新托福TPO26阅读原文及译文(三)

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TPO26

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：苏美尔与古代近东的第一个城邦

TPO26-3

：

Sumer and the First Cities of the Ancient Near East

The earliest of the city states of the ancient Near East appeared at the southern

end of the Mesopotamian plain, the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in

what

is

now

Iraq.

It

was

here

that

the

civilization

known

as

Sumer

emerged

in

its

earliest form in the fifth millennium. At first sight, the plain did not appear to be a

likely home for a civilization. There were few natural resources, no timber, stone, or

metals. Rainfall was limited, and what water there was rushed across the plain in the

annual flood of melted snow. As the plain fell only 20 meters in 500 kilometers, the

beds

of

the

rivers

shifted

constantly.

It

was

this

that

made

the

organization

of

irrigation,

particularly

the

building

of

canals

to

channel

and

preserve

the

water,

essential. Once this was done and the silt carried down by the rivers was planted, the

rewards were rich: four to five times what rain-fed earth would produce. It was these

conditions

that

allowed

an

elite

to

emerge,

probably

as

an

organizing

class,

and

to

sustain itself through the control of surplus crops.

It

is

difficult

to

isolate

the

factors

that

led

to

the

next

development

—

the

emergence of urban settlements. The earliest, that of Eridu, about 4500 B.C.E., and

Uruk,

a

thousand

years

later,

center

on

impressive

temple

complexes

built

of

mud

brick. In some way, the elite had associated themselves with the power of the gods.

Uruk, for instance, had two patron gods

—

Anu, the god of the sky and sovereign of all

other gods, and Inanna, a goddess of love and war

—

and there were others, patrons of

different

cities.

Human

beings

were

at

their

mercy.

The

biblical

story

of

the

Flood

may

originate

in

Sumer.

In

the

earliest

version,

the

gods

destroy

the

human

race

because its clamor had been so disturbing to them.

It used to be believed that before 3000 B.C.E. the political and economic life of

the cities was centered on their temples, but it now seems probable that the cities had

secular rulers from earliest times. Within the city lived administrators, craftspeople,

and merchants. (Trading was important, as so many raw materials, the semiprecious

stones for the decoration of the temples, timbers for roofs, and all metals, had to be

imported.) An increasingly sophisticated system of administration led in about 3300

B.C.E. to the appearance of writing. The earliest script was based on logograms, with

a symbol being used to express a whole word. The logograms were incised on damp

clay tablets with a stylus with a wedge shape at its end. (The Romans called the shape

cuneus

and

this

gives

the

script

its

name

of

cuneiform.)

Two

thousand

logograms

have

been

recorded

from

these

early

centuries

of

writing.

A

more

economical

approach was to use a sign to express not a whole word but a single syllable. (To take

an example: the Sumerian word for

syllable in which the sound “sag”was to be

written, the sign for “sag

express

that

syllable

with

the

remaining

syllables

of

the

word

expressed

by

other

signs.) By 2300 B.C.E. the number of signs required had been reduced to 600, and the

range

of

words

that

could

be

expressed

had

widened.

Texts

dealing

with

economic

matters predominated, as they always had done; but at this point works of theology,

literature, history, and law also appeared.

Other

innovations

of

the

late

fourth

millennium

include

the

wheel,

probably

developed

first

as

a

more

efficient

way

of

making

pottery

and

then

transferred

to

transport. A tablet engraved about 3000 B.C.E. provides the earliest known example

from

Sumer,

a

roofed

boxlike

sledge

mounted

on

four

solid

wheels.

A

major

development was the discovery, again about 3000 B.C.E., that if copper, which had

been known in

Mesopotamia since about

3500 B.C.E., was mixed with tin, a much

harder metal, bronze, would result. Although copper and stone tools continued to be

used, bronze was

far more successful

in

creating sharp edges

that could

be used as

anything from saws and scythes to weapons. The period from 3000 to 1000 B.C.E.,

when

the

use

of

bronze

became

widespread,

is

normally

referred

to

as

the

Bronze

Age.

TPO26 -3

译文：苏美尔与古代近东的第一个城邦

古代西亚地区最早的城邦出现在美 索不达米亚平原的最南边，

这个位于底格

里斯河和幼发拉底河之 间如今被称为伊拉克的地区。

5 000

年前，正是在这里出