英语听力：自然百科 马丘比丘

 The ancient city of Machu Picchu attracts visitors from all over the world. The most famous archaeological site in Peru, this Inca ruin floats among the clouds, 2,000 feet above the Urubamba River that runs below, and 7,700 feet above sea level. Historians believe the Inca began building Machu Picchu around the 1450s, but because they left no written records behind, no one knows exactly what their purpose was.

 

"The Inca royal family would go there for different kinds of ceremonies, and we do know that the Incas had a very strong ritual element there. There are some who think it maybe was just a retreat—they went there to have a nice, you know, retreat from all the hubbub¹ of the capital city of Cusco."

 

But within a hundred years after the Inca began building this impressive city, they started to abandon it.

 

"Machu Picchu is probably abandoned or began to be abandoned already before the Spanish came. And that's because around 1525, there was a civil war."

After the Spanish arrived seven years later in 1532, the Inca deliberately² burned the forest around Machu Picchu.

 

"They burned it because the foliage³ regrows and completely covers it and made it virtually impassible."

 

Perhaps thanks to the Inca's efforts to hide the city, the Spanish never found Machu Picchu. It was lost to the wider world until geographer⁴ Hiram Bingham rediscovered it in 1911. Over the last century, archaeologists have learned that Machu Picchu was also the hub of a large network of Inca sites.

 

"So the picture of Machu Picchu’s being an isolated⁵ ruin on this ridge⁶ is really incorrect. There are a whole series of sites that lead to it."

 

This series of sites has been described as a pilgrimage trail, but the Inca's ultimate plan for these places remained a mystery.

 

"It's part of a big system that was being built up by the, by the Incas. And it wasn't finished. We know there were things that were abandoned. So we don't know ultimately what that would, that whole area would have looked like, if the Incas did inhabit it, say, for another hundred years."

 

In 1983, Machu Picchu was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As archaeologists learn more about what happened here, new questions continue to arise, guaranteeing that Machu Picchu will remain a place of mystery for years to come.

1 hubbub   

n.嘈杂；骚乱

参考例句：

• The hubbub of voices drowned out the host's voice.嘈杂的声音淹没了主人的声音。
• He concentrated on the work in hand,and the hubbub outside the room simply flowed over him.他埋头于手头的工作，室外的吵闹声他简直象没有听见一般。

2 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

3 foliage   

n.叶子，树叶，簇叶

参考例句：

• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage.小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。
• Dark foliage clothes the hills.浓密的树叶覆盖着群山。

4 geographer   

n.地理学者

参考例句：

• His grandfather is a geographer.他的祖父是一位地理学家。
• Li Siguang is a famous geographer.李四光是一位著名的地理学家。

5 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

6 ridge   

n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭

参考例句：

• We clambered up the hillside to the ridge above.我们沿着山坡费力地爬上了山脊。
• The infantry were advancing to attack the ridge.步兵部队正在向前挺进攻打山脊。