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
Complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer. Researching the origin of medieval manus
Complete the notes below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer. Researching the origin of medieval manus
admin
2014-11-08
76
问题
Complete the notes below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS for each answer.
Researching the origin of medieval manuscripts
Background
Medieval manuscripts—handwritten books produced between the fifth and fifteenth centuriee
Origin of many manuscripts unknown until 2009; scientists started using PNA testing
Animal hides—two types
Parchment
Sheep skin: white in colour and 【L31】______
Greasy—writing cant be erased so often used for 【L32】______
Vellum
Calf skin: most popular for prestigious work because you can get 【L33】______lettering.
Preparation of hides
Treated in barrels of lime—where this was not available, skins were 【L34】______(removed hair → more flexible)
Stretched tight on a frame
Scraped to create same 【L35】______
Vellum was 【L36】______.—for correct colour
Genetic testing—finding origins
Previously—analysed handwriting and 【L37】______used by the writer
Now—using genetic data from ’known manuscripts’ to create a【L38】’______’
Uses of new data
Gives information on individual books
Shows the 【L39】______of the book industry
Helps define 【L40】______in medieval period
【L32】
Narrator: You will hear a historian giving a presentation about techniques to identify the origin of hand-written books from the middle ages. First you have some time to look at Questions 31-40. Now listen, and answer Questions 31-40.
Historian: My presentation today is on how the science of genetics is being used to shed light on the origin of manuscripts—anything written by hand—produced in the medieval period ... that is ... the period between the fifth and fifteenth centuries AD.
As many of you know, thousands of medieval handwritten books still exist today. Some of them have a clear provenance, that is, we know exactly where and when they were written, but the origin of many manuscripts has been a complete mystery, that is, until two thousand and nine when geneticists started using DNA testing to shed light on their origins.
But before looking at the new research, I need to explain something about the way the manuscripts were produced—particularly what they were written on. Virtually all Were written on treated animal skins and there were essentially two types. The first was parchment, which is made of sheep skin. It has the quality of being very white but also being thin. It has a naturally greasy surface which meant it was hard to erase writing from it. This made it much sought after for court documents in medieval times.
The second type is vellum, which is calf skin. This was most often used for any very ’high-status’ documents because it provided the best writing surface so scribes could achieve lettering of high quality.
So, once the animal hides had been chosen, they had to be prepared. Where the right materials were on hand, the skins were put into large barrels or vats of lime, where they were agitated or stirred frequently. But if lime wasn’t available, then the hides were buried. Both these techniques were designed to cause the hair to slough off, and the skins to become gelatinous and therefore more flexible.
The next stage was to put the hides on stretcher frames and pull them very tight. While on the frame they were scraped with a moon-shaped knife in order to create a ’ uniform thickness. For parchment, that was the end of the process, but for vellum there was an additional stage where it was bleached, in order to achieve the desired colour.
Historian: So, what does all this preparation mean for the quest to identify the origins of ’mystery’ manuscripts? Well, until recently the only way historians and other academics were able to guess at origins was either through the analysis of the handwriting style, or from the dialect in which the piece was written. But these techniques have proven unreliable, for a number of reasons.
It was thus decided to try to look at the problem from a different angle ... to start from what is known, that is, the small number of manuscripts whose origins we do already know. Because these parchments and vellum are both made from animal hides, it was possible to subject them to DNA testing and to identify the genetic markers for the date and location of production. From this was created what is known as a ’baseline’. The next stage was to test the mystery manuscripts, finding their DNA characteristics and then making comparisons between the known and the mystery scripts. Genetic similarities and differences enabled the scientists to gain more information about the origins of the many manuscripts we had known virtually nothing about up to that point.
Now you might ask—what are the potential uses of this new information? Well, obviously, it can shed light on the origin of individual books and manuscripts. But that’s not all. It can also shed light on the evolution of the whole of the manuscripts production industry in medieval times. And because that was such a thriving business, involving very large-scale movements right across the globe, the new data, in turn, help historians establish which trade routes were in operation during the whole millennium.
Now if anyone has any questions...
选项
答案
court documents
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/7eAO777K
本试题收录于:
雅思听力题库雅思(IELTS)分类
0
雅思听力
雅思(IELTS)
相关试题推荐
Inaphysicaleducationclass,20studentsweretestedonarcherytargetshooting.Thesestudentswerethengivenatwo-daytrai
IntroductionandInterview(4-5minutes)Introduction(compulsory)Interview(choose1)Let’stalkaboutwhereyou
IntroductionandInterviewIntroduction(compulsory)Interview(choose1)Let’stalkaboutwhereyoulive.Whi
Whydidyouchoosethismajor?
Doyouthinkit’snecessarytogivefriendsexpensivegiftsfortheirbirthday?Why?
Whatkindsofsubjectsdostudentsstudyinhighschool?
TVandInternetareverypopularnowadays.Somepeoplesaythattheywillreplacebooksasthemainsourcesofinformation.
Youareacollegestudentwhoappliesforapart-timejobinashopduringthesummervacationWritealettertotheshopow
Highschoolstudentsshouldremainingeneralschoolsuntil17yearsold.Onlythencantheyknowthemselvesenoughtochooseth
随机试题
人参的下列配伍哪项是正确的()(1997年第142题)
源结点与目标结点之间采用交换技术实现其连接。通常有三种交换方式:电路交换、( )、包交换。
《食品卫生法》对人的效力原则是
关于革兰阳性菌
按《建筑桩基技术规范》(JGJ94—94),对于桩身周围有液化土层的低桩承台,关于液化土层对单桩极限承载力影响的分析中,()是正确的。
深基坑支护与降水工程、模板工程、脚手架工程的施工专项方案必须经下列哪些人员签字后实施?①经施工单位技术负责人;②总监理工程师;③结构设计人;④施工方法人代表。
英国的保险公估人大多属于( )。
全面准确地理解和把握“一国”与“两制”的关系,应在坚持“一国”基础上,实现“两制”之间的和谐相处、相互促进。为此,必须做到
编写函数fun,其功能是:根据以下公式计算S,并将计算结果作为函数值返回,n通过形参传入。例如,若n的值为11时,函数的值为1.833333。注意:部分源程序给出如下。请勿改动主函数main和其他函数中的任何内容,仅在函数f
DearSir/Madam,Inresponsetoyouradvertisementinyesterday’sTimeEducationalSupplement,Iwouldliketoapplyforthe
最新回复
(
0
)