Birch bark manuscript

1) Birch bark manuscripts are documents written on pieces of the inner layer of birch bark. It was commonly used for writing before the advent of mass production of paper. Birch bark for writing was used for many centuries and in various cultures. The oldest dated birch bark manuscripts are numerous Buddhist texts from approximately the 1st century AD. The scientists believe that they have originated in Afghanistan. Russian texts discovered in Novgorod have been dated to approximately the 9th to 15th century AD. Most of those documents are letters written by various people in Old Novgorod dialect.

2) The Buddhist birch bark texts were stored in clay jars and acquired by the British Library in 1994. The British Library birch bark manuscripts were in the form of scrolls which were very fragile and already damaged. They were five to nine inches wide, and consisted of twelve to eighteen inch long. Overlapping rolls were glued together to form longer scrolls. A thread sewn through the edges also helped hold them together. The script was written in black ink. The manuscripts were written on both sides of the scrolls, beginning at the top on one side, continuing with the scroll turned over and upside down, so that the text concluded at the top and back of the scroll. The longest intact scroll from the British Library collection is eighty-four inches long.

3) The collection of texts includes a variety of known commentaries and sutras, including discourses of Buddha. The condition of the scrolls indicates that they were already in poor condition. The bark has been used for centuries in India for writing scriptures and texts in various scripts. In Kashmir, early scholars recounted that all of their books were written on Himalayan Birch bark until the 16th century. The Bakhshali manuscript consists of seventy birch bark fragments written in Sanskrit and Prakrit. The text discusses various mathematical techniques.

4) A large collection of birch bark scrolls were discovered in Afghanistan during the civil war around the turn of the last century. The approximately 3,000 scroll fragments are in Sanskrit or Buddhist Sanskrit, using Brāhmī script, and date to a period from the 2nd to 8th century CE. Birch bark is still used in some parts of India and Nepal for writing sacred mantras.

5) On July 26, 1951, during excavations in Novgorod, a Soviet expedition led by Artemiy Artsikhovsky found the first Russian birch bark writing in a layer dated to AD 1400. Since then, more than 1,000 similar documents were discovered in Staraya Russa, Smolensk, Torzhok, Pskov, Tver, Moscow, Ryazan, although Novgorod remains by far the most prolific source of them. In Ukraine, birch bark documents were found in Zvenigorod, Volynia. In Belarus, several documents were unearthed in Vitebsk and Mstislavl.

6) Although their existence was mentioned in some old East Slavic manuscripts, the discovery of birch bark documents significantly changed the understanding of the cultural level and language spoken by the East Slavs between 11th and 15th centuries. According to scientists most documents are ordinary letters by various people. The letters are of a personal or business character.

7) Additionally, there are birch bark letters written in modern times, most notably by victims of the Soviet Regime. People in forced settlements and GULAG camps in Siberia used strips of birch bark to write letters to their loved ones back home, due to inaccessibility of paper. Examples of these letters from Latvian victims of the Soviet regime are currently being considered to be included in the UNESCO “Memory of the World” heritage list.

9 Найдите в тексте английские эквиваленты следующих слов и выражений и составьте свои предложения с ними (5 баллов):

1 абзац – (1) приход, появление; (2) многочисленные;

2 абзац – (3) хрупкий; (4); (5) перевернутый вверх дном; (6) целый свиток;

3 абзац – (7) в плохом состоянии; (8) подробно рассказали;

4 абзац – (9) гражданская война; (10) приблизительно;

5 абзац – (11) раскопки; (12) были выкопаны;

6 абзац – (13) значительно изменили;

7 абзац – (14) колонии поселения; (15) недоступность бумаги

10 Соотнесите слова из левого столбца с их синонимами из правого, перепишите их в тетрадь и переведите на русский язык (5 баллов):

№11 Прочитайте текст еще раз и ответьте на вопросы к нему (6 баллов):

1) What were the oldest birch bark manuscripts?

2) How long is the longest birch bark scroll?

3) What for did the people in India use the bark?

