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
From the air, the lines etched in the floor of the desert were hard to see, like drawings left in the sun too long. As our pilot
From the air, the lines etched in the floor of the desert were hard to see, like drawings left in the sun too long. As our pilot
admin
2012-12-01
51
问题
From the air, the lines etched in the floor of the desert were hard to see, like drawings left in the sun too long. As our pilot cut tight turns over a desert plateau in Southern Peru, north of the town of Nasca, I could just make out a succession of beautifully crafted figures.
"Orca!" shouted Johny Isla, a Peruvian archaeologist, over the roar of the engine. He pointed down at the form of a killer whale. "jMono!" he said moments later, when the famous Nasca monkey came into view. "Colibri!" The hummingbird.
Since they became widely known in the late 1920s, when commercial air travel was introduced between Lima and the southern Peruvian city of Arequipa, the mysterious desert drawings known as the Nasca lines have puzzled archaeologists, anthropologists, and anyone fascinated by ancient cultures in the Americas. For just as long, waves of scientists—and amateurs—have inflicted various interpretations on the lines, as if they were the world’s largest set of Rorschach inkblots. At one time or another, they have been explained as Inca roads, irrigation plans, images to be appreciated from primitive hot-air balloons, and, most laughably, landing strips for alien spacecraft.
After World War II a German-born teacher named Maria Reiche made the first formal surveys of the lines and figures—called geoglyphs—outside Nasca and the nearby town of Palpa. For half a century, until her death in 1998, Reiche played a critically important role in conserving the geoglyphs. But her own preferred theory—that the lines represented settings on an astronomical calendar—has also been largely discredited. The ferocity with which she protected the lines from outsiders has been adopted by their caretakers today, so that even scientists have a hard time gaining access to the most famous animal figures on the plain, or pampa, immediately northwest of Nasca.
Since 1997, however, a large Peruvian-German research collaboration has been under way near the town of Palpa, farther to the north. Directed by Isla and Markus Reindel of the German Archaeological Institute, the Nasca-Palpa Project has mounted a systematic, multidisciplinary study of the ancient people of the region, starting with where and how the Nasca lived, why they disappeared, and what was the meaning of the strange designs they left behind in the desert sand.
As our plane banked into another turn, Isla, a native of the highlands who works at the Andean Institute of Archaeological Studies, kept his broad, high-cheeked face pressed to the window. "Trapezoid!" he shouted, pointing out a huge geometrical clearing looming into sight. "Platform!" he added, gesturing with his finger. "Platform!"
Platform? He was pointing at a small heap of stones at one end of the trapezoid. If Isla and his colleagues are right, such unprepossessing structures may hold a key to understanding the true purpose of the Nasca lines. The story begins, and ends, with water.
The coastal region of Southern Peru and Northern Chile is one of the driest places on Earth. In the small, protected basin where the Nasca culture arose, ten rivers descend from the Andes, to the east, most of them dry at least part of the year. These ten fragile ribbons of green, surrounded by a thousand shades of brown, offered a fertile hot spot for the emergence of an early civilization, much as the Nile Delta or the rivers of Mesopotamia did. "It was the perfect place for human settlement, because it had water," says geographer Bernhard Eitel, a member of the Nasca-Palpa Project. "But it was a high-risk environment—a very high-risk environment."
According to Eitel and his University of Heidelberg colleague Bertil Machtle, the microclimate in the Nasca region has oscillated dramatically over the past 5,000 years. When a high-pressure system over central South America called the Bolivian High moves to the north, more rain falls on the western slopes of the Andes. When the high shifts southward, precipitation decreases, and the rivers in the Nasca valleys run dry.
Despite the risky conditions, the Nasca flourished for eight centuries. Around 200 BC, the Nasca people emerged out of a previous culture known as the Paracas, settling along the river valleys and cultivating crops such as cotton, beans, tubers, lucuma (a fruit), and a short-eared form of corn. Renowned for their distinctive pottery, they invented a new technique of mixing about a dozen different mineral pigments in a thin wash of clay so that colors could be baked into the pottery. A famous ceramic tableau known as the Tello plaque—showing several Nasca strolling while blowing their panpipes, surrounded by dancing dogs—has been viewed as an iconic snapshot of a peaceful people whose rituals embraced music, dance, and sacred walks.
Which of the following words best matches the meaning of the word "embrace" in Paragraph 10?
选项
A、Take in the arms.
B、Imbue.
C、Include.
D、Imply.
答案
C
解析
辨词题。文中出现的“embrace”一词并不是指“拥抱”,而是指“包括、包含”,故C项正确。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/HUaO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
A、getatmorespecificthings.B、getatmoregeneralthings.C、getatmorepersonalthings.D、getatmorepublicthings.A
Manythingsmakepeoplethinkartistsareweird—theoddhours,thenonconformity,theclovecigarettes.Buttheweirdestmayb
Somepeoplethinkthatthosewhohavereceivedhighereducationshouldbepaidahighersalarythanthosewhohavenotbecauset
DangersofUsingComputerTerminalsUndoubtedly,thecomputerhasgreatlyincreasedhumanbeing’sworkingcapacityandintelle
Whitman’spoemsarecharacterizedbyallthefollowingfeaturesEXCEPT______.
Theworld’spopulationcontinuestogrow.Therenowareabout4billionofusonearth.Thatcouldreach6billionbytheendof
TheAmericangovernmentisdividedintothreebranches:thelegislative,theexecutiveandthejudicial.Theyarerepresentedby
Modernlinguisticsdiffersfromtraditionalgrammarforitismostly
TheGrandCanyonandthePaintedDesertarelocatedin______oftheUnitedStates.
随机试题
联系实际论述艺术创作的基本过程及每个环节的特征。
宫外孕的发生部位()
白血病病人突然出现头痛、呕吐、视力模糊等症状,常提示可能发生了( )。
药品批发企业按规定建立的药品销售记录是
酶活性中心是指
某市人民政府规定,在城市规划区内兴建商品房的许可由市国土资源局统一办理,市建设委员会、市规划局、市环保局等部门在本部门职权范围内向市国土资源局提出意见。某开发公司向市国土资源局申请在某地块兴建商品房。市规划局认为该商品房兴建不符合城市规划,故提出不予许可的
下列不属于企业核心竞争力主要体现的是()。
在党所面临的“四大挑战”中,所谓执政考验的核心是()
在线性表中采用折半查找法(二分查找法)查找一个数据元素,线性表应(54)。
coverletter本题有关论文提交的流程。录音原文的fixthethings是题目revise的同义替换;presentagain是sendback的同义转述。
最新回复
(
0
)