Where did tarot come from? A tarot history quiz
A quiz on the origins of tarot: 15th-century Italy, the game of triumphs, the Egypt legend and the Romani myth. Five questions from a pool of twelve.
- 5 questions
- ≈ 2 min
- +5 bronze keys for a flawless run
Where did tarot really come from?
This quiz checks how well you know where and when tarot cards first appeared. The short answer: the earliest known decks were made in northern Italy in the first half of the fifteenth century, and they were made for playing, not for fortune-telling. Egyptian priests, Romani fortune-tellers and secret orders entered the story much later, as legends.
Ordinary playing cards reached Europe in the late fourteenth century. Tarot grew out of them when a series of allegorical picture cards was added to the four suits, cards that beat any suit in play. They were called trionfi, triumphs. The word tarocchi only turned up in the early sixteenth century, when the game needed a name of its own.
How the Egypt legend was born
In 1781 the French scholar Antoine Court de Gébelin wrote, in the eighth volume of Le Monde primitif, that tarot was a surviving book of Egyptian wisdom, the Book of Thoth. He had no evidence, since nobody could read hieroglyphs at the time. Once Jean-François Champollion deciphered Egyptian writing in the 1820s, the ancient texts turned out to say nothing about cards.
The legend survived anyway. Fortune-tellers and nineteenth-century occultists picked it up, and later a second story was added: that the Romani people had carried the cards into Europe. Romani fortune-tellers did read cards, but they reached Western Europe when playing cards were already in use there, and they did not invent tarot.
Why did the pretty myth beat the plain truth? It gave the cards age and mystery, and with them, weight. Historians simply show that tarot is fascinating without Egypt: its path from a courtly pastime to a tool for self-reflection took about three hundred years.
How the quiz works
Each run gives you five questions from a pool of twelve: dates, places, the first names of the cards and the most stubborn myths. After every answer you get a short explanation, and at the end a review of the whole run, so even a miss teaches you something. Get every answer right and you earn Tayna keys.
History does not take depth away from the cards. It shows how people kept finding new meaning in the same pictures for centuries. Tarot became a mirror not because it was a secret book of priests, but because its images are good company for an honest conversation with yourself.
All questions and answers
Open after you play: the full question set with right answers and explanations.
1. Where were the earliest known tarot decks made?
Right answer: In northern Italy
The first decks with trumps were painted at the courts of Milan, Ferrara and Bologna in the first half of the 1400s.
2. Egyptian priests invented tarot to preserve their secret knowledge.
Right answer: Myth
Court de Gébelin proposed this in 1781. Once hieroglyphs could be read, they said nothing about tarot.
3. In which century did the first tarot decks appear?
Right answer: The 15th century
Trump cards appeared at Italian courts in the first half of the 1400s, around the 1440s.
4. What were the first tarot trump cards called in Italy?
Right answer: Triumphs
Trionfi means triumphs: in play they beat the ordinary suits. The word tarocchi came later, in the 1500s.
5. A friend insists tarot was used for divination from day one. What do you say?
Right answer: It started as a game
For about three hundred years tarot was a trick-taking game. Reading it widely began in the late 1700s.
6. Who declared in 1781 that tarot was the Egyptian Book of Thoth?
Right answer: Court de Gébelin
Antoine Court de Gébelin made the claim in volume eight of Le Monde primitif. Lévi, Waite and Crowley came later.
7. The Romani people brought tarot cards into Europe.
Right answer: Myth
Romani groups reached Western Europe in the 1400s, when playing cards were already known there. They did not create tarot.
8. Why couldn't anyone check the Egyptian theory in 1781?
Right answer: Nobody read hieroglyphs
Champollion only deciphered Egyptian writing in the 1820s. The ancient texts said nothing about tarot.
9. The first tarot decks were printed by the thousand, like today.
Right answer: Myth
Early decks were hand-painted to order for nobles. Cheap printing from woodblocks came later.
10. Why was a series of triumph pictures added to the ordinary deck?
Right answer: As trumps in a game
Triumphs beat any suit, like trumps. Their allegories were familiar to the nobility and dressed up the game.
11. The word tarot is older than the cards and comes from Egyptian.
Right answer: Myth
The cards were first called triumphs. Tarocchi appeared in Italy in the early 1500s, and its root is disputed.
12. Roughly how old are tarot cards?
Right answer: About 600 years
The first decks with triumphs appeared in the 1400s, which makes tarot about six hundred years old.