1 . Before humans stored memories as zeroes and ones, we turned to digital devices of another kind — preserving knowledge on the surface of fingers and palms.

When Mogao Caves was uncovered in 1900, an aging drawing was lifted from a trove of religious manuscripts. The drawing illustrates a mnemonic (助记符号) system, a way of projecting knowledge onto the hands so it can be studied, memorized, and stored in a pocket. Around the same time this mnemonic was made, a monk named Bede halfway around the world was developing a different system of manual knowledge. These two systems are perhaps the earliest examples of manual mnemonics.

Beginning roughly twelve hundred years ago, we started using the hand itself as a portable (便携的) place of knowledge, a place to store whatever tended to slip our mental grasp. The hand became an all-purpose memory machine.

In different times and places, hands provided mnemonic maps of sound. As early as the thirteenth century, Chinese scholars were projecting syllable charts (音节图表) onto the palms and fingers. The so-called “Guidonian hand” owes its name to the eleventh-century Italian music teacher, Guido d’Arezzo. Arranging the different pitches in a scale onto the joints, he developed this technique to help students learn “unheard melody most easily and correctly”. Other thinkers in Europe, perhaps inspired by Guido, developed systems for learning the sounds of language.

Then questions arise. First, what makes the hand so popular as a mnemonic prop? A large part of the answer, surely, involves portability. The hands are always, well, ready to hand. A further advantage stems from how hand mnemonics offer both visual and kinesthetic (动觉的) routes to memory: They are both seen and felt.

It’s also hard to determine when and why hand mnemonics faded out. Hand mnemonics are still used to teach the “right-hand rule” in physics classrooms and remain especially popular in medicine. Today, we increasingly store our “thoughts” in virtual realms (领域), but we sometimes still reach for that original “digital” repository (存储库) in our pockets.

Roujiamo is closely associated with the north-central city of Xi’an in Shaanxi Province. Since 210BCE, Xi’an has been both the eastern terminus of the Silk Road and the capital for 13 more-or-less Chinese     1     (dynasty).

The meat preparation used to make the filling for roujiamo traditionally     2     (date) back to the Warring States Period. The introduction into China of Central Asian-style flat breads, like the kind used in roujiamo, is often credited to Ban Chao,     3     Chinese general who spent more than 30 years     4    (battle) an association of tribes during the 1st century to regain control of the     5    (far) western reaches of China.

Every family has its own roujiamo recipe, but there are some constants (不变的事物). First comes the lazhi, which includes a list of spices: ginger, star anise, cassia and so on. A special importance     6    (place) on aged stock (陈年老汁). Once the stock is made, thick slices of pork take     7    (they) turn in the pot, simmering(炖) for hours. The flatbread bun, called baijimo, takes its name from     8     is today known as Baiji township.

To be sure, roujiamo is far     9     the perfect food. It’s risky to eat on the go. One has to use both hands     10     (eat) roujiamo; otherwise, the filling is going to launch out from both sides of the burn.

5 . In June 1852, Epps ordered me (Platt) to help a carpenter called Mr Avery､build a house for him. Among Avery’s men was one called Bass. He lived in Marksville, visiting his home once a fortnight. He was a kind and liberal man, always ready to discuss any topic from politics to religion.

One day, Bass and Epps got into an argument about slavery. I listened with great interest.

“It’s all wrong, Epps,” said Bass. “What right do you have to own black slaves?”

“What right!” said Epps, laughing. “Why, I bought them!”

“Of course you did. The law says you can do that, but the law is wrong,” stated Bass. “Now, what is the difference between a white man and a black one?”

“All the difference in the world,” replied Epps. “You might as well ask what the difference is between a white man and a monkey!”

“But Epps,” continued Bass, “are all men created free and equal as the Declaration of Independence says they are?”

“Yes,” responded Epps, “but all men—not slaves and monkeys.”

“There are monkeys among white people, too,” remarked Bass coolly. “These slaves are human beings. They’re not allowed to know anything. You have books and papers, and can go where you please, but your slaves have no privileges. This goes on generation after generation. Slavery is evil and should be abolished.”

Here Epps stood up and left, but there were similar conversations after this.

Bass remained at Epps’ through the summer. The more I saw of him, the more I became convinced he was a man in whom I could confide (吐露). Nevertheless､my previous ill-fortune had taught me to be extremely cautious. It was not my place to speak to a white man except when spoken to, but I seized every opportunity of throwing myself in his way.

