首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The Mystery of the Mayas The ruins of once-beautiful cities in the forests of Central America tell scientists much about the
The Mystery of the Mayas The ruins of once-beautiful cities in the forests of Central America tell scientists much about the
admin
2013-02-24
69
问题
The Mystery of the Mayas
The ruins of once-beautiful cities in the forests of Central America tell scientists much about the amazing people who built them. But they do not tell why these cities were suddenly abandoned over one thousand years ago. Around A. D. 800, something mysterious happened to the Mayan civilization. Walls and foundations for new buildings were left unfinished. To modern archeologists, it looked as if the cities had been abandoned. What happened? What is the possible explanation of this mystery?
Early Discoveries
In the late 1700’s, a group of explorers cutting their way through a forest in Central America came upon the ruins of an ancient city. Under a tangle of trees and vines, they found large, well-de- signed stone buildings and handsome stone monuments. Some of the stones were covered with a strange kind of writing. Carvings on other stones showed that at least some of the people who lived in the area long before were highly advanced.
Questions Raised
In the next 150 years, more cities were discovered. They seemed to be part of a great civilization stretching across 500 miles (about 800 kilometers) of forest. In 1881, an Englishman named Alfred Maudslay led the first big scientific expedition to study the ruins in the forest. Maudslay was an archeologist, a scientist who studies the remains of ancient communities for clues to how the people lived. Other expeditions followed, but at first they found more questions than answers: Who built the cities, and when the cities were built? How had the people lived here in the middle of a rain forest? Most puzzling of all, what happened to them?
Possible Answers
Gradually, some of the answers have been pieced together. Today, living in parts of Mexico and Guatemala, there are brown skinned Indian people called the Mayas. Scientists believe that the ancestors of these Indians built the cities and carved the stone monuments.
Dates carved on some monuments show that they were put up between A. D. 300 and 800, but bits of buried pottery tell us that the Mayas had lived in some of their cities for hundreds of years earlier. At the height of Mayan civilization, there must have been over two million people living in and around hundreds of beautiful towns and cities.
Archeologists digging in these cities have uncovered roads, a few water reservoirs, and temples built one on top of another. Handsome pictures made of sculptured plaster and painted in bright colors were found on the walls of buildings. Painted pots and pieces of carefully carved jewelry were discovered in tombs under the floors of temples. These pictures and objects showed much about the Mayas’ life. There were scenes of people working, people at war, nobles holding court, priests in fantastic costumes, and Mayan gods.
Possible Errors
For a long time, archeologists worked only on uncovering large Mayan structures, such as temples, palaces, and ball courts. Little effort was made to find the remains of smaller buildings, such as houses. The seeming absence of houses led people to believe that the cities were only the homes of priests and rulers, who lived in the palaces. They thought the ordinary people probably lived in the countryside and came to the cities only for religious ceremonies.
New Evidence
In recent years, new evidence has been uncovered at a number of Mayan cities by different groups of archeologists. The University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia has just finished a twelve-year study of Tikal, the biggest of the Mayan cities. More than one hundred small houses varied, too. Some had many remains of finely decorated pottery. Others had fewer and plainer pieces. The houses were very close together, with little space to raise food, except in small gardens. Change of View
These new findings changed our picture of Mayan life. Dr. William R. Coe, director of the Tikal project, said that Tikal must have been a real city after all, at least for part of its history. It must have had a big population. The differences in the houses show that there were many different classes of people. Perhaps some were craftsmen -- the stonecutters, sculptors, and painters who worked on new temples and monuments.
Mayas’ Impressive Accomplishments
As archeologists studied the Mayas, they became more and more impressed by how much these people had been able to do. In other parts of the world, people were using metal tools before they began building cities. They also had wheels and carts to help move loads, and domesticated animals to push or pull them. The Mayas had none of these things. Their only tools were made of wood or stone. Yet they cut and carved rocks weighing thousands of pounds, and built temples over 200 feet (above sixty meters) tall.
