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On a Peruvian island in the middle of the Lake Titicaca, hundreds of people stand in silenceas a priest recites a prayer. Descended in part from Inca colonists sent here more than 500 yearsago, they keep many of the old ways. They weave colored cloth, speak the traditional languageof the Inca, and work their fields as they have for centuries. Today, they are celebrating thefestival of Santiago, or St. James. Walking behind the priest, several people carry a statue of thesaint, just as the Inca once held the mummies of their kings.For many years, there were few clues to give us insight into the lives of Inca kings. TheInca had no system of writing so we have no written records of life back then. Any portraitsthat Inca artists may have made were lost. The royal palaces of Cusco, the Inca capital, fellswiftly to the Spanish, and a new colonial city buried or obliterated the Inca past. Yetarchaeologists are now making up for lost time—near Cusco, they are discovering thousandsof previously unknown sites. These new and exciting discoveries are shedding new light on theInca.In the 1980s, most archaeologists believed that a young leader named Pachacuti IncaYupanqui (also known as Pachacutec) became the first Inca king in the early 1400s. But BrianBauer, an archaeologist from the University of Illinois at Chicago, believed the Inca dynastyhad far deeper roots. With the aid of a colleague and several assistants, they discoveredthousands of previously unknown Inca sites in the Cusco Valley. The new evidence revealedfor the first time how an Inca state had risen much earlier than previously believed—sometimebetween 1200 and 1300. The ancient rulers of the region had fallen by 1100, in part because ofa severe drought.Local leaders battled over scarce water and led their people into neighboring villages insearch of food. The frightened villagers fled to cold, windy hideouts nearly 4,000 meters up inthe mountains. But in the fertile valley around Cusco, Inca villagers stood their ground. Insteadof fighting among themselves, these villages united into a small state capable of defendingthemselves. Between 1150 and 1300, the Inca around Cusco capitalized on a warming trend.As temperatures climbed, farmers moved up the mountains, creating crop fields by cuttinggreen terraces into the cliffs, and subsequently enjoying large and successful corn harvests.Inca kings began eyeing the resources of others. Local leaders in the valleys fell one byone until there was only one mighty state and one capital: the sacred city of Cusco. The kingsnext set their sights on the lands around Lake Titicaca. Sometime after 1400, the samePachacutec set his sights on the south. He successfully attacked the area in the mid-1400s. Inthe years that followed, Pachacutec and his sons subdued all the southern rulers.Under Inca rule, Andean civilization flourished. Inca engineers transformed roads intointerconnected highways. Inca farmers grew some 70 different native crops, often storing threeto seven years’ worth of food in vast storehouses. And Inca builders created architecturalwonders like Machu Picchu, which continue to awe visitors today.By the time the Inca king Huayna Capac took power around 1493, little seemed beyondthe reach of the Inca. For his new capital in Ecuador, 4,500 people carried immense stone blocksall the way from Cusco—a distance of nearly 1,600 kilometers.In the Inca heartland, a small army of people built an estate and palace for Huayna Capacand his family. To date, archaeologists have located the ruins of roughly a dozen similar estatesbuilt by at least six Inca kings. But things changed in 1531. Foreign invaders had landed in thenorth, amid a civil war. Covered in metal and carrying lethal new weapons, the Spanish easilyovercame the Incas and took prisoner the Inca king, Atahuallpa. Eight months later, theyexecuted their royal captive.In 1534, a young prince, Manco Inca Yupanqui, was picked by Spanish leader FranciscoPizarro and allowed to rule as a puppet king. Manco Inca was then only 15 years old and waseasily controlled. He thought the Spanish were gods. However, in the months that followed, theSpanish seized the palaces of Cusco. Manco Inca tried desperately to drive them out, but hisarmy suffered defeat.Over the next few decades, the Inca’s network of roads, temples, and estates began fallinginto disrepair. In 2001, Brian Bauer and two Peruvian colleagues went looking for the mummiesof these Inca kings, hoping to restore to Peruvians an important part of their cultural heritage.Bauer identified several possibilities for the burial site of Pachacutec and Huayna Capac. Usingspecial equipment, they scanned the likeliest areas and found what appeared to be anunderground tomb. Bauer and his Peruvian teammates were thrilled. But when thearchaeologists finally dug down and opened the door of the dusty chamber, they found it empty.Today no one can say where Peru’s greatest kings lie. Concludes Bauer sadly, “The fate of theroyal Inca mummies remains unknown.”[!--empirenews.page--]
41. This passage is mainly about ________.
(A) the Spanish triumph over the Incas
(B) the search to find Inca kings
(C) the Festival of Santiago
(D) the history of the Incas

參考答案

答案：D
難度：簡單0.8
統計：A(1),B(0),C(0),D(4),E(0)

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