As centuries pass,
When Qin Shi Huang first came into power in 220 BCE, China
Qin Shi Huang had
He asked his Prime Minister, Li Si, to unify the eight calligraphic (书写的) styles
2 . The pyramids of Giza(吉萨金字塔) have been timeless(永恒的) symbols of Egyptian culture. But who actually built them? For years, we did not know for sure. But recently an ancient village was discovered near the pyramids. Close by, there was a cemetery(墓地) where pyramid builders were buried. From studying these places, archeologists are now certain that the pyramids were not built by slaves or foreigners (or aliens!). Instead, ordinary Egyptians built them.
It took about eighty years to build the pyramids. According to archeologists, about 20,000 to 30,000 people took part in the task. The workers had different roles. Some were responsible for digging up the rocks that were to be used. Others were tasked with moving them, while another group was given the job of shaping them into blocks. People also worked on different teams, each with its own name. These teams would often compete against each other to do a job faster.
Life for these workers was hard. “We can see that in their skeletons,” says Azza Mohamed Sarry El-Din, a scientist who has been studying the bodies that were found in the cemetery. The bones show signs of arthritis (关节炎), which probably developed as a result of having to carry heavy things for a long time. Archeologists have also found many female skeletons in the cemetery. The damage to their bones is similar to that of the men. Their lives may have been even tougher. Male workers would on average live to be between the ages of 40 and 45, but women would only live to be between the ages of 30 and 35. However, workers usually had enough food, and they also had good medical care when they got sick or hurt.
The work was hard, but the laborers were proud of their work. On a wall in Khufu’s Great Pyramid, for example, a group of workers wrote Friends of Khufu. “It’s because they were not just building the tomb of their king,” says Egyptian archeologist Zahi Hawass. “They were building Egypt. It was a national project, and everyone was a participant.”
1. According to the latest discoveries in the text, who built the pyramids in Egypt?A.Some foreigners. | B.Some aliens. |
C.Some ordinary Egyptians. | D.Some slaves. |
A.ancient societies | B.living things |
C.human behavior | D.the outer space |
A.The pyramid builders were looking for new friends. |
B.The pyramid builders were very angry with their bosses. |
C.The pyramid builders were satisfied with their achievements. |
D.The pyramid builders were in trouble because of their bad behavior. |
A.Sports. | B.Fashion. |
C.Personal Feelings. | D.Scientific Research. |
A Stone Age bird sculpture uncovered in China could be a “missing link” in our understanding of prehistoric art.
The sculpture,
A pottery toilet used by ancient Chinese people during the Qin Dynasty has been discovered at the Yueyang City Ruins,
The discovery was made by experts
The toilet might have been used by Qin Xiaogong (381-338BC) or his father Qin Xian’gong (424-362BC) of the Qin Kingdom during the Warring States Period (475-221BC), or by Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220).
“The flush toilet is concrete
5 . The industrial revolution was the biggest transformation in economic history. For centuries scholars have sought to understand why this process occurred in Britain around 1750. But opinions vary and some explanations are hard to prove. Researchers are now testing theories by studying why similar parts of Britain industrialized at different rates. New papers have provided evidence for a few key factors: slave-owners’ wealth, businesspersons who stood to benefit from investing, and shortages of lower-skilled workers.
Industrialization requires investment. To measure the impact of available wealth, Hans-Joachim Voth analyzed geographic variation in ownership of plantations (种植园). The wealth that Britons gained from slaves in South America flowed mainly to a few cities, such as Liverpool. By the 1830s these regions had large numbers of cotton mills and shares of workers employed in manufacturing. Other factors could have made these areas both gather wealth from slavery and industrialize quickly. But the paper tries to study slavery’s impact using slave ships’ voyages. Long journeys, caused mainly by bad weather, reduced the share of the survival of slaves and thus traders’ profits. And among similar areas, shorter trips in the 1830s meant faster industrialization.
Investors still needed to be financially driven to buy machines. In early modern Britain, most tenant farmers paid fixed rents, stopping both workers who moved elsewhere and landlords from profiting from investment. However, in 1536-40 Henry VIII ended the monasteries (修道院) and sold their land. The buyers could farm or rent it on market terms. A study by Leander shows that areas once owned by monasteries were the pioneers of industrialization. By the 1830s they had unusually large numbers of workers in trades and crafts, agricultural- machine patents(专利), textile workshops and grain separators. Those market-based farms created a commercial class and became a driving force for technological advances.
