The creation of Mesopotamian cities
The inhabitants of Mesopotamia – which now forms part of eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and Iraq – lived for thousands of years on individual farms and in small, isolated communities, working relentlessly just to meet their basic needs.
But then, about 6,000 years ago something remarkable happened.
The people left the security of their family homes and villages and came together with others to create something far more complex and difficult: the world’s first city, called Uruk.
There is not much left now of Uruk, which is about 250 kilometres south of Iraq’s capital Baghdad, but enough does remain to show that this initial experiment in urban living was extraordinarily successful.
At its height, around 5,000 years ago, Uruk was home to more than 40,000 people.
The outlines of the city walls indicate an enclosed area of about 600 hectares.
The archaeological record of Uruk reveals the intensive building and rebuilding which went on for four or five centuries after the city’s initial establishment.
In that period the people of Uruk built a dozen or so large public buildings.
They would carefully level what had stood before, and then build another structure on top, often trying out a different building material or an innovative technique.
They seemed to be searching for ways in which architecture could express the revolutionary new social structures that had come into being there.
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 1-3 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE
if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE
if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN
if there is no information on this
TRUE 1
Some physical evidence of Uruk still exists in Iraq.
=There is not much left now of Uruk, which is about 250 kilometres south of Iraq’s capital Baghdad, but enough does remain to show that this initial experiment in urban living was extraordinarily successful.
NOT GIVEN 2
The people of Uruk lived in large apartment buildings./not given
TRUE 3
Builders in Uruk frequently experimented with new construction methods.
=They would carefully level what had stood before, and then build another structure on top, often trying out a different building material or an innovative technique.
Paragraph 1 — Summary
The first paragraph explains how the people of Mesopotamia shifted from living in small, selfsufficient farming communities to forming the world’s first true city, Uruk, about 6,000 years ago, marking a radical change in social organization and collective life.
第一段摘要
第一段說明美索不達米亞的居民如何從分散的小型農業社群，轉變為在約六千年前共同建立世界上第一座城市烏魯克，這標誌著社會組織與集體生活的重大轉變。
Paragraph 2 — Summary
The second paragraph describes Uruk’s scale and success at its peak, noting that despite limited remains today, archaeological evidence shows it once supported a very large population within a vast, walled urban area.
第二段摘要
第二段描述烏魯克在鼎盛時期的規模與成功，指出雖然現今遺跡不多，但考古證據顯示它曾容納大量人口，並被廣大的城牆所圍繞。
Paragraph 3 — Summary
The third paragraph focuses on Uruk’s continuous architectural development, showing how repeated rebuilding and experimentation with materials and techniques reflected the city’s evolving and innovative social structures.
第三段摘要
第三段著重於烏魯克不斷重建與建築實驗的過程，說明他們透過不同材料與技術的嘗試，使建築成為表現新社會結構與創新精神的方式。