旅游英语阅读教程课件Unit 2.ppt

Unit2 The Palace Museum 新世纪高职高专 旅游与酒店管理类课程规划教材 Contents Lead-in Text The Palace Museum The Palace Museum, former residence of the Ming and Qing emperors, is also known as the Forbidden City. The Palace Museum contains the world’s largest group of intact palace structures made largely of timber. It was listed as the World Cultural Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 1987. The construction of the palace began in 1406 and was completed 14 years later. In the years that followed, 24 emperors have ascended the throne and the last emperor, Pu Yi, was driven from the palace in 1924. Text Located in the center of Beijing, the entire palace area, rectangular in shape and 72 hectares in size, is surrounded by walls 10 meters high and a moat 52 meters wide. At each corner of the wall stands a watchtower with a double-eave roof covered with yellow glazed tiles. The main buildings, six great halls following one after another, are set facing south along the central north-south axis from the Meridian Gate in the south to the Gate of Divine Prowess in the north. On either side of the palace are many comparatively small buildings. Symmetrically in the northeastern section lie the six eastern palaces and in the northwestern section the six western palaces. The palace area is divided into two parts: the outer court and the inner palace. Text The former consists of the first three main halls, where the emperor received his ministers and conducted grand ceremonies, while the latter was the living quarters for the imperial residence. At the rear of the inner palace is the imperial garden where the emperor and his family sought recreation. The main entrance to the palace is the Meridian Gate, which was so named because the emperor considered himself “the son of the heaven” and the palace “the center of the universe”, hence the north-south axis as the meridian line going right through the palace. The gate is crowned with five towers, commonly known as the Fiv