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  3. It’s handy to have a week—those seven days and seven nights—because it means

It’s handy to have a week—those seven days and seven nights—because it means

游客2023-10-15  9
问题     It’s handy to have a week—those seven days and seven nights—because it means we can plan what to do on certain days, and have order in our lives. But where did our week come from?

    It is thought the idea of a week first came about because the farmers and tradesmen needed a certain amount of time within each month to bring their products to market. Meat, vegetables, and fruit would not stay fresh if there were long periods between market days. Among some west-African tribes, for example, a four-day week was observed, and the word for "week" was the same as that for "market. " In Central America, the market week was five days. The ancient Assyrians, who lived in what is now part of northern Iraq, had a market week of six days, and the Incas, who lived in ancient Peru, used a ten-day interval. Before the time of Julius Caesar, the Romans observed an eight-day period between market days.
    Scheduled market days may have been where the concept of the week began. But how did the seven-day week develop? Could it be that seven was in some way a magical number? For reasons lost in antiquity, seven has always been a symbol of perfection. There are seven supreme virtues and seven deadly sins. In Japan, there were seven gods of happiness. There are seven hills of Rome. Looking towards the heavens, ancient people also saw seven stars in the constellation Pleiades and seven heavenly bodies other than the "fixed" stars.
    These seven heavenly bodies played a large role in the development of the week. They were the sun, the moon, and the five known planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Like the sun, all of these objects or bodies appear to move through the zodiac constellation, each at its own speed. These heavenly bodies were believed to control the affairs of people and the world around them, and for that reason the positions and movements of these bodies was carefully studied and recorded. Superstition and magic were powerful influences in early cultures and the ancient art of astrology had its beginnings here. The belief that there were only seven heavenly objects other than the "fixed" stars served to strengthen the belief that seven was a special number.
    Another possible reason for the seven-day week goes back nearly 3 ,000 years when the Babylonians began to use a seven-day week. They based it on the seven-day phases of the moon which held a mystery and magic for them. Actually these phases: from new moon to half-moon, from half-moon to full, from full moon to half, and from half-moon to new—takes just over seven days, but that did not bother the Babylonians.
    At some point the Babylonians began observing the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th days of each month. These days, called the "sabattu" were considered unlucky days, and everyone was supposed to refrain from certain activities. Eventually the "sabattu" days became rest days.
    In 586 B. C. the Babylonians conquered the Jews who adopted the Babylonian customs, including the observance of the "sabattu" days. In time the Jews developed their "Shabbat," or day of rest. By the first century B. C. , "Shabbat" was observed by Jews every seventh day. It no longer fell on specific dates of the month as the Babylonian "sabattu" had done, but instead came on any day, as it does today.
    Some say the Jews further established the seven-day week when they wrote their story of the beginning of the world. In the Bible they divide time into seven-day periods: God creates the world in six days, and then He rests for a day. These people contend that as the Bible became the most read book, if not the most important book of all time, it influenced other nations to adopt the custom of dividing time into weeks of seven days.
    Whatever the reason, slowly in other parts of the world, the seven-day week became part of the calendar. Today the week is probably the most strongly rooted part of our calendar. Long forgotten is the fact that it originated from a superstitious belief in the magic of the number seven.
Questions 71 to 75
Complete the summary below with information from the passage, using no more than three words for each blank.
Throughout history the idea of a week originated from the legend that people needed some time to take their 【R1】______to market, though the amount of time varied from four days to as long as 【R2】______. One of the reasons for the seven-day week is that ancient people saw seven stars in 【R3】______. Babylonians looked at the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th days as 【R4】______. What is forgotten is that ancient people believed, superstitiously, that seven in some way was 【R5】______. [br] 【R3】
选项
答案 the constellation Pleiades
解析 (第三段作者介绍了一周七天的来历，因为古人认为“七”这个数字是完美的。根据最后一句句意，仰望天空，古人也看到昴宿星团的七星和七个天体以外的恒星。)
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