雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：Proto-Writing

雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：Proto-Writing

A

Ice Age Symbol: The stencilled hand and red dots on a boulder shown opposite are probably 20,000 years old. They were made in a cave at Pech Merle, in Lot, in southern France. Numerous examples of Ice Age painting and drawing – on cave walls and on objects- have turned up in southern France over the last century or so, some of which carry unexplained signs. Is all this writing? If we mean-is it part of a “system of graphic symbol that can be used to convey any and all thought-then the answer is no. Let us call the Ice Age signs and other forms of partial writing “proto-writing”. Endless varieties of “proto-writing” exist, coming from all periods, including our own age.

B

Tallies: Tallies are among the oldest types of proto-writing. Ice age bones have been discovered bearing series of neat notches. Microscopic examination suggests that the notches were made with various tools over a period of time. A plausible explanation is that the bones are lunar notations: by keeping track of the phase of the moon, Ice Age humans created useful calendars.

C

Inca Quipus The Inca civilization is a celebrated exception to the general picture which emerges, of empires requiring writing. There is no script of the Incas, unlike the Aztecs and the Maya. Instead, a knotted arrangement of rope and cords called a ‘quipu’ kept track of the movement of goods in the Inca empire，Quipus were the sole bureaucratic recording device of the Incas; it was the job of the ‘quipucamayocs’, or knot keepers, in each town, to tie and interpret the knot records. The system worked well, and was retained for some time after the arrival of the Spanish ‘conquistadores’ in the 16th century. ‘Guaman Poma de Ayala’ is a Inca imperial clerk with a quipu, and quipu from Peru. There were many types of knot in a quipu, each type representing a value in a decimal system.

D

Amerindian Pictograms: The above pictograms were ‘written’ in 1883 by the chief of the Oglala Sioux, at the behest of the US Indian agent in Dakota Territory. They list warriors. Their names are given by the signs above their heads, for instance，the Bear-Spares-Him, Iron-Hawk, Red-Horn-Bull, Charging-Hawk, Wears-the-feature and Red-Crow. There are also a very few example of pictographic ‘letters’ sent by American Indian. Quote marks around the word letter are necessary, because the ‘letters’ are not true letters: they are more like secret code letters that can be understand only by those ‘in the know’.

E

This letter was the work of a Cheyenne man called Turtle-Following-His-Wife and was addressed to his son Little-Man. It said that he was sending his son $53 represented by 53 little circles and asking him to return home. The letter was mailed by Turtle-Following-His-Wife, but the money was given to Agent Dyer with an explanation of the letter’s meaning. Dyer sent the money and a covering explanation to Agent McGillycuddy, so that the agent was able to hand over the money to Little-man on presentation of his father’s letter. Presumably father and son had agreed on a letter in a similar style before the son had gone away from his father.

F

Other Pictographs: Siberian Love Letter: A glance tells us that we cannot make much sense of this document, simply by studying its constituent shapes and interrelationships, The explanation is as follows. The conifer-shaped objects represent people. Conifer c is the writer(female), conifer b the addressee(male), who was formerly the writer’s lover but is now living with conifer a, a Russian woman, away from the Yukaghir village. This has naturally disrupted the relationship between the writer and the addressee, hence the line x from the head of the Russian woman which cuts through the line joining b and c. But the a-b menage is a stormy one, and the writer is unhappy alone in here house; she is still thinking of the addressee.

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雅思阅读真题题目：

Questions 1-7

Use the information in the passage to match the type of proto-writing with correct information each contains below. Write the appropriate letters A-D in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.

NB you may use any letter more than once

Tallies

lnca Quipus

Amerindian Pictograms

Other Pictographs

1 Operation of trained worker.

2 Music and songs.

3 Knowledge of nature.

4 The writing of correspondence.

5 Record of numbers.

6 Family relationship.

7 Courtship and romantic story.

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