with this material
Silver
This element was first produced in 1940 in California. It became the "active" ingredient
in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
Plutonium
Spanish for "mudbrick", it was used to build houses by the Pueblo people of the
American Southwest
Adobe
England's most valuable export in the Middle Ages. Much of it ended up in Belgium.
Wool
Fragrant tree resin supposedly given to the baby Jesus
Frankincense / Myrrh
Fossilized tree resin traded from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean in ancient times
Amber
"Heart of Darkness" tells the story of a man who goes mad while working to
export this white-colored material from Africa
Ivory
+1
Level 77
Feb 21, 2020
More alternate spellings: adobo (yeah I guess it's some kinda sauce, but I don't speak Spanish) and myrrh.
+9
Level 90
Feb 21, 2020
myrrh is the correct spelling, the quiz has a typo (myrhh) but adobo is not an alternate spelling for adobe.
+1
Level 76
Feb 21, 2020
+4
Level 89
Feb 21, 2020
"And thanks a lot for the gold and frankincense, er, but don't worry too much about the myrrh next time. All right?"

- The Life of Brian

+1
Level 78
Feb 9, 2021
A balm? What are you giving him a balm for? It might bite him.
+1
Level 77
Nov 15, 2021
I believe that Abobo is one of the more difficult enemies that Billy and Jimmy Lee had to fight.
+2
Level 82
Feb 22, 2020
What about asbestos?
+1
Level 49
Jan 31, 2024
What about it…
+1
Level 68
Feb 22, 2020
Excellent quiz.
+6
Level 79
Feb 22, 2020
"This element was first produced in 1940 in California. It became the "active" ingredient in the atomic bombs dropped on Japan." I believe that the "Little Boy"-bomb dropped on Hiroshima was U-235 based and only "Fat Man"-bomb dropped on Nagasaki used Plutonium. So, that hint should read "bomb" instead of "bombs".
+5
Level ∞
Feb 22, 2020
You are absolutely correct. This has been fixed.
+1
Level 79
Feb 22, 2020
Heh, nearly didn't get parchment.
+3
Level 75
Feb 22, 2020
Same here. I was thinking, "What do they call parchment?" I was trying to think of vellum, and after I finally thought of it I was surprised when it didn't work. So then I tried parchment. I thought a document that important would have been written on vellum but I guess not - not that there's that much difference.
+1
Level 79
Feb 22, 2020
I was just surprised as that was one of the answers on my own quiz.
+2
Level 84
Feb 29, 2020
Nice quiz idea Max!
+1
Level 79
Mar 1, 2020
Thanks :)
+4
Level 71
Feb 22, 2020
Vellum should be accepted in addition to parchment. While there are technically distinctions between them, the two terms are often used interchangeably.
+1
Level ∞
Feb 23, 2020
Okay
+5
Level 92
Feb 24, 2020
Got to the steel question, and the only kind I could think of was Beskar.
+2
Level 72
Mar 2, 2020
I thought of that an Valyrian steel before giving up on it.
+3
Level 72
Mar 2, 2020
After reading about Damascus Steel I feel like George RR Martin probably got the idea for Valyrian steel from Damascus steel.
+2
Level 79
Mar 31, 2020
The Valyrian steel swords in the show look somewhat like Damascus steel so if that's anything to go by, I'm inclined to agree.
+5
Level 88
Feb 24, 2020
I read "steel" and "named for a city in the middle east," and my mind went immediately to Bethlehem Steel. Couldn't think of anything else after that...
+1
Level 79
Feb 26, 2020
None of England's wool ended up in Belgium in the middle ages. Flanders possibly.
+2
Level 84
Feb 27, 2020
I'm surprised waffles wasn't accepted.
+1
Level 84
Feb 28, 2020
Yep. And I know for a fact that it wasn't. :-)
+4
Level 77
Nov 15, 2021
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
+3
Level 84
Feb 27, 2020
There aren't that many letters in Renaissance
+2
Level 79
Feb 29, 2020
I got 12/19 (and was pretty satisfied), then I saw that it beats/equals only 37% of quiz takers. 😯
+1
Level 69
Feb 29, 2020
Dang I got the one about Lazuli wrong. I thought it was spelt like Lapiz.
+1
Level 67
Feb 29, 2020
Got Damascus
+1
Level 78
Nov 14, 2021
Are you certain that the substance of interest in Heart of Darkness was ivory, not latex rubber? (Historically at least, that was the main substance that drove the genocide of the Congo.)
+4
Level 81
Nov 14, 2021
Yes
+7
Level 76
Nov 14, 2021
"One day he remarked, without lifting his head, ‘In the interior you will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz.’ On my asking who Mr. Kurtz was, he said he was a first-class agent; and seeing my disappointment at this information, he added slowly, laying down his pen, ‘He is a very remarkable person.’ Further questions elicited from him that Mr. Kurtz was at present in charge of a trading-post, a very important one, in the true ivory-country, at ‘the very bottom of there. Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together...’"
+1
Level 43
Jan 10, 2024
Ivory was the main export of Congo before rubber vulcanization and the near exitinction of congolese elephants
+1
Level 67
Nov 15, 2021
Had no idea that "parchment" isn't just a verbose way of saying "paper" or "document". I managed to get it anyway because I typed it in as a joke and I audibly gasped when it showed up, lol.
+1
Level 74
Nov 18, 2021
Great quiz! Learned a few things too!
+3
Level 68
Feb 12, 2022
Maybe accept Wootz Steel for Damascus Steel? According to Wikipedia, Wootz was the original ingot from India, but Damascus was the refined version of it. I also learned of it as Wootz Steel, but then I was learning about India.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel