Over 2,500 pieces of cultural relics dating back up to 2,200 years were unearthed in Guang zhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province, local authorities said Friday. The cultural relics were unearthed at
The
“The excavation outcomes are
2 . Researchers in Norway say they have found what they believe is the world’s oldest runestone (符文石)—a stone with ancient writing on it.
Runes are the characters in several Germanic letters. These characters were used in northern Europe from ancient times until the change to the Latin letters. The origin of runic writing is unclear. The Norwegian researchers say the writing on the runestone could be up to 2,000 years old.
The runestone is square and flat. The runes carved into it may show the earliest example of recorded words in Scandinavia, the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo said. It said it was “among the oldest runic writings ever found” and “the oldest runestone ever found in the world”.
Kristel Zilmer is a professor at University of Oslo, of which the museum is part. Zilmer said, “This find will give us a lot of knowledge about the use of runes in the early Iron Age. This may be one of the first attempts to use runes in Norway and Scandinavia on stone.”
Runes have been found on stones and on home goods. Older runes have been found on other objects, also, but not on stones. The oldest known runic writing is on a hair tool made from bone. Zilmer said that the ancient writer might have used a knife or needle to make the runes.
Measuring 31 centimeters by 32 centimeters, the stone has several kinds of writings. Not all of them make sense. Eight runes on the front of the stone read “idiberug”—which could be the name of a person or family but not sure.
There is still a lot of research to be done on the rock, named Svingerud stone after where it was found.
The Museum of Cultural History is going to hold a public showing of the runestone for a month. The museum holds Norway’s largest collection of historical objects, from ancient times to the modern day.
1. Where have the oldest runes been found?| A．On a bone. | B．On a stone. | C．On the iron. | D．On home goods. |
| A．The content on it. | B．The person who found it. |
| C．The place where it was discovered. | D．The date when it was found. |
| A．The origin of the runes. | B．The shape and size of the runestone. |
| C．The meaning of all the runes. | D．The exact age of the runestone. |
| A．Origin of Latin Has Been Discovered |
| B．Runestones Show Life of Ancient People |
| C．Stone with Ancient Writing on It Is on Show |
| D．Researchers Discover World’s Oldest Runestone |
3 . A seven-word sentence was discovered on a 3,700-year-old comb (梳子),which is likely the oldest known sentence written in letters,according to a new study. The sentence is in Canaanite (迦南语),which is the source (来源) of later letter systems in European languages.
The comb was first discovered in 2016 in Israeli. However,it wasn’t until 2021 that a researcher from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem first noticed the words when checking the photo of the comb. The researchers were not able to directly date the comb. They believed it dated from around 1700 BC based on comparison of the letters with those on pottery (陶器) with a known age.
Garfinkel,a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,said,“The Canaanites invented the letters. Nowadays every person in the world can read and write using the letter system. This is really one of the most important achievements of humankind. When you are writing in English,you’re really using Canaanite.”
Small groups of Canaanite letters discovered on broken pieces of pottery before did not leave much room for further research on the lives of the Canaanites. But this find of a sentence written in the first letter-based language opens up the debate about the history during the ancient time period.
Garfinkel said,“The sentence was found on an ivory comb in the ancient city’s palace and temple area,which could suggest that only wealthy men were able to read and write.” The earliest writing system started around 5,000 years ago,which relied on hundreds of pictographs (象形文字) to represent words,ideas and sounds. Canaanites were the first to use letters in their writing system. “It shows that even in the most ancient times there were full sentences,which further suggests that Canaanites stood out among the early civilizations in their use of the written word.”
1. What do we know about Canaanite?| A．It has a history of 3,700 years. | B．It is the oldest known language. |
| C．Its sentences are in many languages. | D．Its letters are still in use at present. |
| A．It was discovered on some pottery. | B．It was identified on a comb in 2016. |
| C．It was recognized when dating the comb. | D．It was recognized on a photo of the comb. |
| A．The influence of Canaanite letters. |
| B．The rules of using Canaanite letters. |
| C．The problem in identifying the Canaanite sentence. |
| D．The explanation of the discovered Canaanite sentence. |
| A．Useless. | B．Meaningful. | C．Confusing. | D．Unacceptable. |
URUMQI-After packing some naan bread and
It’s a round trip of around 150 kilometers and
Shan and his wife, Yuan Qin, are responsible for protecting one particular relic site that
Their relic protection routine usually includes walking around the site to look for footprints and motorcycle tracks, keeping records of the tombs,
A great number of artifacts from eight tombs
Six Eastern Han Dynasty tombs are brick tombs, three of
It is also the first time that archaeologists
“This excavation(挖掘)is
Archaeologists have excavated (挖掘) the ruins of a house
The house
“This is the first time that large house ruins
Archaeologists also unearthed a large number of
In 1921, the first excavation on the Yangshao village site,
Originating from the Yellow River, the Yangshao Culture is considered as
7 . Imagine this: You’re digging a well, and instead of hitting water, you unearth a headless human body made of pottery. This actually happened to farmers in Shanxi province in central China in 1974. Local archaeologists heard of the find and biked over to investigate. They realized that the figure had come from a tomb built over 2,000 years ago for China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuang. Archaeologists finally discovered three separate pits (穴) filled with 8,000 life-sized statues, all made from terracotta — a type of fired clay.