4) Where and when were the first Russian birch bark documents found?

5) Why was the discovery of Russian birch bark documents important?

6) Who wrote birch bark letters in modern times?

Вариант 4

1 Раскройте скобки, употребите глаголы в нужной форме (Present Simple, Present Continuous). Перепишите предложения и письменно переведите их (8 баллов):

1) Look! The baby (to sleep) ……………….

2) My cousin (to go)………….. to school every day.

3) They are good dancers but they (not to do)………….. to discos very often.

4) When you usually (to come) …………. home from school?

5) I (not to know) ……………. what to give my brother for his birthday.

6) I (not to drink) ……….. coffee now. I (to write) ……….. an English exercise.

7) Michael (to want) …………. to know English well, but he (to have) ………….. little time for it now.

8) He (to turn) ……… on the television to watch cartoons every morning.

2 Раскройте скобки, употребите глаголы в одной из форм, выражающих будущее время (Present Continuous, will+инфинитив, going to+инфинитив). Перепишите предложения и письменно переведите их (8 баллов):

1) “Did you give Steve his present?” – “No, I (give)............ it to him tonight at dinner.”

2) “Watch out! You (bang)............. your head on the doorframe.” – “Oh! I didn't realise it was so low.”

3) The Browns (move) …………… to their new house this weekend.

4) We (visit) ……………… Disney World one day.

5) Look at that tree. It (fall) ……………….. down.

6) A crowd of admirers (come) …………… to the airport to see him off.

7) Next year I (study) …………… French.

8) My parents (redecorate) …………… our dining-room now, because they never liked its style.

3 Раскройте скобки, употребите глаголы в нужной форме (Past Simple, Past Continuous). Перепишите предложения и письменно переведите их (8 баллов):

1) When Tom (to cross) ……… the street, he (to fall) ……….

2) When grandmother (to go) ……… home, she (to see) ……… many children in the yard.

3) When we (to walk) ……… about in the forest, we (to see) ……… a hare.

4) When I (to wash) ……… the floor, I (to find) ……… my old toy under the sofa.

5) We (to listen) ……… to an interesting lecture yesterday.

6) He (to finish) ……… repairing his bicycle in the evening yesterday.

7) When I (to look) ……… at them, they (to smile) ………. at me.

8) What you (to do) ……… at six o'clock yesterday?

4 Заполните пропуски правильной формой used to и глаголами в скобках. Перепишите полученные предложения и письменно переведите на русский язык

(6 баллов):

1) I …………. (not\watch) the news, but now I watch it every day.

2) My aunt ………… (drink) a lot of coffee, but now she prefers to drink tea.

3) We ………. (live) in a flat, but we live in a big house now.

4) …………. (you\go) to school on foot?

5) We ………… (not\like) each other, but now we`re good friends.

6) I ……….. (not\eat) vegetables. Now I eat them every day.

5 Составьте разделительный вопрос к каждому предложению. Перепишите вопросы и письменно переведите их (6 баллов):

1) There aren`t any apples left, ………….?

2) He likes jogging in the morning, …………..?

3) We can play tennis well, ………….?

4) They enjoyed themselves at Ann`s party, …………..?

5) He hasn`t got a car, ……………?

6) It isn`t raining now, …………..?

6 Совместите фразовые глаголы (слева) с их значениями (справа). Перепишите и переведите их на русский язык (12 баллов):

A) take

B) run

7 Вставьте пропущенную часть фразовых глаголов, пользуясь таблицей из упражнения 6. Перепишите полученные предложения и письменно переведите на русский язык (12 баллов):

1) I ran.…… of flour while I was cooking a pie. Please go to the grocer`s and buy some.

2) They ran …... Mary at the exhibition yesterday.

3) Dogs tried to run …… our car, but then, one by one they slowed down and stopped.

4) The children were running …… in the yard.

5) There was nobody to take ……… him at home and he was sent to hospital.

6) He took ….…. his hat and greeted us.

7) Where did the accident take ………….….?

8) She took ……… that her uncle would leave his fortune to her. She was his only close relative.

