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  3. Whose Grave is This Anyway? There are many legends about the world famous Egyptian Pharaohs’ tombs, which have lain silent for t

Whose Grave is This Anyway? There are many legends about the world famous Egyptian Pharaohs’ tombs, which have lain silent for t

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问题                     Whose Grave is This Anyway?
There are many legends about the world famous Egyptian Pharaohs’ tombs, which have lain silent for thousands of years along the Nero River. In reality though, this silence has constantly been disturbed by a great variety of people. While considering their different motivations in doing so, we must examine whether disturbing the ancient tombs is justifiable or worthy of condemnation.
     (A)hen Howard Carter and his party opened the tomb of the Egyptian king Tutankhamen in 1922, there was rejoicing around the world.(B)he tomb was largely intact and not seriously pillaged by ancient grave robbers, so it still contained the wonderful artifacts that had been buried with the young king more than three millennia earlier.(C)Over the next several years Carter and his team systematically photographed and catalogued the objects from the tomb, then transported them to the Cairo Museum.(D)
    There is a certain irony in this story that raises complex ethical questions. Why are Carter and his party not called grave robbers? Why are their actions in stripping the tomb acceptable—even praiseworthy—when similar behavior by common thieves would be deplored? No matter who opens a tomb and takes away its contents, that person is violating the intentions of those who sealed the tomb originally. No matter what the motivation, a human body that was meant to rest in peace for all time has been disturbed. Should this not make us feel uncomfortable?
    From the beginning, some were uneasy about the propriety of unearthing Tutankhamen’s remains. When Lord Carnarvon, Carter’s sponsor, died suddenly from a mosquito bite, and several others connected with the project experienced tragedies, rumors arose about the "curse of King Tut". But Carter himself died peacefully many years later, and the talk subsided.
    Perhaps it is the passage of time that transforms grave robbing into archaeology. Carter would no doubt have been outraged if, say, his grandmother’s coffin had been dug up to strip the body of its jewelry. But after three thousand years Tutankhamen has no living relatives to protest his disturbance.
    Perhaps it is a question of the words we use to describe such ancient finds. We speak of Tutankhamen’s "mummy", and mummy is a clean, historical-sounding word. Parents bring their children to museums to see the mummies and mummy cases. We can almost forget that a mummy is the embalmed body of a dead human being, pulled out of its coffin so that we can marvel at the coffin and sometimes the body itself.
    Or, perhaps the difference between grave robbing and archaeology lies in the motives of the perpetrators. Common thieves are motivated by greed, by their quest for money to be made by selling stolen objects. Carter and his team did not sell the treasures from Tutankhamen’s tomb but stored them safely in the Cairo Museum, where art lovers from around the world can see them. They were, in effect, making a glorious gift to the people of our century and centuries to come(while at the same time, one must point out, acquiring significant glory for themselves).
    The basic issue is a clash of cultural values. To the Egyptians, it was normal and correct to bury their finest artworks with the exalted dead. To us, the idea of all that beauty being locked away in the dark forever seems an appalling waste. We want to bring it into the light, to have it as part of our precious artistic heritage. Almost no one, having seen these magnificent treasures, would seriously propose they be put back in the tomb and sealed up.
    In the end, inevitably, our cultural values will prevail simply because we are still here and the ancient Egyptians are not. After three thousand years, Tutankhamen’s grave really isn’t his anymore. Whether right or wrong, it belongs to us.
Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect answer choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.
选项 A、Excavating a tomb is a scientific practice of archaeology and should not be viewed as wrong.
B、Excavating a tomb is part of archaeology, which is essential to humans’ understanding of history.
C、Unearthing an ancient grave is regarded as grave robbing, which would outrage the relatives of the dead.
D、Unearthing an ancient grave is not considered grave robbing but archaeology since the grave is thousands of years old.
答案D
解析 本题是句子简化题，要求考生能够理解文章中某一复杂句，并能用简化的句子来表达原句的基本意思。文中涂黑句子“Perhaps it is the passage of time that transforms grave robbinginto archaeology”的意思为“或许，随着时间的推移，盗墓行为就成了考古学”。也就是说，既然古墓已有千年历史，挖掘古墓再也不会被认为是盗墓行为，从以后几段的叙述中也可以判断出这一意思，所以选D项。
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