2015-01-30
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How and what our ancestors (['ænsəstəz] предки) advertised? It isn't easy to establish when the first advertisement appeared and it is not surprising since it goes back to very ancient times. A papyrus in the collection of the British museum advertises the sale of slaves. Rock drawings and inscriptions along the roads were also the excellent way to advertise different things.
Probably the oldest advertisement was found in the excavations of the ancient Egyptian town of Memphis. It says: «I, Rhinos from Cyprus, lived here. Gods gave me the gift of the true telling of dreams». This advertisement is about 2,500 years old. It is carved in stone and visitors of one of the Cairo museums can inspect it.
In the excavations of one of the towns of ancient Greece archaeologists found about 300 stone fragments with letters of Greek alphabet. When they put the fragments together they found it was a tablet for a window shop with a list of goods and their prices.
The first newspaper in the world that contained advertisement was a hand-written Roman newspaper «Daily Happenings». It contained announcements of meetings, births, and marriages of the noble families of Rome.
To attract customers bright signs with the name of the owner and his goods painted on them appeared above shops. Fruit, vegetables, sheep, shoes, hats were painted by «naive painters». Some of these painters were really outstanding masters, such as Niko Pirosmanishvili.
One of the houses built in Kiev early in this century may also be considered as an advertisement. It is decorated by figures of sea monsters, shells and sea dragons. The story of the house is unusual. The owner of a cement plant couldn't sell his product as it was a new material and construction firms were quite conservative. So, when he learnt that a well-known architect was going to build a new house for himself he offered cement free of charge with the condition that the house would be decorated by sculptures made of cement. The unusual building attracted everybody's attention and served as an excellent advertisement of the new building material. Today advertising uses all media – press, radio, television and cinema. (From The Soviet Trade).
1. Найдите английские эквиваленты для следующих словосочетаний:
Прекрасная реклама, предлагать бесплатно, выдающийся архитектор, привлекать внимание покупателей, первая газета содержала рекламное объявление, размещать над магазинами.
2. Ответьте на вопросы к тексту:
1) Is it easy to establish the date of appearance of advertising?
2) What does papyrus contain?
3) Where was the first advertisement found?
4) What was the title of the first newspaper?
5) Why was the house a good example of advertisement?
