新托福考试听力特训 CD1-Track13

CD1-track13

The Book of the Dead

1. What is the main topic of the lecture?

A Three Kingdoms inAncient Egypt.

B Burial ritual and The Book of the Dead inAncient Egypt.

C Mummification and pyramids in Ancient Egypt.

D Funeral inAncient Egypt and modern religious rituals.

(B)

2. What is the main method that the professor uses for the explanation?

A Comparing.

B Giving examples.

C Quoting researchers’ words

D Telling related fables¹.

(A)

听力原文：

CD1-track13

The Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead is the name given by Egyptologists to a collection of chapters

made up of groups of spells, incantations, and mummification techiniques. This book

was designed to help the deceased live a happy afterlife in "heaven". The book was

supposed to be read by the deceased during their journey into the Underworld.It is

New Kingdom text, which is similar to many texts found in the pyranmids. The texts

found in the pyramids are classified as the Old Kingdome text, and the text found in

Egyptian coffins³ are classified as the Middle Kingdom text.Both texts outline the

ceremony performed at the funeral of an important person. The movies have led us to

believe that we should not read from The Book of the Dead, but in fact ,the book

needed to be read by ancient Egyptians interested in an afterlife. To put it in modern

terms, think about how modern religious rituals are run.You go to your place of

worship, and rituals and holy texts are read out to you from a book. In Ancient Egypt,

these burial rituals weren't immediately read from a book. At first ,they were read

directly off the walls of their chambers⁴ of a pyramid and later were read directly off

the sides of the coffins. The Book of the Dead was read off of papyrus⁵ sheets, much as

religious rituals today are read out of books. Like some modern day holy books, The

Book of the Dead was meant to be relatively⁶ cheap to purchase, unlike buying a

pyramid or a coffin². This would ensure that any fairly well-off person could buy a

hand-written copy of the book and use it on a loved one. if you were an Egypian with

a fair bit of money in the Neq Kingdom, you would buy a copy of the book that would

have blanks where the name of the loved one should be placed. Then all you had to do

was hire someone called a scribe to write the name in all the blank spots.

1 fables   

n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说

参考例句：

• Some of Aesop's Fables are satires. 《伊索寓言》中有一些是讽刺作品。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Little Mexican boys also breathe the American fables. 墨西哥族的小孩子对美国神话也都耳濡目染。 来自辞典例句

2 coffin   

n.棺材，灵柩

参考例句：

• When one's coffin is covered,all discussion about him can be settled.盖棺论定。
• The coffin was placed in the grave.那口棺材已安放到坟墓里去了。

3 coffins   

n.棺材( coffin的名词复数 )；使某人早亡[死，完蛋，垮台等]之物

参考例句：

• The shop was close and hot, and the atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. 店堂里相当闷热，空气仿佛被棺木的味儿污染了。 来自辞典例句
• Donate some coffins to the temple, equal to the number of deaths. 到寺庙里，捐赠棺材盒给这些死者吧。 来自电影对白

4 chambers   

n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅

参考例句：

• The body will be removed into one of the cold storage chambers. 尸体将被移到一个冷冻间里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Mr Chambers's readable book concentrates on the middle passage: the time Ransome spent in Russia. Chambers先生的这本值得一看的书重点在中间：Ransome在俄国的那几年。 来自互联网

5 papyrus   

n.古以纸草制成之纸

参考例句：

• The Egyptians wrote on papyrus.埃及人书写用薄草纸。
• Since papyrus dries up and crumble,very few documents of ancient Egypt have survived.因草片会干裂成粉末所以古埃及的文件很少保存下来。

6 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。