Jundi Shapur was built in what is now Iran sometime between the 400s and mid-500s A.D. We can only guess the dates, but we do know more about the school. It was the meeting place of the world's great minds. In 529, Christians closed the school of Athens—the last link to the academies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The remaining Greek scholars moved to Jundi Shapur. Jews joined them, as did a group of Christians called Nestorians, who had their own ancient and scholarly traditions. Persians added their voices, and one of their learned doctors set off for what is now India, to gather and translate the wisdom of the Hindus. The school created the very first teaching hospital in the world, a place where the sick were treated and young doctors learned their craft, as well as a fine observatory to track the heavens. At Jundi Shapur the best scholars west of China all gathered to think and study together.

By the 600s, the doctors at the school were writing about a medicine from India named sharkara or, as the Persians called it, shaker—sugar. Indeed, scholars at Jundi Shapur invented new and better ways to refine cane into sugar. Since the school had links with many of the great civilizations of Asia, the Mediterranean, and Europe, word of sugar and the experience of tasting its special sweetness began to spread. But that does not mean people were baking sweet cakes and topping them with sugary icing.


Which inference is best supported by this excerpt?



The university of Jundi Shapur facilitated the exchange of the culture.


The university of Jundi Shapur started the first hospital in the world.


Scholars came to the university of Jundi Shapur to learn about sugar.


Scholars from the university of Jundi Shapur were the first to discover sugar.