But the Mayas could do more than just make buildings and works of art. One of the most important things they did was learn to write. When some of the Mayan writing was figured out, archeologists discovered how much the Mayas knew about other things, too.
In mathematics, they could count up to the millions. They were the first people to figure out how to use the zero with other numerals to make working with large numbers easier.
In astronomy, too, they were way ahead of other ancient peoples. Records show that the Mayas had observed the skies for centuries, keeping track of what they saw. They knew how long the moon took to go around the earth, and how long the planet Venus took to come back to the same place in the sky. They could predict eclipses, and they worked out a calendar of eighteen twenty-day "months" and one five-day "month" that measured the year as accurately as the calendar we use today.
Evidence shows that the use of astronomic knowledge of astronomy greatly affected the life of the Mayas.
选项
A、Y
B、N
C、NG
答案
C
解析
答题依据在文章最后一段。该段只介绍了玛雅人在天文学方面的成就,并未涉及这些成就对生活的影响,故答案为[NG]
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/35u7777K
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
Peoplemightnotenjoysuchasituation:dininginapitch-darkroom,unawarewhat’sonourplatewhilesittingnexttoacomple
Fewhumanrecordssurviveforlong,the16000-year-oldPaleolithiccavepaintingsatLascaux,France,beingoneexception.Now
A、Tolookforbankruptcies.B、Tofindcontactinformation.C、Togetsomeoneelse’sphotos.D、Toconductresearchonline.B本题询问在什
A、Thenighttimeandthehighestdaytimetemperaturesareclose.B、Mostpeoplefeeltheweatheristoohottostand.C、Thenightt
FrequentbusinesstravelerJoyceGioiaforgotmorethan$20000worthofjewelryinherhotelroominItalylastyear.Luckily
Becausesomanypeopleintheirteensandearly20sareincreasinglysocializing—accessibletoeachothereveryminuteoftheda
InthemonthofSeptember,inBritain,youmayseelargenumbersofbirds【C1】______onroofsandtelegraphwires.Thesebirdsar
Thecarelessmanreceivedaticketforspeeding.He______(本不该还开这么快)
A、Finishwritingasalesreportfortheboss.B、Solvethecomplaintfromaclient.C、Getreadyfortheworknextmorning.D、Chec
随机试题
在人本主义(询者中心)治疗中最重要的是
下列哪种心肌损伤标志物测定结果受溶血因素影响较大?()
张某因不服税务局查封财产决定向上级机关申请复议,要求撤销查封决定,但没有提出赔偿请求。复议机关经审查认为该查封决定违法,决定予以撤销。对于查封决定造成的财产损失,复议机关正确的做法是()。
特种设备在投入使用前或者投入使用后()日内,特种设备使用单位应当向直辖市或者设区的市的特种设备安全监督管理部门()。登记标志应当置于或者附着于该特种设备的显著位置。
下列关于利润分配的说法中,不正确的是()。
ABC会计师事务所接受甲公司年度财务报表审计业务,A注册会计师作为项目合伙人,以下处理中不正确的是()。
古今中外的不朽名曲是人类美好的精神食粮。陶冶着我们的情操,_______着我们的心田,_______着我们不安而又躁动的情怀,_______着我们走向理性、走向宽容,学会去关怀、去理解。有了音乐的洗礼,我们看到善和美的光芒。填入画横线部分最恰当的一项是:
诉讼法是规范国家司法机关解决社会纠纷的法律规范。我国程序法律部门中,被称为“三大诉讼”的是
已知β1,β2是非齐次线性方程组Ax=b的两个不同的解,α1,α2是对应的齐次线性方程组Ax=0的基础解系,k1,k2为任意常数,则方程组Ax=b的通解是()
Anadultgiraffe’sheadisaboutsixfeetaboveitsheart.Thismeansthatto【C1】______enoughblooduptothebrainthecircul
最新回复
(
0
)