本篇文章共分 5 段，從米諾斯宮殿所擔負的功能、各類工匠工作與生活方式、宮殿是否實為寺廟、到米諾斯人的政治與宗教結構，分別說明這個距今 4,000 年前的文明所呈現的具體樣貌。

本篇考題英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下。練習作答解題時若有對語意不清楚之處，請仔細查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

The Palaces of Minoan Crete 米諾斯克里特島的宮殿

1. 米諾斯宮殿的功能與活動

   The palaces built by the Minoan people of Crete (an island in the eastern Mediterranean) between 1950 B.C. and 1450 B.C. were centers of power, both sacred and secular, with wealth based on the stores of agricultural produce from the fertile hinterland that they controlled. What happened within them? Presumably they were busy places. The receipt, recording, and storage of goods brought in from the surrounding countryside must have been a major job, particularly at those tunes of the year when the corn was harvested, the olive ripe, or the wine newly made. Administration of the goods and commodities leaving the storerooms for consumption in the palace, for use in the workshops, or for wider distribution must have taken place throughout the year. We may imagine the storage areas as busy by day, and probably carefully guarded at night.

   公元前 1950 年至公元前 1450 年期間，克里特島（地中海東部的一個島嶼）的米諾斯人建造的宮殿是權力中心，既是神聖的，也是世俗的，其財富來自於他們所控制的肥沃腹地的農產品儲備。在這些地方發生了什麼事？據推測，它們是繁忙的地方。接收、記錄和儲存從周圍農村運來的貨物一定是一項重要的工作，特別是在一年中玉米收割、橄欖成熟或新釀葡萄酒的季節。對離開倉庫的貨物和商品進行管理，以便在宮廷中消費，在工場中使用，或者進行更廣泛的分配，這一定是全年都在進行的。我們可以想像，這些儲藏室白天很忙，晚上可能會有專人看守。

2. 工匠的工作與生活

   The craft workers creating precious works in such materials as gold, Ivory, and semiprecious stones may well have been fulltime craft specialists, totally dependent on the palaces and working constantly within them, their products in demand both tor immediate use and possibly foe exchange quite far afield. Their raw materials were part of palatial wealth, and must have been kept under strict control. Similarly bronze workers, whose raw material would have been carefully recorded, no doubt worked close by. Pottery workshops seem to have been further afield, situated near the clay beds and fuel for the kilns (pottery ovens) rather than within palace confines, though their products could still have been largely or totally under palace control. The production of textiles was probably always an important palace-based activity, though we do not know in which rooms, precisely, spinning and weaving took place.

   用黃金、象牙和半寶石等材料製作貴重作品的手工藝人很可能是全職的手工藝專家，他們完全依賴宮殿，並在宮殿內不斷工作，他們的產品既需要立即使用，也可能需要在很遠的地方交換。他們的原始材料是宮廷財富的一部分，必須受到嚴格的控制。同樣，青銅工人的原始材料也會被仔細記錄，他們無疑在附近工作。陶器作坊似乎在更遠的地方，位於粘土床和窯爐（陶器爐）的燃料附近，而不是在宮殿的範圍內，儘管他們的產品仍然可能在很大程度上或完全在宮殿的控制之下。紡織品的生產可能始終是一項重要的宮廷活動，儘管我們不知道具體在哪個房間進行紡紗和織布。

3. 宮殿是否有人居住

   Some revisionist interpretations of the palace of Knossos have questioned whether people lived within it to any great extent. We must face squarely the fact, implicit in the above account, that unequivocal evidence for human residence as opposed to human use, is hard to find. Nonetheless, it seems overwhelmingly probable that all the palaces were lived in by some, if not all, of the people engaged in the many activities for which they show evidence. Many nonspecific rooms could have been lived in by various dependents—craft workers, guards, textile workers, servants, or slaves. This remains true even if we follow those interpretations that would prefer “temple” to “palace” as the buildings' prime identification.

