The Great Pyramid of Giza

ВАРИАНТ 3

1. Прочитайте и переведите текст:

The Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the biggest pyramid ever made and also one of the biggest buildings ever. It stands with some other pyramids in the area known as the Giza plateau, a few kilometres west of Cairo, Egypt, on the edge of the Western Desert. The pyramid was listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. At the time when the list was devised, it was already 2,000 years old. Now, 2,000 years later, it is the only one of the wonders still in existence!

The Pyramid is absolutely enormous. With a square base approximately 230m long, it rises to about 140m in height. It is difficult to convey in words how big this actually is. For those of us familiar with London's Millennium Dome, the base of the pyramid is smaller, being about three quarters as wide, but the pyramid is three times as tall and made of solid rock. For Americans, think of something with a base as big as the Louisiana Superdome and twice as tall.

The pyramid appears to have been built in about 2600 BC as a tomb for a king. The Greek historian Herodotus, writing more than 2,000 years later, said that the king's name was Cheops (pronounced kay-ops). The Egyptian form of this name was Khufu. Unlike most Egyptian tombs, the pyramid has no inscriptions in it to identify the king for whom it was intended. In 1837, an English archaeologist Howard Vyse found a hidden chamber, with the word Khufu scrawled on the wall. This is thought to confirm the identity of the pyramid as Khufu's, although some claim it is a forgery.

The pyramid was sealed when it was constructed. The original seals are still intact. It was broken open in 820 AD by Abdullah Al Mamun, in the belief that it contained treasure and arcane knowledge. Unable to find the exact location of the entrance, his workers tunnelled through the rock and found the passageway by chance. It is said that when the pyramid was opened, it was empty. There was no body found in it and no treasure. The rough passageway he made is still used as the entrance for tourists.

The pyramid was originally covered in a layer of polished white limestone. When nearby Cairo was demolished in an earthquake in the 14th Century, this covering was stripped off and used as building material for the reconstruction of the city. Descriptions dating from before this time say that the casing was covered all over with inscriptions. But descriptions of these imply that they were graffiti rather than hieroglyphs. Today the Pyramid is rough on the outside and slightly smaller than it was originally.

Although the pyramid was completed and sealed, it is not clear whether any king was ever buried in it. The insides of the pyramid are completely plain, without the inscriptions and pictures which abound in other Egyptian tombs. There are a number of chambers, the highest containing a large stone box without a lid. This could be a sarcophagus but it does not appear to have been used. There are no other artefacts of any kind in the pyramid.

Of course, it is possible the pyramid was ransacked after the king's remains were placed in it. If so, the thieves either escaped by an unknown route, or carefully replaced all the sliding slabs and boulders as they left. Whoever did it would have been unable to remove the sarcophagus, as it is too big to fit out the door, having been placed in the chamber during construction. This does not explain the lack of inscriptions, however.

Another possibility is that the passageways are just a cover up and that the king is still buried somewhere else in the pyramid. This was a common enough practice in later Egyptian pyramids. If so, we may never find out.

From the time the Great Pyramid was built in about 2600 BC, it held the record for the tallest man-made structure in the world for 4,000 years, until the wooden spire was put on Lincoln Cathedral, England, in the 14th Century AD. The original height appears to have been 147m, although this is only an estimate since the top is missing. It now stands at about 140m.

The base of the pyramid was originally an almost perfect square, about 230m along the side. These measurements are fairly accurate because excavations have shown the positions of the four original corners. The base was aligned exactly North/South and East/West, with an accuracy and precision which would be difficult to achieve even today.

It is estimated that there are 2.3 million blocks of stone used in the pyramid, averaging about 2.5 tons each. Most of the blocks are limestone, but granite is used for places such as the so-called King's Chamber where stronger slabs are needed. The biggest ones we know about are those used in the ceiling of the King's Chamber, which are up to 50 tons in weight.

The Great Pyramid was the first true pyramid, that is, one with a square base and four triangular sides meeting at a point at the top.

Inside the pyramid there are a number of chambers. The main ones were given the names 'Pit', 'Queen's Chamber' and 'King's Chamber' by the early archaeologists and the names have stuck. There is no evidence that either a king or a queen were ever buried here.

From the entrance, a passageway known as the 'Descending Passage' goes down at a slope of exactly 1 in 2 until it reaches a chamber deep below ground level. This is hollowed out of the bed rock. This chamber is known as the Pit. Although everything else in the pyramid is polished and smooth, the Pit is rough and has an unfinished look.

Leading upwards from the Descending Passage is the Ascending Passage, also with a slope of exactly 1 in 2. It rises up until it reaches a junction. One path leads horizontally to a second chamber which is known as the Queen's Chamber. This chamber is 5.2m x 5.7m and has a sloped ceiling like the roof of a house.

The Ascending Passage continues on into the Grand Gallery, a tall narrow room which continues to ascend at the same slope. The ceiling of the Grand Gallery narrows in a series of steps, giving it a curious look. At the top of the Grand Gallery is a small antechamber and then the final major chamber known as the King's Chamber. This is a plain rectangular room about 10m x 5m and about 5.5m high.

There is an open stone box in the middle of the King's Chamber which is probably a sarcophagus. There is no lid, although the box is carved to take one. The box is carved from a single piece of stone. The internal volume is almost exactly half the external volume, a fact which is probably not a coincidence.

The Great Pyramid exerts a mystic force which attracts cranks and crackpots from around the world. They are forced into writing treatises explaining how the pyramid contains the secrets of life itself. This started in about 1800 when European culture first became interested in Ancient Egypt. As soon as genuine archaeologists started publishing measurements, the cranks got to work on them and found wondrous correlations, proving that the Egyptians had precise details of the Earth, the solar system and the history of the Earth (past and future).

One of these 'Pyramidologists' was even found filing down a step inside the pyramid to make it fit with his theories. The analysis of the mystic powers of the pyramid still goes on today. With the Internet as a universal publishing device, anybody can now publish their pet theory at very little expense.

2. Переведите на русский язык следующие английские словосочетания:

1) arcane knowledge 6) triangular sides

2) the exact location 7) the external volume

3) by chance 8) a mystic force

4) an unknown route 9) wondrous correlations

5) lack of inscriptions 10) a universal publishing device

3. Найдите в тексте английские эквиваленты следующих словосочетаний:

1) Семь чудес света 6) ниже уровня земли

2) подлинность пирамиды 7) прямоугольная комната

3) белый известняк 8) внутренний объём

4) строительный материал 9) солнечная система

5) реконструкция города 10) мистические силы

Дата добавления: 2015-10-31