Written Records For those ancient civilizations that used writing—for instance, all the great civilizations in Mesoamerica, China, Egypt, and the Near East—written historical records can answer many social questions. A prime goal of the archaeologist studying these societies is therefore to find appropriate texts. Many of the early excavations of the great sites of the Near East had the recovery of clay writing tablets as the main goal. Major finds of this kind are still being made—for example, at the ancient city of Ebla (Tell Mardikh) in Syria, where an archive of 5,000 clay tablets written in an early dialect of Akkadian (Babylonian) was discovered in the 1970s. The word “appropriate” in the passage is closest in meaning to •A.ancient•B.suitable•C.new•D.completeAccording to paragraph 1, why did many early excavations of sites of the great civilizations of the Near East have the recovery of clay writing tablets as the main goal? •A.Archaeologists wanted to determine the writing systems used by theancient societies that once inhabited those sites.•B.Archaeologists wanted to show that early literate civilizations usedclay tablets for their historical records.•C.Archaeologists hoped that the clay tablets would answer many of theirquestions about the ancient societies that once inhabited those sites.•D.Archaeologists hoped to find evidence that languages other than earlyAkkadian had been used by the ancient societies that once inhabitedthose sites.In each early literate society, writing had its own function and purpose. For instance, the clay tablets of Mycenaean Greece, dating from around 1200 B.C., were all, without exception, primarily records of commercial transactions (goods coming in or going out) at the Mycenaean palaces. This discovery gives us an impression of many aspects of the Mycenaean economy and a glimpse into craft organization (through the names for the different kinds of craftspeople), as well as introducing the names of the offices of state. But here, as in other cases, accidents of preservation may be important. It could be that the Mycenaeans wrote on clay only for their commercial records and used other perishable materials for literary or historical texts now lost to us. It is certainly true that for the Classical Greek and Roman civilizations, it is mainly official decrees inscribed on marble that have survived. Fragile rolls of papyrus—the predecessor of modern paper— with literary texts on them, have usually remained intact only when retained in the dry air of Egypt, or when buried beneath the volcanic ash covering Pompeii. According to paragraph 2, the writing on Mycenaean clay tablets helped to reveal all of the following about Mycenaean society EXCEPT: •A.the flow of goods entering and leaving palaces•B.the names for various types of craftspeople•C.the names of government offices•D.the kinds of ...