   一些對克諾索斯宮殿的修正解釋質疑，人們是否在很大程度上生活在其中。我們必須正視上述事實，即很難找到人類居住而非使用的明確證據。儘管如此，所有的宮殿似乎都有可能被一些，甚至是所有從事許多活動的人所居住，而這些活動都是有證據的。許多非特定的房間可能是由不同的家屬居住的—手工業者、守衛、紡織工人、僕人或奴隸。即使我們遵循那些傾向於用「寺廟」而不是「宮殿」作為建築的主要標識的解釋，這仍然是事實。

4. 宮殿與寺廟之爭

   In fact, the choice of “temple” rather than “palace” is a change of emphasis rather than a change of interpretation. From the early twentieth-century work of archaeologist Arthur Evans onwards, the ingrained and embedded religious nature of the palaces has been accepted, as has the fact that “palace” is inadequate shorthand for the buildings' complexities. There are, though, good reasons not to change wholesale to “temple” which in truth is similarly inadequate. The most obvious problem with such a change is the fact that, while a society based on large palaces with no temples has always been recognized as anomalous in the ancient world, large-scale temples with no palaces would be equally so. Unless there is a truly huge gap in our excavated evidence—possible, but as time goes on increasingly unlikely—these complex buildings are all we have. The most logical conclusion remains that they fulfilled two sets of functions simultaneously. Accurate terminology that did not privilege one function over another would require the coinage of a portmanteau term such as “palace-temple” or “temple-palace,” but this seems an undesirable deviation from terminology that is long established, whatever its shortcomings.

   事實上，選擇「神廟 」而不是 「宮殿」是著重之處的改變，而不是解釋的改變。從 20 世紀初考古學家亞瑟．埃文斯的研究開始，宮殿根深蒂固的宗教性質就被接受了，而「宮殿」對於這些建築的複雜性來說也是不適當的簡稱。不過，我們有充分的理由不把它全盤改為「寺廟」，因為事實上，「寺廟」也是不恰當的。這種改變最明顯的問題是，雖然一個以大型宮殿為基礎而沒有寺廟的社會在古代世界一直被認為是不正常的，但沒有宮殿的大型寺廟也同樣如此。除非在我們的發掘證據中存在真正的巨大落差—有可能，但隨著時間的推移，可能性越來越小—否則這些複雜的建築就是我們的全部。最合乎邏輯的結論仍然是，它們同時滿足了兩套功能。準確的術語，如果不把一種功能置於另一種功能之上，就需要創造一個混合術語，如「宮殿-寺廟」或「寺廟-宮殿」，但這似乎不應該偏離早已確立的術語，不管它有什麼缺點。

5. 政治與宗教結合

   What, though, of the ruling elite, whether priests, kings, or both? Is there evidence that the palaces housed a royal family? The attempt to see royal apartments throws into high relief not only the difficulty of identifying precisely the function of a room from its form, but also the fact that we do not really know who, in Minoan society, held the reins of power. The Minoan tradition indicates a king—yet power may have been wielded by a priest, or by a priest-king, combining functions that we would divide into sacred and secular. Nonetheless, it still seems overwhelmingly likely that the ruling elite lived in the palaces, or perhaps in both the palaces and the important houses in their immediate vicinity.

   然而，統治精英，無論是祭司、國王，還是兩者，又是怎樣的呢？是否有證據表明這些宮殿裡住著一群皇室家族？看待王室居所的嘗試不僅使我們難以從房間的形式中準確識別其功能，而且也使我們無法真正瞭解在米諾斯社會中誰掌握著權力的事實。米諾斯的傳統顯示有一個國王，但權力可能是由一個祭司或一個祭司國王掌握的，將我們劃分為神聖的和世俗的功能結合起來。儘管如此，統治精英們似乎仍然很有可能住在宮殿裡，或者可能同時住在宮殿和其附近的重要房屋裡。