2013年5月11日托福阅读真题解析

　　第三篇：olmec civilization

　　讲解了奥尔梅克文明的建筑与艺术。农商业的发展给艺术发展创造了合适的土壤。文章用大篇幅介绍了olmec civilization艺术的细节与特点。最后，olmec艺术的影响深远，包括maya在内文明的拉美文化深受其影响。

　　解析：

　　the first elaborate pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica, and one that is thought to have set many of the fundamental patterns evinced by later Indian cultures of Mexico and Central America.

　　The Olmec people lived in hot, humid lowlands along the Gulf Coast in what is now southern Veracruz and Tabasco states in southern Mexico. The first evidence of their remarkable art style appears at about 1200 BC in their oldest known building site, San Lorenzo. This site is remarkable for its many stone monuments, prominent among which are colossal carved heads that have characteristic flat faces and helmetlike headgear. In the late 20th century, a stone slab engraved with symbols that appear to have been the Olmec writing system was discovered in the village of Cascajal, near San Lorenzo. The Cascajal stone dates to approximately 900 BC and may be the oldest example of writing from the Americas. A later Olmec ceremonial centre, La Venta, is marked by great mounds, a narrow plaza, and several other ceremonial enclosures. In the 21st century, inscribed carvings suggestive of later Mayan glyphs also were found at La Venta.

　　large buried mosaic “pavements” created from serpentine blocks

　　Front and side views of Colossal Head 1 now located at Museo de Antropología de Xalapa in Xalapa, Veracruz. This head dates from 1200 to 900 BCE and is 2.9 meters high and 2.1 meters wide.

　　The Olmecs developed a wide trading network, and between 1100 and 800 BC their cultural influence spread northwestward to the Valley of Mexico and southeastward to parts of Central America. It is clear that later Mesoamerican native religions and iconography, from all parts of the area, can be traced back to Olmec beginnings. Besides monumental architecture and sculpture, Olmec art is expressed in small jade carvings, pottery, and other media. Its dominant motif is the stylized figure of a god that is a hybrid between a jaguar and a human infant. From the Olmecs' constructions and monuments, as well as from the sophistication and power of their art, it is evident that their society was complex and nonegalitarian.

　　Olmec stylistic influence disappeared after about 400 BC. Not all of the Olmec sites were abandoned, but Olmec culture gradually changed, and the region ceased to be the cultural leader of Mesoamerica. See also Mesoamerican civilization.