Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in an ancient history class.

旁白：请听一段古代历史课上的讲座。

Professor: Ok, last time we were discussing trade and commerce during the Bronze Age.

教授：好，上节课我们讨论了青铜时代的贸易和商业。

And I said a little over three thousand years ago, there was quite a lively trade among the countries along the Mediterranean Sea.

我还讲到了三千多年以前，地中海周围的国家之间有相当活跃的交易往来。

People were making objects out of bronze and they were using bronze tools to make other goods.

人们用青铜制作物品，他们还使用青铜工具来制造其它的货物。

And they develop trade networks to trade these goods with other countries around the Mediterranean.

他们还建造起了交易网络，以与地中海沿海的其它国家交易货物。

One of the things they traded was glass.

他们交易的物品之一就是玻璃。

And recently there was an archeological excavation in Egypt, on the Nile River around where it enters the Mediterranean Sea where they discovered an ancient glass factory.

最近在埃及进行了一场考古挖掘，挖掘地点是尼罗河进入地中海的入海口，这里考古学家发现了一座古代的玻璃工厂。

Robert?

罗伯特？

Robert: I thought our textbook said the Egyptians imported their glass from other countries.

罗伯特：我认为我们课本上说的是，埃及人从别的国家进口它们的玻璃。

Professor: Well, until now that’s what the evidence seemed to suggest.

教授：是的，这是到现在为止的证据告诉我们的。

I mean, we have some evidence that suggested that the Egyptians were making glass objects, but not glass.

我的意思是，我们有了一些证据来说明埃及人在制作玻璃制品，但是不是玻璃。

Robert: Ok. Am...am I missing something?

罗伯特：好吧。我漏掉了什么吗？

They are making glass but they are not making glass?

他们既在制造玻璃，又不在制造玻璃？

Professor: I said they were making glass objects, right?

教授：我是说他们在制造玻璃制品，对不对？

You see, it was previously thought that they weren’t actually making the raw glass itself that they were importing unfinished glass from Mesopotamia, which today is a region consisting of Iraq and parts of Syria , Turkey and Iran, and simply reworking it.

你看，我们以前认为他们实际上并不是在制造玻璃这种原材料本身，他们是从美索不达米亚平原地区进口未完工的玻璃材料，美索不达米亚地区现在包含了伊拉克，还有一部分的叙利亚、土耳其及伊朗，埃及人只是对玻璃进行了再加工。

Most archeologists believed that the glass factories were in Mesopotamia because that’s where the oldest known glass remains come from.

大多数考古学家相信玻璃工厂存在于美索不达米亚，因为这个地方是发掘出我们所知的最古老的玻璃遗物的地方。

You see, there was two stages of glass making.

你看，玻璃制作涉及到两个阶段。

The primary production stage where they made disks of raw glass.

在最初的生产阶段里，人们制作盘状的原始玻璃。

And there was the secondary stage where they melted the raw glass, the glass disks, and created decorative objects, or whatever.

在第二个阶段里，他们把原始玻璃熔化，把这种盘状玻璃熔化，然后制作成装饰性的物品，或者别的什么东西。

And from this new Egyptians’ site, we learned that the primary production stage had several steps.

在这些新的埃及人的地区，我们知道了第一步生产阶段还包括几个步骤。

First they took quartz, a colorless transparent mineral and crushed it.

首先，他们要拿到石英石，这是一种透明的矿物，然后把它碾碎。

Then they took that crushed quartz and mixed it with plant ash.

然后，他们把碾碎的石英石粉末和草木灰混合起来。

Plant ash is just what it sounds like, the ashes left after you burnt plant material.

草木灰这个东西就如同它的名字，就是燃烧植物以后剩下的灰烬。

They slowly heated this mixture at a relatively low temperature in small vessels, containers like jars made out of clay.

