VOA标准英语2012--Ancient Mayan Artwork, Calculations Discovered

Ancient Mayan Artwork, Calculations Discovered 

Xultun was the largest city in the ancient Mayan empire in Central America, where, at its height, an estimated 90,000 people lived and worked among pyramids, inscribed¹ monuments, water reservoirs and sport fields. But by the 14th century, the Mayan civilization had collapsed² and this great city fell with it.

In 1920, Xultun was rediscovered, overgrown with vegetation. Work to map the 31 square-kilometer site and decode³ the myriad⁴ inscriptions⁵ on its monuments continues to this day.

In 2008, Boston University archeologist William Saturno was exploring tunnels in the Xultun ruins that had been opened by looters in the 1970s. One day his student assistant, Max Chamberlain, discovered the entranceway - close to the surface but hidden by vegetation - to a room-like structure.

“Max thought he saw the remnants of paint on the walls of this fairly small Maya structure,” Saturno says.

Once inside the room - part of a larger residential⁶ complex at the Xultun site - Saturno knew he was in a special place. On the opposite wall, he came face-to-face with the painting of a Mayan king, its regal colors remarkably⁷ preserved.

“[He’s wearing] this gorgeous sort of blue-green head dress, he’s holding this white scepter in his hand," Saturno says. "He’s sitting on top of this throne. He is just incredible to look at." 

Another figure painted in brilliant orange wears a white medallion and holds a small stylus in his hand - possibly the artist scribe who lived in the house, Saturno speculates. On the other walls are more male figures in black with white loin cloths and identical head dresses with a single red feather. And running all around, between and sometimes on top of these figures is tiny Mayan hieroglyphic⁸ script.

“There are these large numerical arrays, just columns of numbers of one after another, after another," Saturno says. "This seems to be a place where Maya scribes are at work. They are painting and repainting texts on the walls. They are in different hands and different scales and different sizes in order to have the calculations present.”

According to Saturno, the painted numbers are a version of the Mayan calendar system, one that he notes predates the Mayan astronomical⁹ tables written on bark paper books in the 14th century. The parallels were obvious once he began to do the math. 

“The Maya had a 260-day ceremonial calendar and a 365 solar calendar," Saturno says. "The Maya combined those two calendars to make a longer cycle of time that repeated every 52 years. But they also kept track of the motions of Venus and the motions of Mars and perhaps the motions of Mercury. And the numbers that are recorded on this wall are multiples of all of those cycles combined.”

The painted room also pays tribute to the way the Maya used those calendars to synchronize¹⁰ human activities with the larger cycles of the moon and planets they routinely observed in the heavens. Saturno says while modern humans keep looking for endings, the Maya were looking for a guarantee that nothing would change.

“This is the type of calculation and dissemination¹¹ of knowledge that we don’t get to look at for a people for whom this type of knowledge was central to their existence.”

Saturno is making images of the Xultun paintings that students and scholars can access using desk-top scanners and other tools. When that work is done, Saturno plans to rebury the site, leaving it to rest where the ancient Mayan people created it. His study of the Xultun site is featured in the journal Science and in the June issue of the National Geographic¹² magazine. 

1 inscribed   

v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接

参考例句：

• His name was inscribed on the trophy. 他的名字刻在奖杯上。
• The names of the dead were inscribed on the wall. 死者的名字被刻在墙上。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

3 decode   

vt.译（码），解（码）

参考例句：

• All he had to do was decode it and pass it over.他需要做的就是将它破译然后转给他人。
• The secret documents were intercepted and decoded.机密文件遭截获并被破译。

4 myriad   

adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量

参考例句：

• They offered no solution for all our myriad problems.对于我们数不清的问题他们束手无策。
• I had three weeks to make a myriad of arrangements.我花了三个星期做大量准备工作。

5 inscriptions   

（作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记

参考例句：

• Centuries of wind and rain had worn away the inscriptions on the gravestones. 几个世纪的风雨已磨损了墓碑上的碑文。
• The inscriptions on the stone tablet have become blurred with the passage of time. 年代久了，石碑上的字迹已经模糊了。

6 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

7 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

8 hieroglyphic   

n.象形文字

参考例句：

• For centuries hieroglyphic word pictures painted on Egyptian ruins were a mystery.几世纪以来，刻划在埃及废墟中的象形文字一直是个谜。
• Dongba is an ancient hieroglyphic language.东巴文是中国一种古老的象形文字。

9 astronomical   

adj.天文学的，（数字）极大的

参考例句：

• He was an expert on ancient Chinese astronomical literature.他是研究中国古代天文学文献的专家。
• Houses in the village are selling for astronomical prices.乡村的房价正在飙升。

10 synchronize   

v.使同步 [=synchronise]

参考例句：

• The sound on a film must synchronize with the action. 影片中的声音必须与动作配合一致。
• You must synchronize your Inbox before selecting additional folders. 在选择其他文件夹前，您必须同步您的收件箱。

11 dissemination   

传播,宣传,传染(病毒)

参考例句：

• The dissemination of error does people great harm. 谬种流传，误人不浅。
• He was fully bent upon the dissemination of Chinese culture all over the world. 他一心致力于向全世界传播中国文化。

12 geographic   

adj.地理学的，地理的

参考例句：

• The city's success owes much to its geographic position. 这座城市的成功很大程度上归功于它的地理位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Environmental problems pay no heed to these geographic lines. 环境问题并不理会这些地理界限。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法