9) They remained alone in the room and she took …….. asking for money.

10) Don`t tell the sad news to her, she always takes everything …………

11) The Dictaphone did not work and he had to take ……..….. of all the conversation.

12) He took an active ……… in the discussion of the plan.

8 Прочитайте и письменно переведите 1, 2, 3, 4 абзацы текста. Выпишите и письменно переведите слова, выделенные жирным шрифтом (24 балла).

Ostracon

1) An is a piece of pottery or stone, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. The word is derived from Greek ostrakon. It means a shell or a shard of pottery used as a voting ballot. In Athens, the voting public wrote or scratched the name of a person in the shard of pottery. When the decision was to banish or exile a certain member of society, citizens wrote the name of the person on the piece of pottery. The vote was counted and if the person was unfavorable he was exiled for a period of ten years from the city. Thus the term ostracism appeared.

2) Anything with a smooth surface could be used as a writing surface. Ostraca were cheap, readily available and therefore frequently used for writings of messages, prescriptions, receipts, students’ exercises and notes. Pottery shards, limestone flakes, thin fragments of other stone types, etc., were also used for writing, but limestone shards were most common. Ostraca were typically small, covered with just a few words or a small picture drawn in ink.

3) The importance of ostraca for Egyptology is immense. The combination of their physical nature and the Egyptian climate has preserved texts, from the medical to the mundane, which in other cultures were lost. The many ostraca found at Deir el-Medina provide a brand new view into the medical workings of the New Kingdom. These ostraca have shown that, like other Egyptian communities, the workmen and inhabitants of Deir el-Medina received care through a combination of medical treatment, prayer, and magic.

4) From 1964–1971, Bryan Emery excavated at Saqqara in search of Imhotep's tomb. Instead, he uncovered the extensive catacombs of animal mummies. Apparently it was a pilgrim site, where as many as 1½ million ibis birds as well as cats, dogs, rams, and lions were buried. This 2nd-century BC site also contained extensive pottery debris. Emery's excavations uncovered the "Dream Ostraca", created by a scribe named Sebennytos. A convert to the god Thoth, he lived near Thoth's sanctuary at the entrance to the North Catacomb and worked as a "proto-therapist", advising and comforting clients. He transferred his divinely-inspired dreams onto ostraca. The Dream Ostraca contains 65 Demotic texts written on pottery and limestone.

5) In October 2008, Israeli archaeologist, Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discovered the earliest known Hebrew text. This text was written on an Ostracon shard. Garfinkel believes this shard dates to the time of King David from the Old Testament, about 3,000 years ago. The inscriptions are not deciphered yet. However, some words, such as king, slave and judge have been translated. The shard was found about 20 miles southwest of Jerusalem.

6) Inscriptions on clay, wood, metal, and other hard materials, like papyri, are valuable especially as the literary sources for Early Christianity. They are found chiefly in Oriental countries, especially Egypt. They are pieces of clay or scraps of pots inscribed with colors or ink. The oldest Christian ostraca, like the papyri, are Greek and date from the fifth century; next come the Coptic and Arabian ostraca. Some of the texts not yet deciphered include several Nubian ostraca in a language spoken in the old Christian negro-kingdoms in the vicinity of Aloa on the Blue Nile. In these inscriptions Greek letters are used, with some other signs. Potsherds were often used for correspondence instead of the less durable papyrus. Sometimes the recipient wrote the answer on the back of the potsherd. Ostraca were also used for mercantile purposes, as bills, receipts, etc.

9 Найдите в тексте английские эквиваленты следующих слов и выражений и составьте свои предложения с ними (5 баллов):

1 абзац – (1) глиняный сосуд; (2) избирательный бюллетень; (3) изгонять или ссылать; (4) нежелательная персона;

2 абзац – (5) гладкая поверхность; (6) медицинские рецепты;

3 абзац – (7) жители;

4 абзац – (8) в поисках чего-либо; (9) многочисленные керамические обломки; (10) новообращенный; (11) святилище;

5 абзац – (12) расшифровывать;

6 абзац – (13) надписи; (14) район, окрестности; (15) прочный

10 Соотнесите слова из левого столбца с их синонимами из правого, перепишите их в тетрадь и переведите на русский язык (5 баллов):

11 Прочитайте текст еще раз и ответьте на вопросы к нему (6 баллов):

1) How did the term ostracism appear?