I told him my story. I begged him to write to my friends in the north to help me get my freedom back. He agreed to do so. We then made a plan. The next night we met again and he noted down the names and addresses of those I wanted him to write to.

When Bass next returned from Marksville he told me he’d spent Sunday writing letters to the Customs House in New York, to Judge Marvin, and to Mr Parker and Mr Perry jointly. From then on whenever he visited Marksville I was very excited, only to be disappointed when he returned with nothing.

Ten weeks passed. The night before Bass’s departure I was in complete despair. He said he was coming back the day before Christmas.

In his absence the time passed slowly indeed. I looked forward to Christmas with extreme anxiety and impatience. I had about given up the expectation of receiving any answer to the letters. The faith I had in him enabled me to stand up against my disappointment.

Archaeological (考古的)     1    (discover) of Changsha wares (陶器) have occurred randomly over the decades, and key findings of kiln (窑) ruins     2    (make) particularly since 2010. There were not only Tang Dynasty Changsha wares     3    (unearth), but also some celadons (青瓷) from an even     4    (early) period.

They’re key witnesses     5     the Silk Road on the sea and Sino-foreign exchanges of material culture. Archaeological findings show that Changsha wares were exported to about 30 countries,     6    (range) from East and Southeast Asian neighbors to North Africa. Craftsmen and workshop owners in Changsha participated in a wave of globalization     7     actively explored overseas markets.

    8    (consequent), shapes of Changsha wares were also influenced by foreign elements. Seeing the antiques, we can also understand     9     public aesthetics (审美) of their time. They tell     10     was viewed as traditional Chinese beauty.

7 . “A lot of early archaeology(考古学)was about finding things that are beautiful and museum-worthy,” says archaeologist Sarah Graff. Bits of broken artifacts or boring-looking items from the field of food preparation were sometimes thrown aside with the dirt that wasn’t being analyzed, she says, and scholars used to be more excited by the lives of kings. “They didn’t really think that things that had to do with domestic labor would have anything to do with politics or economics.”

But researchers are now finding more of those connections and trying to mine ancient pots to learn about the foods once prepared in them.

Biogeochemist Richard Evershed made his first identification of fat from foods in the walls of medieval(中世纪的)pots dating from 950 to 1450 at a site in England. With signs of fat, probably from making cheese, those pots are thought to have been used for baking bread. The scientists also discovered the leaf wax(蜡)of cabbage, which was likely cooked with meat. Consuming meat, cheese, butter and bread, the medieval peasants weren’t doing too badly, says archaeologist Julie Dunne, Evershed’s teammate.

Since 2014, some researchers have dived into experimental archaeology by cooking various recipes in store-bought pots. They used the same pot to cook the same recipe 50 times, and finally switched to a new recipe, cooking four meals. After a year, the pots’ outer layers held signs of all the recipes but contained more remaining parts of the last meals. But the fatty substances within the inner layers of the pots built up over many times of cooking, which left obvious proof of the former recipes. The latest cooking events, however, was not the case, as archeologist Melanie Miller and her teammates reported in 2020 in Scientific Reports.

Miller and her team will continue cooking their tasteless meals. Cooking is “one of the most common things that humans have across time and space,” she says. Food and food practices signify traditions, politics, status, identities, upbringings and more. Food preparation reveals much. “It’s a daily practice…usually representative of all these much larger questions about our place in the world.”

The Silk Road was a network of trade routes     1    (connect) the East and the West in ancient and Medieval times. In addition to silk, varieties of other goods     2    (trade) along the Silk Road, and the network was also important for migrants and travellers, and for the spread of religion, philosophy, science, technology, and     3     (art) ideals. The Silk Road had a significant impact on the lands     4    which the routes passed, and the trade played a significant role in the development of towns and cities along the Silk Road routes.

Many merchants along the Silk Road were involved in relay trade,     5    an item would change owners many times and travel a little bit with each one of them     6    reaching its final buyer. It seems to have been     7    (high) unusual for any individual merchant to travel all the way between China and Europe or Northern Africa. Instead, various merchants specialized in transporting goods through various sections of the Silk Road.

The Silk Road established     8    (early) connection between the East and the West. It was of great significance in the promotion of world     9    (civil) and the progress of human society. Research and development of the Silk Road today continue to have     10    incredible impact.