他们用相对来说比较低的温度缓慢地加热这种混合物，加热的时候这种混合物被放在小的容器里，这种小的容器类似于一种黏土罐子。

And that yielded a kind of glassy material.

这就制作出来了一种玻璃样的材料。

They took this glassy material and ground it up into a powder and then they used metallic dye to color it.

他们把这种玻璃样的材料再次碾碎，然后用金属染料给它们染色。

After that, they poured the colored powder out into disk-shaped molds and heated it up to very high temperatures.

在这之后，他们把这种染好色的粉末倒进一种圆盘形状的模具里面，在用很高的温度加热它们。

So that it melted.

它就熔化了。

After it cooled, they'd break the molds, and inside there were the glass disks.

在冷却之后，他们打碎模具，里面就是玻璃的盘子。

These disks were shipped off to other sites within Egypt and places around the Mediterranean.

这些玻璃盘子被用船运到埃及国内其它地方或者地中海周围的地区。

Then in the secondary phase, the disks were reheated, and shaped into decorative objects.

然后在第二个制作阶段，这些盘子被再次加热，然后被塑造成装饰性的物品。

Susan?

苏珊？

Susan: So what kind of objects were people making back then?

苏珊：那么那个时候的人们会做什么种类的物品呢？

Professor: Well, the most common objects we've found, mostly in Egypt and Mesopotamia, the most common objects were beads.

教授：嗯，我们能找到的最普遍的物品是珠子，大多数是在埃及和美索不达米亚平原。

One thing the Egyptian were very very good at was imitating precious stones.

埃及人非常非常擅长的事情之一就是仿造珍贵的宝石。

They created some beads that look so much like emeralds and pearls that it was very difficult to distinguish them from the real thing.

他们可以仿造出一些看起来非常像翡翠和珍珠的珠子，我们很难把它们和真品区分开。

Em, and...and also beautiful vessels, ah, with narrow necks.

嗯，还有……还有一些漂亮的器皿，啊，它们的颈部都很细。

They were probably really valuable so they wouldn’t have been used to hold cooking oil or common food items.

它们应该是真的很有价值，所以它们不会被用来盛放食用油或者其它普通的食物。

They were most likely used for expensive liquids, like perfume.

它们很可能会被用来盛放昂贵的液体，像是香水之类的。

Now the glass made at this factory was mostly red. To get this red color, they used copper, in a sophisticated process.

这家工厂制作第玻璃大部分是红色的。为了得到这种红色，他们在一个复杂第过程中使用了铜。

Of course, any kind of glass was very valuable so these red bottles would only have been owned by wealthy people.

当然了，任何种类的玻璃都很珍贵，所以只有富有的人家才会拥有这种红色的瓶子。

In fact, because it was so difficult to make, and sort of mysterious and complicated, it was probably a product produced for the royal family.

实际上，因为玻璃很难制作，而且制作过程有一点神秘和复杂，这可能是一种为皇室制作的物品。

And they probably used glass to show their power.

他们可能会用玻璃来作为自己权力的展示。

Also, beautiful expensive objects made great gifts if you are looking to establish or strength the political alliances.

而且，美丽昂贵的东西可以成为很好的（外交）礼物，如果你想结成或巩固政治联盟的话。

And it is quite possible that the ancient Egyptians were actually exporting glass, not just making it or importing it.

很可能古代埃及人实际上是在出口玻璃的，并不只是制作并且进口它们。

The trade with Mesopotamian was probably a friendly mutual trade because a Mesopotamia glass was usually white or yellow.

这种和美索不达米亚平原地区的交易很可能是一种友好的双向贸易，因为美索不达米亚平原地区出产的玻璃一般是白色和黄色的。

So Mesopotamians might accept something like, we will give you two white disks for two red disks.

所以美索不达米亚平原地区的人可能会接受这样一种交易，也就是拿两个白色的玻璃盘子换两个红色的玻璃盘子。

There is no proof of that, at least not yet.

这个至少到现在为止，还没有相关证据。