Crafts in the Ancient near East古代近东的手工艺

　　本文为最新的托福真题TPO第27套阅读第一篇，文章反映了托福“古代社会文明”类型的阅读的特点，阅读中的学科词汇很典型，对我们准备托福的阅读有很重要的参考意义，备战托福的同学不可错过。

　　学科词汇总结words

　　craft手工艺

　　urban城市的

　　civilization 文明

　　settlement定居点

　　agriculture农业

　　pottery实用陶器

　　textile纺织品

　　mold模具

　　carve雕刻

　　relief浮雕

　　clay粘土

　　utilitarian实用的

　　elaborate精心制作的

　　refined精制的

　　文章翻译translation

　　一、 人类历史上的第一个城市乌鲁克兴起。

　　Some of the earliest human civilizations arose in southern Mesopotamia, in what is nowsouthern Iraq, in the fourth millennium B.C.E. In the second half of that millennium, in thesouth around the city of Uruk, there was an enormous escalation in the area occupied bypermanent settlements. A large part of that increase took place in Uruk itself, which became areal urban center surrounded by a set of secondary settlements. While population estimatesare notoriously unreliable, scholars assume that Uruk inhabitants were able to supportthemselves from the agricultural production of the field surrounding the city, which could bereached with a daily commute. But Uruk’s dominant size in the entire region, far surpassingthat of other settlements, indicates that it was a regional center and a true city. Indeed, it wasthe first city in human history.一些人类最早的文明崛起于公元前四千年的米索达比亚的南部(如今的伊拉克南部)。在公元前四千年的后半期，在乌鲁克城的南部附近被永久定居点占据的区域急剧的增加, 大部分的增长都发生在乌鲁克城内，使其成为了一个真正的城市中心并被一些次要的定居点包围着。虽然众所周知人口估计数是不可靠的，学者们认为乌鲁克居民每天往返城市和城市周边的田地,可以通过周边田地的农业生产来养活自己。但是乌鲁克在整个区域拥有压倒性的面积优势，远远超过了其他的定居点，这说明它是这个地区的中心，是一个真正的城市。事实上，它是人类历史上的第一个城市。

　　二、 乌鲁克中专门从事非农业的工作的人及其考古证据

　　The vast majority of its population remained active in agriculture, even those people livingwithin the city itself. But a small segment of the urban society started to specialize innonagricultural tasks as a result of the city’s role as a regional center. Within the productivesector, there was a growth of a variety of specialist craftspeople. Early in the Uruk period, theuse of undecorated utilitarian pottery was probably the result of specialized mass production.In an early fourth-millennium level of the Eanna archaeological site at Uruk, a pottery styleappears that is most characteristic of this process, the so-called beveled-rim bowl. It is arather shallow bowl that was crudely made in a mold; hence, in only a limited number ofstandard sizes. For some unknown reason, many were discarded, often still intact, andthousands have been found all over the Near East. The beveled-rim bowl is one of the mosttelling diagnostic finds for identifying an Uruk-period site. Of importance is the fact that it wasproduced rapidly in large amounts, most likely by specialists in a central location.乌鲁克的绝大部分的人口甚至包括住在城市里面的人仍然从事农业活动。但是由于这个城市是地区的中心，城市社会中的小部分人开始专门从事非农业的工作。在生产部门内部，专业工匠的类型有了增加。在乌鲁克时期早期，未装饰的实用陶器的使用可能就是大量专业化生产的结果。在公元前四千年早期的乌鲁克的考古遗址Eanna中，有一种陶器风格出现了，它是这个时期的最大特点，这种陶器被叫做“斜面边碗”。这种在模具中粗糙的制作而成的碗相当的浅，因此只有有限的几种尺寸。 由于一些未知的原因，很多碗都被丢弃，通常这些碗都是完整的，在近东已近发现了数千只。斜面边碗是鉴别是否属于乌鲁克时期遗址的最具标志性的发现之一。一个重要的事实是斜面边碗是被大规模生产出来的，极有可能是专业工匠在集中在一个区域进行生产。