About a mile away from these pits, there’s a large mound (山丘). Archaeologists know that this is the main part of Qin Shihuang’s tomb, but they have never looked inside. They have left it alone out of respect for the first emperor and to protect the tomb as it is.
“Many people wish to see the treasures and mysteries inside, but we cannot,” says Xiuzhen Li, an archaeologist. Opening the tomb could damage its contents. Someday, Li hopes, we’ll have technology that will let us see inside the main part of the tomb without opening and disturbing it.
“Probably in the near future we’ll have some new technology that can see inside like an x-ray,” she says. Scientists are working on techniques that make it possible to see underground. Another idea is that a tiny robot could enter through a small hole and capture videos of what it sees. Even if this robotic exploration is done very carefully, however, it would still damage the tomb. For now, the Chinese government prefers to wait to do anything until they have even better technology.
1. What’s the suitable description of the figure from the tomb?| A．A copy of real soldiers. | B．A model of emperors. |
| C．In ruins. | D．In colors. |
| A．It might be ruined. |
| B．It is very dangerous. |
| C．The robot is not clever enough. |
| D．The government doesn’t allow it. |
| A．Unconcerned. | B．Doubtful. |
| C．Hopeful. | D．Objective. |
| A．An encyclopedia. | B．A history textbook. |
| C．A newspaper. | D．A travel guide. |
When it comes to ancient civilizations, most people think of the Greeks and Romans. It’s understandable as both
The Jiahu settlement is located in the central plain of ancient China,
The settlement’s end came around 5700 BCE when the nearby rivers overflowed and flooded the area. It is assumed that the Jiahu people left their home
9 . Scientists have solved a puzzle about modern humans, after research showed that a famous skull of a human ancestor found in South Africa is a million years older than experts thought. This discovery has changed what we know of human history.
The skull, which scientists have named “Mrs Ples”, is from an ape-like human relative from a species called Australopithecus africanus (南方古猿). It was found near Johannesburg in 1947 and, based on evidence from its surroundings, was thought to be between 2. 1 and 2. 6 million years old. This puzzled scientists, because although Mrs Ples looks like a possible early ancestor of early humans, the first true humans had already evolved by the time she apparently lived. For this reason, scientists had decided that Australopithecus afarensis, a similar species from East Africa that lived about 3.5 million years ago, was our most likely ancestor instead.
To get a more accurate age for Mrs Ples, a team led by Professor Darryl Granger of Purdue University in Indiana, US, used a new method to date the sandy rocks where the skull lay. They measured the amount of certain chemicals in rocks, which form at a steady rate when they are exposed to cosmic rays (宇宙射线) on Earth’s surface. Once rocks are buried, these chemicals stop forming and slowly disappear;the surviving amount reveals how much time has passed since the rock (or bones) were on the surface.
The new study shows that Mrs Ples and other australopithecine bones nearby are between 3.4 and 3.7 million years old. This means they lived at the same time as their East African relatives, so that either group could have given rise to modern humans. However, team member Dr Laurent Bruxelles pointed out that over millions of years, at only 2,500 miles away, these groups had plenty of time to travel and to breed with each other. In other words, the groups could quite easily have met, had children together and both been part of the history of modern humans.
1. What can we learn about Mrs Ples from the first two paragraphs?| A．It is a skull found in East Africa. |
| B．It is the most possible ancestor of humans. |
| C．It is a million years older than scientists expected. |
| D．It is proved to live between 2.1 and 2.6 million years ago. |
| A．By studying the effect of cosmic rays. |
| B．By calculating the forming rate of chemicals. |
| C．By locating the sandy rocks where the skull lay. |
| D．By measuring the surviving amount of chemicals. |
| A．Modern humans came into being in East Africa. |
| B．Mrs Ples travelled and had children with East African relatives. |
| C．The history of modern humans might begin 3.5 million years ago. |
| D．Ape-like species from Africa could have interacted with each other. |
| A．Historical Puzzle Unsolved | B．Ancestor Mystery Solved |
| C．Mrs Ples: The Earliest Human Being | D．Mrs Ples: A Famous Skull |
10 . People all around the world have enjoyed noodles for thousands of years.
Archaeologists discovered an upside-down clay bowl in the ruins of an ancient Chinese village.
Some people claim that Marco Polo brought pasta to Italy. The tale says that when he visited China, he tried noodles for the first time and liked them so much that he took the recipe home.
So who REALLY invented noodles? We may never know—the history of noodles is as twisted as a bowl of spaghetti. But whoever invented them, we’re sure glad they did!
| A．Who made the very first noodle? |
| B．But it is probably not true! |
| C．Who planted wheat first? |
| D．They were tasty, easy to carry, and never went bad. |
| E．When they lifted it, they found a 4,000-year-old noodle. |
| F．However, dried noodles have many disadvantages |
| G．So, if Marco Polo did not bring noodles to Italy, who did? |