Another factor that has gained support is labour shortages. Mr. Voth studied Britain’s wars with France in 1793-1815, when there was a workforce shortage. They found that adoption of devices replacing manual labour was greatest in areas where the most men joined the army.
The strength of evidence for each of these causes implies that industrialization probably required a complex mix of conditions. Many important factors are hard to test statistically. But measuring even a few is a promising advance.
1. What is true about Voth’s study about slave ownership?A.Liverpool grew fat on the basis of the slave trade. |
B.Slaves could hardly find jobs in manufacturing industry. |
C.The parts with more slaves were slower to industrialize. |
D.Longer slave ships’ voyages meant greater traders’ profits. |
A.It encouraged agricultural development. |
B.It promoted an increasing market economy. |
C.It cut across the line of race and religion. |
D.It raised money for the industrial revolution. |
A.Manual labor should be highly valued by the government. |
B.Social and political problems may lead to the outbreak of wars. |
C.Most men were reluctant to join the army because of financial burdens. |
D.Modern machines were invented massively due to the workforce shortage. |
A.The Geographic Variation in the Industrial Revolution |
B.The Role Slave-owners Play in the Industrial Revolution |
C.Causes of the Industrial Revolution Identified by New Studies |
D.The Impact of the Industrial Revolution on Britain’s Economy |
The combination of slow,
The earliest origin of taijiquan can
In modern times, taijiquan has gained
The taijitu, the diagram of yin and yang, came from observing shadows
7 . Discoveries at the famous Sanxingdui ruins in Southwest China show that the region’s ancient Shu Kingdom Civilization shared similarities with the Maya.
The Sanxingdui ruins belonged to the Shu Kingdom that existed at least 4,800 years ago and lasted more than 2,000 years, while the Mayan civilization built its city-states around 200 AD.
The bronze-made remains of trees unearthed at the ruins of the Shu Kingdom resemble the sacred ceiba tree, which symbolized the union of heaven, earth and the underworld in the Mayan civilization. “They are very important similarities,” says Santos, a Mexican archaeologist (考古学家) stressing that “the representations of trees in both cultures provide a symbolism that is very similar”.
The findings at the Sanxingdui ruins, considered one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century, also show a new aspect of Bronze Age culture, indicating the ancient civilization already had technologies that were thought to have been developed much later.
While the time span between the Shu kingdom and the Mayan culture is great, the findings highlight the closeness between the two civilizations. They developed in areas with comparable climates and reflected their worldview through related symbols. “In the end, man is still man, independent of time and space. What we have is that, at this latitude (纬度), both the Shu people and the Mayans looked at the same sky and had the same stars on the horizon,” the expert says.
One notable feature of the recent discoveries at Sanxingdui was the cross-subject work and technology applied by teams of Chinese archaeologists, which allowed the unearthing of artifacts as fragile as silk remains, which other types of less careful digging methods would not have been able to register.
Cooperation between Chinese and Mexican archaeologists could benefit projects in the Mayan world, where the rainy climate and humidity are problematic for the conservation of ruins.
“Every time our cultural knowledge increases, regardless of whether we speak one language or another, what it shows us is that we continue to be sister cultures and, therefore, the exchange of such knowledge is fundamental,” says Santos.
1. What is a similarity between the Shu Kingdom and Maya civilization?A.Their starting time. | B.Their historical origins. |
C.Their cultural symbols. | D.Their ceremony traditions. |
A.silk was a common clothing material then |
B.some technologies were developed much earlier |
C.the Bronze Age started earlier than previously assumed |
D.the Shu Kingdom and the Mayan world had close contact |
A.Damp weather. | B.Positioning of ruins. |
C.High latitude. | D.Language barriers. |
A.Our cultural knowledge is increasing. |
B.The benefits of speaking a different language. |
C.The increasing sisterhood in culture between China and Mexico. |
D.The importance of the exchange of cultural knowledge. |
In much of Asia, especially the so-called “rice bowl” cultures of China, Japan, Korea,
Chopsticks are usually two long, thin pieces of wood or bamboo. They can also be made of plastic, animal bone or metal. Sometimes chopsticks are quite artistic. Truly elegant chopsticks might
The Chinese have used chopsticks for five thousand years. People probably cooked their food in large pots,
Food in small pieces could be eaten easily with twigs which
Some people think that the great Chinese scholar Confucius,
Chopsticks are not used everywhere in Asia. In India, for example, most people traditionally eat