【推荐2】The Giza Pyramids are relics of Egypt’s Old Kingdom era and were constructed 4,500 years ago. Pharaoh (法老) Khufu was the first Egyptian king to build a pyramid in Giza, a project he began around 2550 BC. His Great Pyramid is the largest in Giza and originally towered 481 feet above the plateau. Its estimated 2.3 million stone blocks each weigh an average of 2.5 — 15 tons.

Khufu’s son, Khafre, built the second pyramid at Giza around 2520 BC. His burial ground stands out because it also includes the Sphinx, a limestone monument with the body of a lion and the head of a pharaoh. The third pyramid at Giza is considerably smaller than the first two—less than half their height at about 218 feet. Built by Khafre’s son Menkaure around 2490 BC, the pyramid’s complex includes two separate temples and three individual queens’ pyramids.

According to scientists, the builders were skilled Egyptian workers who lived in a nearby temporary city. Boatmen used the Nile and a network of artificial waterways to bring materials to the Giza Plateau, including copper cutting tools from the Sinai Peninsula and timber (木材) from Lebanon. To sustain the workers, they also delivered cattle from farms near the Nile Delta. Communities across Egypt probably contributed workers, as well as food and other essentials.

It’s generally believed that the Egyptians moved massive stone blocks to the heights along large ramps (坡道), using a system of ropes, rollers, and levers. Some suggest exterior ramps around each pyramid were applied, while a more controversial theory suggests internal ramps were used. Perhaps future imaging technology will reveal how Egyptian builders created these timeless monuments.

As the pyramids helped to build ancient Egypt, they also preserved it. “Many people think of the site as just a tomb in the modern sense, but it’s a lot more than that,” says Harvard University Egyptologist Peter Der Manuelian. “Almost any subject you want to study about the Pharaonic civilization is available on the tomb walls at Giza—so it’s not just about how the ancient Egyptians died but how they lived.”

【推荐3】Geologists have long been fascinated by a missing piece of Earth’s history — a lost continent called Argoland. Around 155 million years ago, the 5,000-kilometer continent broke off from Western Australia and began drifting(漂移), leaving behind a basin deep below the ocean known as the Argo Abyssal Plain. But where did Argoland actually go?

The seabed structure suggests that the continent drifted northwestward and ended up Southeast Asia. But surprisingly, there is no large continent hidden beneath those islands, only small continental fragments(碎片) surrounded by ancient oceanic basins. Using this theory, geologists at Utrecht University discovered that Argoland hadn’t really disappeared but survived as a “very extended and fragmented collection” under the islands to the east of Indonesia.

Unlike other continents like Africa and South America, which broke neatly into two pieces, Argoland split into many smaller fragments that were dispersed, which made it difficult for scientists to locate and study the continent’s geological features. However, with advanced technology and the discovery, scientists can now piece them together.

Tracing the continents is vital for understanding processes like the evolution of biodiversity. It could help explain something known as the mysterious Wallace line, which is an imaginary boundary that separates mammals, birds, and even early human species in Southeast Asian islands. The boundary has puzzled scientists because of how clearly it separates the island’s wildlife. To the west of the line are placental mammals like apes and elephants. But these are almost completely absent to the east, where you can find marsupials and cockatoos — animals typically associated with Australia. Researchers have theorized that this may be because Argoland carried its own wildlife away from Australia before it crashed into Southeast Asia, which helps explain why different species are found in different nations.

The story of Argoland is not one of complete disappearance but of transformation. As the world continues to evolve, this lost continent serves as a powerful symbol of the fragility of life on this planet, and a reminder of the importance of respecting and protecting the world that we live in.