剑桥雅思12阅读Test6Passage2这篇文章主要讲述了美国探险家和学者海勒姆·宾厄姆在1911年探索秘鲁安第斯山脉中的偏远地区，并发现了马丘比丘遗址的经历。
文章提到了宾厄姆最初对于这个遗址的认识较为渐进，直到返回后才意识到其重要性，并将其公之于众。然而，他的关于马丘比丘的起源和结束的假设最终被证明是不准确的，现在我们知道马丘比丘实际上是一个乡村庄园，由印加皇帝帕查库蒂在约1438-1471年期间建造。文章还提到了关于马丘比丘为什么在西班牙征服之前被废弃的争议和各种理论。总的来说，文章介绍了海勒姆·宾厄姆以及他对马丘比丘遗址的探索和研究的经历，并提到了该遗址的特点和历史背景。
| 段落A When the US explorer and academic Hiram Bingham arrived in South America in 1911, he was ready for what was to be the greatest achievement of his life: the exploration of the remote hinterland to the west of Cusco, the old capital of the Inca empire in the Andes mountains of Peru. His goal was to locate the remains of a city called Vitcos, the last capital of the Inca civilisation. Cusco lies on a high plateau at an elevation of more than 3,000 metres, and Bingham’s plan was to descend from this plateau along the valley of the Urubamba river, which takes a circuitous route down to the Amazon and passes through an area of dramatic canyons and mountain ranges. | 当美国探险家和学者海勒姆·宾厄姆于1911年抵达南美洲时，他已准备好迎接他一生中最伟大的成就：探索库斯科西部偏远地区，这是秘鲁安第斯山脉中印加帝国旧首都库斯科以西的地区。他的目标是找到一座名为维特科斯的城市的遗迹，这是印加文明的最后首都。库斯科位于一个海拔超过3000米的高原上，宾厄姆的计划是沿着乌鲁班巴河流域从高原下降，该河流蜿蜒穿过壮丽的峡谷和山脉地区，最终注入亚马逊河。 |
| 段落B When Bingham and his team set off down the Urubamba in late July, they had an advantage over travellers who had preceded them: a track had recently been blasted down the valley canyon to enable rubber to be brought up by mules from the jungle. Almost all previous travellers had left the river at Ollantaytambo and taken a high pass across the mountains to rejoin the river lower down, thereby cutting a substantial corner, but also therefore never passing through the area around Machu Picchu. | 当宾厄姆和他的团队于7月下旬开始沿着乌鲁班巴河下行时，他们比之前的旅行者有了优势：最近有人在山谷峡谷炸出了一条道路，以便用骡子从丛林中运送橡胶。几乎所有之前的旅行者都在奥廉泰坦博离开了河流，并越过山脉上的高山穿越，重新进入下游的河流，从而缩短了很大的路程，但也因此从未经过马丘比丘周围的地区。 |
段落C On 24 July they were a few days into their descent of the valley. The day began slowly, with Bingham trying to arrange sufficient mules for the next stage of the trek. His companions showed no interest in accompanying him up the nearby hill to see some ruins that a local farmer, Melchor Arteaga, had told them about the night before. The morning was dull and damp, and Bingham also seems to have been less than keen on the prospect of climbing the hill. In his book Lost City of the Incas, he relates that he made the ascent without having the least expectation that he would find anything at the top. | 7月24日，他们开始下山几天。这一天开始得很慢，宾厄姆试图安排足够多的骡子来进行下一阶段的徒步旅行。他的同伴对附近的山丘没有兴趣，那里有一些前一晚当地农民梅尔科尔·阿尔特加告诉他们的废墟。早晨阴沉潮湿，宾厄姆似乎也不太热衷于爬山的前景。在他的书《失落的印加城》中，他提到他在没有任何期望的情况下爬上山顶。 |
段落D Bingham writes about the approach in vivid style in his book. First, as he climbs up the hill, he describes the ever-present possibility of deadly snakes, ‘capable of making considerable springs when in pursuit of their prey’; not that he sees any. Then there’s a sense of mounting discovery as he comes across great sweeps of terraces, then a mausoleum, followed by monumental staircases and, finally, the grand ceremonial buildings of Machu Picchu. ‘It seemed like an unbelievable dream … the sight held me spellbound …’ he wrote. | 宾厄姆在他的书中以生动的方式描述了他的接近方式。首先，当他爬上山时，他描述了可能会遇到的致命蛇的存在，“当它们追逐猎物时，能够跳得相当远”；尽管他没有看到任何蛇。然后，他发现一片大片的梯田，然后是一座陵墓，紧接着是宏伟的楼梯和马丘比丘的庄严仪式建筑。“这似乎像是一个难以置信的梦境……这景象让我为之倾倒……”他写道。 |
