『新东方在线托福听力』为托福考生准备了ETS托福TPO/Official 26 Lec 4听力练习：What is the main purpose of the lecture?原文题目答案解析，TPO/Official 26 Lec 4听力原文范文音频翻译。

托福TPO/Official 26 Lec 4听力原文What is the main purpose of the lecture?-新东方托福官方网校手机版

旁白：听一段艺术保护的演讲。

Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in an art conservation class.

教授：到目前为止，我们整个学期都在讨论修复和保存艺术作品，比如古老的壁画，早期的油画等等。

Professor: So far we have been talking all semester about restoring and preserving pieces of art, like ancient frescos, early oil paintings, etc.

但是尽管我们的领域被称为艺术保护，这个也牵涉到，什么？

But although our field is called art conservation, it also involves, what?

女学生：保护其他类型的文化材料。

Female student: Um, preserving other types of cultural materials too.

当古器代表早期技术时，它们是非常有价值的，所有的都包含着重要的历史信息。

Old artifacts are very valuable when they represent early technologies, all contain important historical information.

我很确定，你们已经听说过生活在2000多年前希腊学者阿基米德了。

You've heard about the Greek scholar Archimedes, who lived more than 2, 000 years ago, I am sure.

阿基米德是一位伟大的数学家。

例如，他发现了一个球体的体积公式。

For example, he discovered the formula for the volume of a sphere.

他的作品并没有多少还尚存，但是幸存的那些是非常精彩的。

Not much of his work has survived, but what has survived is brilliant.

然后在1906年，阿基米德作品的重写本被发现了。

And then in 1906, a Palimpsest of Archimedes' writing was discovered.

现在，重写本就是指一种手稿，它包含了隐藏的作品，因为在这些作品上面被覆盖了其他手写的东西。

Now, a palimpsest is a type of manuscript that contains writing that's hidden because something else was written over it later.

这个阿基米德重写本，就如它被称作的那样，是至今为止任何人见过的最重要的重写本。

This Archimedes palimpsest, as it's now called, is by far the most important palimpsest anyone has ever seen.

因为它包含了阿基米德专著Method的唯一已知尚存的副本。

Because it contains the only known existing copy of Archimedes' treatise, called Method.

阿基米德在当中展示出数学可以被运用到物理中，物理推论可以被运用到数学问题上，比如，他正是这样来计算球体体积的。

Archimedes shows in it how math can be applied to physics and physical reasoning back to math problems, which is how he calculated the volume of the sphere, for example.

在当今，这样的操作可能是非常常见的，但是在他那个时代是革命化的。

This may be commonplace today, but was revolutionary in his time.

一些年以前，这个重写本以200万美金被拍卖。

A few years ago, the palimpsest was sold at an auction for 2 million dollars.

它原本可能在私人珍藏中被藏起来，但是幸运的是，买下它的收藏家同意让专家还原阿基米德写的每一个字，那么就可以和世界一起分享并且研究上面的内容。

It could have ended up tucked away in a private collection, but fortunately, the collector who bought it has agreed to have experts restore every single word Archimedes wrote, so the contents can be shared with the world and studied.

你们认为第一个问题会是什么？珍妮弗?

What do you think the first one might be? Jennifer?

女学生：它听上去已经很老了。

Female student: Um, well, it sounds like it's extremely old.

那么可能有些书页正要变成灰尘？

So probably some pages are at the point of crumbling into dust?

教授：正确，并且有些发霉了，有些被书虫吃掉了。

Professor: True. And some are moldy, and some were eaten away at by bookworms.

但是，在那个问题之上，还有另外一个问题。

But on top of that, there's another issue.

And this is the reason why it's a palimpsest.

直到公元1229年之前，这个书在君士坦丁堡的图书管里闲放着。

You see, the text apparently sat around in a library in Constantinople until 1229 A.D.

但是，有一个抄写员尽他所能地将上面写的内容都擦干净，为的是用纸张写他自己的书。

But then a scribe erased, scraped away the writing as clean as he could in order to use the pages to write his own book on.

Male student: Must have been a paper shortage?

教授：他们用羊皮纸去写字，但是，是的，羊皮纸短缺。

Professor: Well, they used parchment to write on, but yes, there was a parchment shortage.

男学生：所以，你说的是羊皮纸是被循环使用的？

Male student: So you are saying the parchment was basically recycled?

教授：正确。然后，在后来，20世纪的时候，一个铁匠在几个页面上画了些看上去古老的画，为了让这本书看上去老旧一点，从而增加它的价值。

Professor: Correct. Then, even later on, in the twentieth century, a forger painted ancient—looking pictures on several of the pages in order to make the book seem older and increase its value.

所以不幸的是，就是这么一个历史。

So unfortunately, that's quite a history.

女学生：但是威尔肯斯教授，如果抄写员将阿基米德的字擦掉了，还有这些画覆盖在页面上，那么这个原始的作品又是怎么被修复的呢？

Female student: But professor Wilkens, if the scribe scraped away Archimedes' words and if these paintings covered the pages, how can the original work be recovered?

教授：这也是我为什么要给你们讲这个例子。

Professor: Ah, that's why I am telling you the story.

我们的任务就是做保存者，对不对？

That's our task as conservationists, isn't it?

在页面上仍然有模糊的阿基米德的字迹。

There were still faint traces of Archimedes' words on the pages.

首先，我们设法用各种技术，用紫外线，让阿基米德的字凸现出来。

First, we tried to make the Archimedes' words stand out with a variety of technologies, using ultraviolet light.

但是随后，研究菠菜的一个科学家有了一个新的办法。

But then, there was this new idea that came from a scientist studying spinach.

这个物理学家乌维伯格曼做的研究牵涉到研究菠菜中的铁。

This physicist, Uwe Bergman, does research that involves studying iron in spinach.

他读了一篇关于重写本问题的文章，那篇文章说在最初的阿基米德的墨水中含有铁。

He was reading an article about problems with the palimpsest and it said that there is iron in the original Archimedes' ink.

所以，他想到了用相同的方法，用观察菠菜中的铁的方法去看重写本页面上的铁。

So he came up with an idea to use the same method of looking at iron in spinach to view the iron on the palimpsest pages.

伯格曼的技术让X射线穿过伪造的画，穿过抄写员的书写，到达原始的阿基米德文本中的铁痕迹，然后用页面上的铁形成影像。

Bergman's technique allows X—rays to pass through the forged paintings, pass through the scribe's writing to hit the iron traces from the ink of the original Archimedes' text and create an image just of the iron on the pages.

以铁为基础的字母似乎从页面上溢出来。

The iron—based letters seem to just pop off the page.

原始的文章和图表出现了，一行接着一行，一个图表接着一个图表。

The original text and diagrams emerged, line by line, diagram after diagram.

这是我们领域中非常典型的案例。

不同领域的人们可能会参与到同一个艺术作品中去。

People from several different fields might be involved in working with a single artifect.

What points does the professor make about the field of art conservation?

What does the professor identify as the most valuable attribute of the Archimedes Palimpsest?

According to the professor, why did a scribe remove the text by Archimedes from the manuscript's pages?

Why does the professor mention that the original ink used in the manuscript contained iron?