THE SILK ROAD: ART and ARCHEOLOGY
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 662.
Listening Comprehension 1
- Listen to the text and answer the following questions:
1. What is the topic of the text?
2. What are three pieces of evidence that indicate trade between distant lands was occurring before the 9th century?
3. What were the two opposite ends of the Silk Road?
4. What were two goods whose method of production was kept in secret?
5. What was moved along the Silk Road?
6. How did merchants move goods along the Silk Road?
7. What is evidence of the movement of Buddism to China?
8. What was found in tombs of people in the Takla Makan Desert, in Central Asia?
9. What is Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project encouranging?
- Listen to the text and fill in the gaps.
| Cross-Cultural Evidence | ||
| A | In the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, which was destroyed by a volcano in the year 79 C.E.(Common Era), a mirror was found. It had an ivory handle in the shape of a female ____________ goddess. The mirror was from India. In the tomb of Li Xian, a Chinese military official who died in 569 C.E., ____________ found a water ____________ in the shape of a vase. The pitcher had a combination of different styles: the shape was from Persia (today's Iran), many details were from Central Asia, and the figures on the side were Greek stories from the Trojan War. In the Japanese city of Nara, the 8h century Shosoin Treasure House holds thousands of ____________ objects of great beauty – furniture, musical instruments, weapons, fabric, and military ____________ . These objects come from what is today Vietnam, western China, Iraq, the Roman Empire, and Egypt. Clearly, long before the globalization of our modern world, trade was going on between very distant lands, and the objects tell a story about a place and time. | |
| What was the Silk Road? | ||
| B | Along the famous Silk Road, cultures have influenced each other from ancient times, although it was not truly one continuous road. Instead, it was a 5,000-mile series or ____________ of trails that connected East Asia to the Mediterranean. In ancient times, it was never called the “Silk Road”. The term Silk Road was coined in the 19th century by a German explorer. He was thinking of one of the goods that people in the West found especially desirable - ____________ from China. For centuries, the Chinese kept as a secret the way in which silk is produced. They exchanged this fabric for Mediterranean glass, whose production was also kept secret by the Romans. However, ____________ also moved many other goods along these trade routes: ____________ (such as cinnamon), musical instruments, tea, valuable stones, wool, linen, and other fabrics. Ideas and knowledge also moved along the Silk Road. Travelers to foreign regions took with them ideas about art, ____________, styles of living, and religion. | |
| C | In a sense, there were two Silk Roads – the literal, historical one and the figurative one. The historical network of trails was used from approximately 100 B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) until the 16th century C.E. Almost nobody actually made a complete trip from one end to the other. Instead, merchants used to carry goods along one section of the road and sell them to other merchants at an ____________ in the desert or a town in the mountains. These merchants , in turn, took the goods to the next stop, and so on. The figurative Silk Road is a symbol of the cross-cultural exchange of knowledge. This continues even today. In short, the Silk Road was the way that goods and ideas moved across a ____________ area of Asia and southeastern Europe. | |
| Art, Religion, and the Silk Road | ||
| D | Art and architecture reflect the movement of religion from region to region. At various times, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, among other religions, ____________ along the Silk Road. Buddhism and Islam were an especially ____________ influence. Buddhism moved north and east from India beginning in the 4th century C.E. When Buddhism entered China, the Buddhist love of painting and ____________ moved with it. However, there was at least one change in style: the bare chest of the figure of the Buddha in India was not considered proper by the Chinese, who created figures of the Buddha wearing a robe. | |
| E | As in many religions worldwide, ____________ deep inside mountains seem to have been important ____________ places for Buddhists. For example, in Dunhuang, China, a desert oasis far from towns or cities, Buddhists dug a series of caves and ____________ them with exquisite ____________ - wall paintings – and statues. In these caves, called Mogaoku in Chinese, the frescoes are not all religious. Many ____________ scenes of daily life. Also, evidence of some of the many Silk Road cultures was discovered. In one cave, ____________ were found that were written in five languages: Chinese, Uigur, Sogdian, Tibetan, and Sanskrit. | |
| F | The spread of Islam toward the east, in the 7th century C.E., contributed to the disappearance of some art but the creation of other art. Islam played a role in the destruction of many Buddhist statues because the Koran (the book of Islam) taught that images of humans were unholy. However, during this period, Islamic art and architecture ____________ in many areas along the Silk Road. For example, in Samarkand – in what is Uzbekistan today – the military leader Timur built ____________ (for Islamic religious worship), ____________ (in which to bury the dead), and palaces. The creators of such buildings followed Islamic law by decorating them with ____________ - exquisite designs of great beauty with images of flowers, geometric forms (such as circles, squares, and triangles), and Arabic ____________, or writing. In brief, it is possible to follow the rise and fall of religions by studying the art and architecture along the silk Road. | |
| A Question of Time: Two Views | ||
| G | Most historians have dated the silk Road from about 100 B.C.E., when the Chinese emperor Wu Di first sent a representative, General Zhang Qian, with a ____________ of 100 men on a long, dangerous trip. His ____________ was the Western Territories. Zhang returned 13 years later, with only one of his men but with much information. Recent discoveries, however, shed light on a period long before this. These discoveries suggest that people were on the move and trading goods as early as 1000 B.C.E. Archaeologists have found tombs of people in the Takla Makan Desert, in Central Asia, in what is today the northwestern region of China. The dry, salty earth preserved the people's bodies and the goods that were buried with them in these tombs. We have learned that these people had horses and sheep. They ate bread, although wheat did not grow in this area. They had ____________ from the ocean, although the region is landlocked. They wore brightly colored clothing. They wore leather boots and wool pants. Some were tall: a woman was 6 feet tall (1.83 meters), and a man 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 meters). Perhaps most astonishing, they had long noses and reddish hair, and the men wore beards. Thus, archaeologists are beginning to ask, Were people moving along the Silk Road long before we thought they were? | |
| The Silk Road Today | ||
| H | Today, there is new interest in the history and culture of the Silk Road, which the famous Chinese-American musician Yo-Yo Ma has called “the Internet of antiquity”. New technology is helping us to learn more about this ancient “Internet”. Special radar on the space shuttle allows archaeologists to “see” objects and ruined cities 1-2 meters under the dry desert sand, for example. Tourists now come from all over the world to follow the old trade routes. And experts want to make sure that the customs in the vast region do not die out as the world modernizes. ____________, Yo-Yo Ma has founded the Silk Road Project, which encourages the living arts of these traditional lands. The result is that people along the ancient Silk Road continue to learn from each other. | |
- Find the words and expressions that have the following meanings.
| people who study ancient cultures | ||
| something that a soldier wears to protect the body in a battle | ||
| material for clothing | ||
| people who sell things | ||
| a place with water and trees in the desert | ||
| Important | ||
| official papers with written information | ||
| grew and spread | ||
| building decoration with images and geometric forms | ||
| beautiful decoration with images of flowers and geometric forms | ||
| writing as an art form | ||
| a place that someone is trying to reach | ||
| in order to do this |
| <== previous lecture | | | next lecture ==> |
| WHAT'S IN OUR FOOD? | | | Excerpt one |