57.
It can be inferred
from the passage that_____
A. the role of hospital
environment is being recognized
B. hospital artists have
done more than doctors
C. exhibitions attract
more people in hospitals than in museums
D. the hospitals is a
better place for people than the museum in Britain
E
Before Nicholas Clapp
got there, he had half hoped that he might run into some of Ubar’s ruins
sticking(凸出)out of the sand. But finding
the city wasn’t that easy. During the summer, he and his 40 helpers dug at 35
different spots. The only things they found were ground spiders, giant ticks,
and deadly snakes.
Just before Thanksgiving
says Clapp, “We were within a whisker of total failure. ”
But then Clapp’s team
looked at the high-tech maps again and saw something surprising. Many of the
caravan routes(沙漠商队路线)on the high-tech maps came
together on the same spot marked “Omani Marketplace” on Ptolomy’s map. Two
maps, made almost 2000 years apart, pointed the team toward the same area!
In December 1991, Clapp
arrived at the spot where, according to the maps, the caravans met. Clapp had a
handheld instrument that could detect(探测)objects below the
ground. It showed ruins under the sand! He and his team started digging. And
then they found it! A. tower buried in the sand. They slowly unearthed a giant,
eight-sided fortress(堡垒). It had nine towers and many
rooms. People had lived in this fortress 2000 years ago. Outside its walls,
they had found buried remains of nearly 40 campsites. They seemed to be camping
areas for traders(商人).
More digging found
shards, or pieces of pottery(陶瓷)from ancient Rome,
Greece, China, Egypt, and Syria. Diggers and scientists agree that people were
here for about 5000 years. Clapp and his team were excited as they continued to
discover more pieces of the past that seemed to prove that it was the lost city
of Ubar.
“We started with this
hopeless myth(神秘),” says Clapp, “and then
finally found the truth behind the myth. ” But is this unearthed site really
the once-great Ubar? Experts aren’t totally persuaded.
Donald Whitcomb is an
archeologist(考古学家)at the University of Chicago.
He doubts that Clapp really discovered Ubar. “There’s probably some truth to
this myth,” he says. “But Ubar is described as a place with walls all made of
gold, and the rubies and emeralds(宝石). ” No gold or precious
stones have been found by Clapp.
“I’m not sure whether
they discovered Ubar because I’m not sure if Ubar really existed,” Whitcomb
says.
