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Summary:
把下面的文章总结成120个词:
The first excavation of Stonehenge in more than 40 years has uncovered evidence that the stone circle drew ailing pilgrims from around Europe for what they believed to be its healing properties, archeologists said Monday.
Archaeologists Geoffrey Wainwright and Timothy Darvill said the content of graves scattered around the monument and the ancient chipping of its rocks to produce amulets indicated that Stonehenge was the primeval equivalent of Lourdes, the French shrine venerated for its supposed ability to cure the sick.
An unusual number of skeletons recovered from the area showed signs of serious disease or injury. Analysis of their dental records showed that about half were from outside the Stonehenge area.
"People were in a state of distress, if I can put it as politely as that, when they came to the Stonehenge monument," Darvill told journalists assembled at London's Society of Antiquaries.He pointed out that experts near Stonehenge have found two skulls that showed evidence of primitive surgery, some of just a few known cases of operations in prehistoric Britain."Even today, that's the pretty serious end of medicine," he said. Also found near Stonehenge was the body of a man known as the Amesbury Archer, who had a damaged skull and badly hurt knee and died around the time the stones were being installed. Analysis of the Archer's bones showed he was from the Alps.
Darvill cautioned, however, that the new evidence did not rule out other uses for Stonehenge."It could have been a temple, even as it was a healing center," Darvill said. "Just as Lourdes, for example, is still a religious center."
The archaeologists managed to date the construction of the stone monument to about 2,300 B.C., a couple of centuries younger than was previously thought. It was at that time that bluestones — a rare rock known to geologists as spotted dolomite — were shipped by hand or by raft from Pembrokeshire in Wales to Salisbury Plain in southern England, to create the inner circle of Stonehenge.
The outer circle, composed of much larger sandstone slabs, is what most people associate with the monument today, particularly since only about a third of the 80 or so bluestones remain. The scientists argued that they were once at the heart of Stonehenge, and closely associated with its healing properties.
As evidence, Darvill said his dig had uncovered masses of fragments carved out of the bluestones by people to create amulets. Any rock carried around in such a way would have had some sort of protective or healing property, he said. He said that theory was backed by burials in southwest England where the stones were interred with their owners.
Today the bluestones are now largely invisible, dwarfed by the huge sandstone monoliths — or "hanging stones" — that were erected later and still make up Stonehenge's iconic profile.
Both archaeologists quoted the 12th-century monk Geoffrey of Monmouth as saying the stones were thought to have medicinal properties. They also said that evidence uncovered by their dig showed that people were moving and chipping off pieces of the bluestones through the Roman period and even into the Middle Ages.
Darvill said he felt the "folklore interest" in the bluestones into modern times suggested some sort of lingering memory of their supposed healing powers.
"That would be for me the single strongest piece of evidence," he said.
Andrew Fitzpatrick, from British heritage group Wessex Archaeology, said Darvill and Wainwright's discovery was "very important" but that the healing theory, while plausible, was not the only one."I don't think we can rule out the other main competing theory — that the temple was a meeting point between the land of the living and the dead," he told the British Broadcasting Corp.
大作文:
Intercultural competence is the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately with people of other cultures. What do you think it mean to postgraduate in China? How can we foster our intercultural competence? Please write an essay about 400 words.
英译中:
Of the fruits of the year I give my vote to the orange. In the first place it is available if not in actual fact, at least in the greengrocer’s shop. On the days when dessert is a name given to a handful of chocolates and a little preserved ginger, then the orange, however sour, comes nobly to the rescue; and on those other days of plenty when cherries and strawberries riot together upon the table, the orange, sweeter than ever ,is still there to hold its own. Bread and butter, beef and mutton, eggs and bacon, are not more necessary to an ordered existence than the orange.
It is well known that the commonest fruit should be also the best. Of the virtues of the orange I have no room fully to speak. It has properties of health giving. It is clean, for whoever handles it, he doesn’t eat it directly but handles its outer covering, its top coat, which is left in the hall. It is round, and forms an excellent substitute with the young for a cricket ball. But all this would count nothing had not the orange such delightful qualities of taste. I dare not let myself go upon this subject. I am a slave to its sweetness.
中译英:
这首诗里尽管也有天地、父母、太阳、保姆、东风、西风、恩人、敌人等等引人注目的字眼,然而这些都被他滥用了,变成了陈词滥调。问他本人,他认为这样写才显得内容新鲜。实际上,他这么搞一点也不新鲜。
任何语言,包括诗的语言在内,都应该力求用最经济的方式,表达最丰富的内容。到了有话非说不可的时候,说出的话才能动人。否则内容空虚,即便用了最伟大的字眼和词汇,也将无济于事,甚至越说得多,反而越糟糕。因此,我想奉劝爱说伟大的空话的朋友,还是多读,多想,少说一些,遇到要说话的时候,就去休息,不要浪费你自己和别人的时间和精神吧! |
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