托福阅读真题Word文档下载推荐.docx

1、第一篇：苏美尔人的居住地土地贫瘠，但是每年的洪水泛滥留下了肥沃的淤泥用来耕作，由此产生了统治阶层。而统治阶层在管理时为了记录则导致了楔形文字的产生，后来文字应用到了社会生活中。解析：苏美尔人（也译作苏默），是历史上两河流域（底格里斯河和幼发拉底河中下游）早期的定居民族，他们所建立的苏美尔文明是整个美索不达米亚文明中最早，同时也是全世界最早产生的文明。苏美尔文明主要位于美索不达米亚的南部，通过放射性碳十四的断代测试，表明苏美尔文明的开端可以追溯至公元前4000年。约结束在公元前2000年，被闪米特人（闪族人）建立的巴比伦所代替。这里发现的含有楔形文字前文字的最古老的石板（这是目前公认的最早的文字

2、记录）可以被定期为约前36世纪。背景知识：Sumerian Agriculture and huntingThe Sumerians adopted an agricultural mode of life as by perhaps as early as c. 5000 - 4500 BC the region demonstrated a number of core agricultural techniques, including organizedirrigation, large-scale intensive cultivation of land,mono-cropping

3、involving the use ofplough agriculture, and the use of an agriculturalspecialized labour forceunder bureaucratic control. The necessity to manage temple accounts with this organization led to the development ofwriting（c. 3500 BC）.From the royal tombs ofUr, made oflapis lazuliand shell, shows peaceti

4、meIn the early Sumerian Uruk period, the primitive pictograms suggest thatsheep,goats, cattle, andpigswere domesticated. They usedoxenas their primary beasts of burden anddonkeysorequidsas their primary transport animal and woollen clothing as well as rugs were made from the wool or hair of the anim

5、als. . By the side of the house was an enclosed garden planted with trees and other plants; wheat and probably other cereals were sown in the fields, and theshadufwas already employed for the purpose of irrigation. Plants were also grown in pots or vases.An account of barley rations issued monthly t

6、o adults and children written incuneiformon clay tablet, written in year 4 of KingUrukagina, circa 2350 BCThe Sumerians practiced similar irrigation techniques as those used in Egypt.American anthropologistRobert McCormick Adamssays that irrigation development was associated with urbanization,and th

7、at 89% of the population lived in the cities. They grewbarley,chickpeas,lentils,wheat,dates,onions,garlic,lettuce,leeksandmustard. Sumerians caught many fish and huntedfowlgazelle. Sumerian agriculture depended heavily onirrigation. The irrigation was accomplished by the use ofshaduf,canals,channels

8、,dykes,weirs, andreservoirs. The frequent violent floods of theTigris, and less so, of theEuphrates, meant that canals required frequent repair and continual removal ofsilt, and survey markers and boundary stones needed to be continually replaced. The government required individuals to work on the c

9、anals in acorvee, although the rich were able to exempt themselves.As is known from the Sumerian Farmers Almanac, after the flood season and after theSpring Equinoxand theAkituor New Year Festival, using the canals, farmers would flood their fields and then drain the water. Next they let oxen stomp

10、the ground and kill weeds. They then dragged the fields withpickaxes. After drying, theyplowed,harrowed, andrakedthe ground three times, and pulverized it with amattock, before planting seed. Unfortunately the high evaporation rate resulted in a gradual increase in the salinity of the fields. By the

11、 Ur III period, farmers had switched from wheat to the more salt-tolerantbarleyas their principal crop.Sumerians harvested during thespringin three-person teams consisting of areaper, abinder, and a sheaf handler.The farmers would usethreshing wagons, driven by oxen, to separate thecerealheads from

12、thestalksand then use threshing sleds to disengage the grain. They thenwinnowedthe grain/chaff mixture.Language and writingMain articles:Sumerian languageCuneiformEarly writing tablet recording the allocation of beer, 3100-3000 BCThe most important archaeological discoveries in Sumer are a large num

13、ber oftabletswritten incuneiform. Sumerian writing is the oldest example of writing on earth. Although pictures - that is,hieroglyphs- were first used, symbols were later made to represent syllables. Triangular or wedge-shaped reeds were used to write on moist clay. A large body of hundreds of thous

14、ands of texts in the Sumerian language have survived, such as personal or business letters, receipts,lexical lists, laws, hymns, prayers, stories, daily records, and even libraries full ofclay tablets. Monumental inscriptions and texts on different objects like statues or bricks are also very common

15、. Many texts survive in multiple copies because they were repeatedly transcribed by scribes-in-training. Sumerian continued to be the language of religion and law in Mesopotamia long after Semitic speakers had become dominant.The Sumerian language is generally regarded as alanguage isolateinlinguisticsbecause it belongs to no known language family; Akkadian, by contrast, belongs to the Semitic branch of theAfro-Asiatic languages. There have been many failed attempts to connect Sumerian