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  3. The Greeks have a second Battle of Marathon on their hands. Their adversaries

The Greeks have a second Battle of Marathon on their hands. Their adversaries

游客2025-01-02  18
问题    The Greeks have a second Battle of Marathon on their hands. Their adversaries this time are not invading Persians, as in 490 B. C. , but environmentalists and archaeologists in growing numbers. They are closing ranks in opposition to plans to build a water sports complex at the historic battleground for use during the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
   Opposition to the construction has been gaining strength in Greece and the rest of Europe since the plans were announced more than a year ago. After standing back from the controversy at first, American archaeologists are now speaking out against the project as a threat to the site of one of the most decisive battles in antiquity.
   In the current issue of Archaeology, a magazine of the Archaeological Institute of America, Dr. Nancy C.  Wilkie, the organization’s president, called on colleagues "to join in the effort to preserve this important historic and natural site."
   Dr. Wilkie said the battlefield needed to he preserved because even after all this time, the plain, where the outnumbered Athenian army defeated the Persians, and the adjacent wetlands, where many Persian soldiers perished, "have yet to be fully investigated by archaeologists."
   Environmentalists challenged the decision to create two artificial lakes for the rowing and canoe and kayak competitions, a grandstand and other buildings in the area of the coastal wetlands. They said the construction would not only intrude on the battle site but would endanger the wetlands, which are a haven for 176 species of birds and many rare plants and a vital stopover for migratory birds, including the rare glossy ibis. A number of appeals seeking to stop the construction are before an administrative court.
   Defending the construction, Greek Olympic organizers insisted that Marathon was hardly a pristine landscape. Summer tourists flock to the Skinias beach, where the Persians are thought to have landed, and parts of the plain are already altered with farms and villages. The organizers noted that one of the lakes would replace an old airstrip. Their plans also include protection for the wetlands as a national park.
   "It is impossible to create something like Waterloo or Gettysburg in this area," George Kazantzopoulos, environmental program manager for the Olympic organizers, has said. "It is already ruined."
But Dr. Dorothy King emphasized the intangibles of the issue. "The importance of the site is as much in its symbolism-it would be the equivalent of putting a theme park in the middle of the site of the Battle of Gettysburg."
Promoters of the construction have argued that the actual battlefield would not be affected because parts of what is now considered the site, including the Schinias beach, were three to six feet beneath the sea in antiquity.
   But Dr. Wilkie, in her editorial, noted that a geological study conducted under the auspices of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens contradicted such claims. By drilling bore holes to a depth of 26 feet across the plain, geologists determined that the topography was little changed since the battle. The site for the proposed water sports center, the research showed, was not beneath the sea 2,500 years ago.
   But international pleas and recent protests at Marathon have so far left the Olympic organizers unmoved. While work on the ＄ 44 million project continues, they have defended the construction as possibly the best thing that could happen to Marathon. It is, they said, a way to rescue the site from earlier unplanned and often shabby development.
   Environmentalists and archaeologists, fearing that the project would instead attract more commercial development, said they were not ready to give up the fight and, like the defeated Persians, flee to their ships. [br] The construction might produce the following harmful effects EXCEPT ______.
选项 A、destroying a historic battleground
B、greatly reducing Greece’s tourist income
C、ruining a natural stopover for migratory birds
D、making further archeological investigation impossible
答案 B
解析
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