托福阅读历年真题精选16

Question 1-9

     Often enough the craft worker’s place of employment in ancient Greece was set in

rural isolation. Potter, for instance, found it convenient to locate their workshops near

their source of clay, regardless of its relation to the center of settlement, At Corinth and

line   Athens, however, two of the best-known potters’ quarters were situated on the cities’

   outskirts, and potters and makers of terra-cotta figurines were also established well within

the city of Athens itself. The techniques of pottery manufacture had evolved well before

the Greek period, but marked stylistic developments occurred in shape and in decoration,

for example, in the interplay of black and other glazes with the red surface of the fired pot.

Athenian black-figure and red-figure decoration, which emphasized human figures rather

 than animal images, was adopted between 630 and 530 B.C.；its distinctive color and luster

were the result of the skillful adjustments of the kiln’s temperature during an extended

three-stage period if firing the clayware. Whether it was the potters or the vase-painters

who initiated changes in firing is unclear; the functions of making and decorating were

usually divided between them, but neither group can have been so specialized the they

 did not share in the concerns of the other.

  The broad utility of terra-cotta was such that workers in clay could generally afford to

Confine themselves to either decorated ware and housewares like cooking pots and storage

Jars or building materials like roof tiles and drainpipes. Some sixth-and fifth-century B.C.

Athenian pottery establishments are known to have concentrated on a limited range of fine

 ware, but a rural pottery establishment on the island of Thasos produced many types of

pottery and roof tiles too, presumably to meet local demand. Molds were used to create

particular effects for some products, such as relief-decorated vessels and figurines; for

other products such as roof tiles, which were needed in some quantity, they were used to

facilitate mass production. There were also a number of poor-quality figurines and painted

(25)   pots produced in quantity by easy, inexpensive means- as numerous featureless statuettes and unattractive cases testify.