Wonders of the Ancient World
1 The prehistoric monument of Stonehenge is near Salisbury in the south of England. Stone Age people started to build the stone circle in 3100 BC, and they used it for religious ceremonies. The enormous stones were originally from Wales, and people carried them 400 km. How? Nobody knows. There weren’t any vehicles in those days — perhaps people carried them down the river on boats!
2 Tutankhamun was a very young king — they called him the ‘boy king’. He was only 18 when he died, and the Ancient Egyptians buried his mummy in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings. His tomb was full of gold and treasure. In it, there were also clothes, shoes, and 32 model boats-the Ancient Egyptians believed that people needed boats to travel to the afterlife.
3 In Ancient Greece, there were lots of temples for all the different gods, such as Zeus, Aphrodite and Apollo. The Parthenon in Athens was a temple for Athena. She was the goddess of war and the patron of Athens. Today the Parthenon is in ruins, because an enormous explosion destroyed the original temple in 1687. Now it is still in danger-from the effects of traffic pollution!
1 (64) Read and listen. Match paragraphs 1-3 with the places on the map.
2 Read the text again. Are the sentences true or false? Correct the false sentences.
1 Stonehenge was a religious monument.
2 They started building Stonehenge in the eighteenth century.
3 The pyramids were Egyptian tombs.
4 There were model aeroplanes in Tutankhamun’s tomb.
5 Athena was the goddess of love.
6 There were a lot of gods in Ancient Greece.
3 Answer the questions.
1 Where is Stonehenge?
2 Where are the stones from originally?
3 Who was Tutankhamun?
4 Why were boats important in Ancient Egypt?
5 Where is the Parthenon?
6 Why is the Parthenon in danger now?
4 Check the meaning of these verbs. Then find the past forms in the text.
start use carry bury believe need destroy