Прочитайте тексты и установите соответствие между заголовками 1-8 и текстами A-G. Запишите свои ответы в таблицу. Используйте каждую цифру только один раз. В задании есть один лишний заголовок.
1. Skeptical attitude 5. Astronomical interpretation
2. The most common idea 6. The modern use
3. The location of the monument 7. The size and form of the monument
4. Probable creators 8. A mysterious construction
A. Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument near Salisbury in southwestern England, dates from the late Stone and early Bronze ages. Stonehenge was a ritual monument for prehistoric people.
B. The monument, now in ruins, consists of a circular group of large upright stones surrounded by a circular earthwork. Stonehenge is the best preserved and most celebrated of the megalithic monuments of Europe. It is not a single structure, but a series of structures that were rebuilt, revised, and remodeled over a period of approximately 1,500 years.
C. Little is known of Stonehenge's architects. In the 17th century, English antiquary John Aubrey proposed that Stonehenge was a temple built by Druids, a caste of Celtic priests encountered by the Romans as they conquered ancient Britain in the 1st century AD. Another early notion was that the Romans themselves constructed the monument. These theories were disproved in the 20th century, when astrologists showed that work on Stonehenge began some 2,000 years before Celts, and later Romans, had arrived in the area. Today it is widely believed that Neolithic peoples of the British Isles began constructing the monument about 5,000 years ago.
D. Why Stonehenge was created remains unknown. Most scholars agree that it must have been a sacred and special place of religious rituals and ceremonies. Many have speculated that Stonehenge was built by Sun worshipers. The axis of Stonehenge is orientated broadly toward the direction of the midsummer sunrise.
E. In the early 1960s, American astronomer G. Hawkins theorized that Stonehenge was an astronomical observatory and calendar of surprising complexity. Hawkins suggested that ancient peoples used the monument to anticipate a wide range of astronomical phenomena, including the summer and winter solstices and eclipses of both the Sun and the Moon.
F. The astronomical interpretation of Stonehenge remains popular today, despite many uncertainties. Some scientists are doubtful that the people who constructed Stonehenge and mathematical knowledge necessary to predict many of the events that Hawkins theorized. They note that Stonehenge's architects may have been aware of the movements of the Sun, Moon, and other heavenly bodies without having an advanced understanding of astronomy.
G. The true purpose of Stonehenge is an enduring mystery. Modern observers can only speculate about what it meant to its builders and what compelling impulse drove them to invest so much labour and care in it and create such a huge and magnificent monument near Salisbury in southwestern England.