上海版 九年级 第一期,A1,很久以前，玛雅文化繁盛一时，虽然失落了，但是仍给我们留下了很多神秘的东西。让我们一起了解一下玛雅文化吧！ In 1841, a book was published which amazed the world. It was called “Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan (恰帕斯、尤卡坦旅行事件)”. The author John Loud Stephens had just returned from a long, difficult and dangerous journey through the thick rainforest of southern Mexico and Guatemala.,He had once been there with Frederick Catherwood, an architect and artist, to search for the remains of a lost civilization known as the Mayas. Very little was known about the Mayas at that time, but Catherwoods drawing in the book showed unbelievable cities with temples, pyramids and other buildings as impressive as those of their northern neighbours, the Aztecs. These cities, however, were abandoned (遗弃). The citizens had disappeared almost a thousand years before.,Since that time, far more has been learned about this outstanding civilization. The Mayas had a highly developed system of government and of agriculture, as well as an extremely accurate system of measuring time. They were also wonderful engineers capable of moving huge blocks of stone long distances and cutting them to accurate shapes and sizes.,And yet although the Mayas knew about the wheel, they never used it. Neither did they use metals other than copper (铜). What is even more surprising is that they suddenly abandoned many of their cities and built new ones in the jungle. Some time around AD900, the Mayan civilization collapsed (崩溃). By the year 1200, their last great capital, Chichen Itza, was deserted.,Who were these strange people and the even stranger gods they worshipped (崇拜)? What brought about their sudden and mysterious (神秘的) collapse? Some writers have tried to prove that the Mayas had contact with visitors from space and even that they themselves came from another planet.,Some people believe that their civilization came to an end because the Mayas never developed a proper resistance (抵抗) to local germs (病菌) and diseases. All we really know is that when the first Europeans appeared off their coast in 1517, this great and mysterious culture was only a memory.,Foreign tourists wore costumes (服装) similar to those worn by emperors during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and danced at Jingshan Park in the centre of Beijing last month.,“China has overtaken Spain on the list of the worlds top tourism destinations, becoming the third largest attraction,” a senior tourism official said at the weekend. Chinas appearance in the top three was its first. It followed France, which had 78.95 million arrivals, and the United States, which had 60.88 million, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.,The Pudong New Area plans to build new commercial facilities and revamp (改建) two traditional towns near Shanghai Disneyland.,In the next five years they will increase tourism by keeping amusement park visitors on its side of the Huangpu River. Other facilities, such as a shopping centre that will include the countrys biggest outlet mall, are also listed on Pudongs new commercial development plan. The government plans to remove the rice paddies around the future Disneyland site and build high-end tourist sites with a“local flavour” to keep amusement park guests in Pudong.,伦敦掀起了一场自行车运动来缓解上下班高峰期的交通压力。伦敦交通局（Transport for London）希望这一新的交通改革能彻底改变市民和游客在伦敦出行的方式。 In London, there is always a lot of traffic. To solve this problem, the government has decided to have a bike revolution. It has decided to provide 6,000 bikes for the local people to rent. This activity aims to make people ride bikes more so as to deal with the traffic problem.,So far, more than 12,000 people have accepted the idea. Some of them ask for more than one key. Although there are not enough bikes for these people, Transport for London said that people would not face a shortage (短缺). People can get these bikes at special docking stations (对接站). There are about 315 docking stations across the city. More than 12,450 keys have already been handed out to the locals, but only 6,000 keys can be used now.,One key costs 3, and the cost of using the bike is 1 for an hour. The cost per hour increases as the hours increase, so it will cost 50 if you rent the bike for 24 hours. Transport for London said it would face a lot of problems, for example, some bikes may be stolen. But they said they would try their best to solve all the problems to make sure of the success of the program.,