段落E We should remember, however, that Lost City of the Incas is a work of hindsight, not written until 1948, many years after his journey. His journal entries of the time reveal a much more gradual appreciation of his achievement. He spent the afternoon at the ruins noting down the dimensions of some of the buildings, then descended and rejoined his companions, to whom he seems to have said little about his discovery. At this stage, Bingham didn’t realise the extent or the importance of the site, nor did he realise what use he could make of the discovery. | 然而，我们应该记住，《失落的印加城》是一部事后的作品，直到他的旅行多年后的1948年才写成。他当时的日记记录显示，他对自己的成就有一个更为渐进的认识。他花了下午在废墟上记录一些建筑的尺寸，然后下山回到了同伴那里，对他们似乎很少提到他的发现。在这个阶段，宾厄姆并没有意识到这个遗址的规模或重要性，也没有意识到他可以利用这个发现做什么。 |
段落F However, soon after returning it occurred to him that he could make a name for himself from this discovery. When he came to write the National Geographic magazine article that broke the story to the world in April 1913, he knew he had to produce a big idea. He wondered whether it could have been the birthplace of the very first Inca, Manco the Great, and whether it could also have been what chroniclers described as ‘the last city of the Incas’. This term refers to Vilcabamba, the settlement where the Incas had fled from Spanish invaders in the 1530s. Bingham made desperate attempts to prove this belief for nearly 40 years. Sadly, his vision of the site as both the beginning and end of the Inca civilisation, while a magnificent one, is inaccurate. We now know that Vilcabamba actually lies 65 kilometres away in the depths of the jungle. | 然而，返回后不久，他想到了他可以通过这个发现使自己成名。当他于1913年4月为国家地理杂志撰写了这个故事并向全世界公开时，他知道自己必须提出一个大胆的想法。他想知道这是否可能是第一位印加人曼科大帝的出生地，以及是否可能是编年史家所描述的“印加人最后的城市”。这个术语指的是维尔卡班巴，这个定居点是在1530年代印加人从西班牙入侵者那里逃离的。宾厄姆为了证明这个信念，努力了将近40年。可悲的是，他对该遗址既是印加文明的开始又是结束的愿景虽然壮丽，但是是不准确的。我们现在知道，维尔卡班巴实际上位于丛林深处，距离马丘比丘65公里。 |
段落G One question that has perplexed visitors, historians and archaeologists alike ever since Bingham, is why the site seems to have been abandoned before the Spanish Conquest. There are no references to it by any of the Spanish chroniclers – and if they had known of its existence so close to Cusco they would certainly have come in search of gold. An idea which has gained wide acceptance over the past few years is that Machu Picchu was a moya, a country estate built by an Inca emperor to escape the cold winters of Cusco, where the elite could enjoy monumental architecture and spectacular views. Furthermore, the particular architecture of Machu Picchu suggests that it was constructed at the time of the greatest of all the Incas, the emperor Pachacuti (c. 1438-71). By custom, Pachacuti’s descendants built other similar estates for their own use, and so Machu Picchu would have been abandoned after his death, some 50 years before the Spanish Conquest. | 自从宾厄姆之后，一个让游客、历史学家和考古学家感到困惑的问题是为什么这个遗址在西班牙征服之前似乎就被废弃了。没有任何西班牙编年史家提到过它——如果他们知道它离库斯科如此之近，他们肯定会前来寻找黄金。近年来广泛接受的一个想法是，马丘比丘是一个"莫亚"——一个印加皇帝为了逃避库斯科寒冷的冬季而建造的乡村庄园，在那里，精英阶层可以欣赏到宏伟的建筑和壮观的景色。此外，马丘比丘的特殊建筑风格表明它是在最伟大的印加人皇帝帕查库蒂（约1438-1471年）统治时期建造的。按照惯例，帕查库蒂的后裔为他们自己建造了其他类似的庄园，因此马丘比丘在他去世后约50年被废弃，这是在西班牙征服之前。 |
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