2) Why was ostraca popular?

3) What medical care did people of Deir el-Medina got?

4) What document did Bryan Emery excavate at Saqqara?

5) What inscriptions are valuable for Early Christianity?

6) What are the oldest Christian ostraca?

Тексты для дополнительного чтения.

Papyrus

Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt. Papyrus was first used in ancient Egypt, but it was also used throughout the Mediterranean region. Ancient Egypt used this plant as a writing material and for boats, mattresses, mats, rope, sandals, and baskets. Papyrus was first manufactured in Egypt as far back as the third millennium BC.

Papyrus was replaced in Europe by the cheaper locally-produced products parchment and vellum. Its last appearance in the Merovingian chancery is with a document of 692, though it was known in Gaul until the middle of the following century. The latest certain dates for the use of papyrus are 1057 for a papal decree (typically conservative, all papal "bulls" were on papyrus until 1022), under Pope Victor II, and 1087 for an Arabic document. Its use in Egypt continued until it was replaced by more inexpensive paper introduced by Arabs. Papyrus was documented as in use as late as the 12th century in the Byzantine Empire, but there are no surviving examples. Although its uses had transferred to parchment, papyrus therefore just overlapped with the use of paper in Europe, which began in the 11th century.

Until the middle of the 19th century only some isolated documents written on papyrus were known. They did not contain literary works. The first discovery of papyri rolls in modern days was made at Herculaneum in 1752.

Papyrus is made from the stem of the papyrus plant. The outer rind is first stripped off, and the sticky fibrous inner pith is cut lengthwise into thin strips of about 40 cm long. The strips are then placed side by side on a hard surface with their edges slightly overlapping, and then another layer of strips is laid on top at a right angle. The strips may have been soaked in water long enough for decomposition to begin, perhaps increasing adhesion, but this is not certain. It is also possible that the two layers were glued together. While still moist, the two layers are hammered together, mashing the layers into a single sheet. The sheet is then dried under pressure. After drying, the sheet of papyrus is polished with some rounded object, possibly a stone or seashell or round hard wood.

To form the long strip that a scroll required, a number of such sheets were united, placed so that all the horizontal fibres parallel with the roll's length were on one side and all the vertical fibres on the other. Normally, texts were first written on the recto, the lines following the fibres, parallel to the long edges of the scroll. Secondarily, papyrus was often reused, writing across the fibres on the verso. Pliny the Elder describes the methods of preparing papyrus in his Naturalis Historia.

In a dry climate, like that of Egypt, papyrus is stable, formed as it is of highly rot-resistant cellulose; but storage in humid conditions can result in molds attacking and destroying the material. In European conditions, papyrus seems to have lasted only a matter of decades; a 200-year-old papyrus was considered extraordinary. Imported papyrus that was once commonplace in Greece and Italy has since deteriorated beyond repair, but papyrus is still being found in Egypt; extraordinary examples include the Elephantine papyri and the famous finds at Oxyrhynchus and Nag Hammadi. The Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, containing the library of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, Julius Caesar's father-in-law, was preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, but has only been partially excavated.

There have been sporadic attempts to revive the manufacture of papyrus since the mid-18th century. Scottish explorer James Bruce experimented in the late 18th century with papyrus plants from the Sudan, for papyrus had become extinct in Egypt. Also in the 18th century, a Sicilian named Saverio Landolina manufactured papyrus at Syracuse, where papyrus plants had continued to grow in the wild. The modern technique of papyrus production used in Egypt for the tourist trade was developed in 1962 by the Egyptian engineer Hassan Ragab using plants that had been reintroduced into Egypt in 1872 from France. Both Sicily and Egypt have centres of limited papyrus production.