| Hint | Answer | % Correct |
|---|---|---|
| Prospectors flocked to California in 1849 looking for this | Gold | 98%
|
| Paper-like writing material first used in ancient Egypt | Papyrus | 87%
|
| Chinese emperors were buried in suits made of this green stone | Jade | 86%
|
| The Stone Age came to an end when people starting working with this copper alloy | Bronze | 84%
|
| The Chinese monopoly on this fabric ended in the 6th century when Byzantine monks smuggled out the materials needed to make it | Silk | 84%
|
| The first emperor of China was buried with an "army" of 8000 soldiers made from this earthenware material | Terracotta | 74%
|
| This semiprecious stone was ground into powder to make ultramarine, the most expensive blue pigment used by Rennaissance painters | {Lapis} lazuli | 72%
|
| The dome of the Pantheon in Rome was built from this. Today, it is possibly the world's most-used building material. | Concrete | 70%
|
| Rifles got a big improvement in the 1600s when they started using this stone to create a spark | Flint | 69%
|
| The Digital Age took off in 1960 thanks to chips made mostly from this semiconductive element | Silicon | 63%
|
| This element was first produced in 1940 in California. It became the "active" ingredient in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. | Plutonium | 61%
|
| Fragrant tree resin supposedly given to the baby Jesus | Frankincense / Myrrh | 60%
|
| Fossilized tree resin traded from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean in ancient times | Amber | 56%
|
| "Heart of Darkness" tells the story of a man who goes mad while working to export this white-colored material from Africa | Ivory | 48%
|
| Daguerreotypes (an early type of photography) used a sheet of copper plated with this material | Silver | 46%
|
| The U.S. Constitution is written on this type of material, made from animal skins | Parchment | 42%
|
| Superhard steel named for a city in the Middle East. Scientists still don't fully understand the secret of its construction. | {Damascus} steel | 39%
|
| Spanish for "mudbrick", it was used to build houses by the Pueblo people of the American Southwest | Adobe | 34%
|
| England's most valuable export in the Middle Ages. Much of it ended up in Belgium. | Wool | 21%
|