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第1段
1 .<-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片段。
第2段
1 .<-FEMALE PROFESSOR:->[reviewing] 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。
2 .And I said a little over 3,000 years ago there was quite a lively trade among the countries along the Mediterranean Sea—people were making objects out of bronze, and they were using bronze tools to make other goods, and they developed trade networks to trade these goods with other countries around the Mediterranean ...
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，人们用青铜制作物品，他们还使用青铜工具来制造其他的货物，他们还建造起了交易网络，以与地中海沿岸的其他国家交易货物。
第3段
1 .[new information] One of the things they traded was glass ...
他们交易的物品之一就是玻璃。
2 .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. [sees hand raised]
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。
3 .Robert?
罗伯特?
第4段
1 .<-MALE STUDENT:->I thought our textbook said that the Egyptians imported their glass from other countries.
学生：我认为我们课本上说的是，埃及人从别的国家进口他们的玻璃。
第5段
1 .<-FEMALE 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。
2 .I mean, we had some evidence that suggested that the Egyptians were making glass objects, uh, 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。
第6段
1 .<-MALE STUDENT:->[friendly] OK, am-am I missing something?
学生：好吧。是……是我搞错了吗？
2 .They're making glass, but they're not making glass.
他们在制造玻璃，但他们又不在制造玻璃？
第7段
1 .<-FEMALE PROFESSOR:->[correcting] I said they were making glass objects, right?
教授：我说的是他们在制造玻璃制品，对吧？
2 .You see, it was previously thought that they weren't actually making the raw glass itself, [but] that they were importing unfinished glass from Mesopotamia—um, 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。
3 .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迹的地方。
4 .You see, there were two stages of glassmaking: the primary production stage, where they made disks of raw glass...
你看，当时玻璃制作涉及到两个阶段，初期生产阶段，制作盘状的毛坯玻璃...
5 .Uh, an- and then there was the secondary stage, where they melted the raw glass, the glass disks, and created decorative objects or whatever.
还有第二阶段，他们将毛坯玻璃，也就是盘状玻璃熔化，然后制作成装饰性的物品，或者别的什么东西。
6 .And from this new Egyptian site we've learned that the primary production stage had several steps.
在这个新的埃及考古遗址，我们了解到初级生产阶段包括几个步骤。
7 .First, they took quartz—a colorless, transparent mineral—and crushed it.
首先，他们要把石英石，一种无色透明的矿物，把它碾压粉碎。
8 .Then they took that crushed quartz and mixed it with plant ash; uh, "plant ash" is just what it sounds like—the ash that's left after you've burned plant material.
然后，他们把碾碎的石英石粉末和草木灰混合起来，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。
9 .They slowly heated this mixture, at a relatively low temperature, in small vessels, um 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，在小容器里，这种小的容器类似于用黏土做的罐子。
10 .Uh, and that yielded a kind of glassy material...
这就制作出来了一种玻璃样的材料。
11 .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磨成粉，然后用金属染料给它们染色。
12 .After that, they poured the colored powder out into disk-shaped molds and heated it up to very high temperatures, so that it melted.
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，然后用很高的温度加热，它就熔化了。
13 .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，里面就是玻璃圆盘。
14 .These disks were shipped off to other sites within Egypt and places around the Mediterranean.
这些玻璃圆盘被用船运到埃及国内其他地方或者地中海周围的地区。
15 .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。
16 .[sees hand raised] Susan?
Susan?
第8段
1 .<-FEMALE STUDENT:->So what kind of objects were people making back then?
学生：那么那个时候的人们会做什么种类的物品呢？
第9段
1 .<-FEMALE PROFESSOR:->Well, the most common objects we've found—mostly in Egypt and Mesopotamia—uh, the most common objects were beads; one thing Egyptians were very, very good at was imitating precious stones; they created some beads that looked so much like emeralds and pearls that it was very difficult to distinguish them from the real thing.
教授：嗯，我们在埃及和美索不达米亚平原能找到的最普遍的物品是玻璃珠子，埃及人非常非常擅长的事情之一就是伪造珍贵的宝石；他们可以伪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。
2 .Uh, and-and also beautiful vessels, uh, with narrow necks; they were probably really valuable, so they wouldn't have been used to hold cooking oil or common food items; they were most likely used for expensive liquids like perfume.
嗯，还有…….还有一些漂亮的器皿，细口的器皿。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他普通的食物，它们很可能会被用来盛放昂贵的液体，像是香水之类的。
第10段
1 .Now the glass made at this factory was mostly red; to get this red color, they used copper; in a sophisticated process.
这家工厂制作的玻璃大部分是红色的，为了得到这种红色他们使用了铜，经过复杂的过程后（得到了红色的玻璃）。
2 .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玻璃瓶。
3 .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, and they probably used glass to show their power.
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，他们可能会用玻璃来彰显自己的权势。
4 .Also, beautiful, expensive objects make great gifts if you're looking to establish or strengthen political alliances... and it's quite possible that ancient Egyptians were actually exporting glass, not just making it or importing it.
而且，美丽昂贵的东西可以成为很好的（外交）礼物，如果你想结成或坚固政治联盟的话，很可能古代埃及人实际上也在出口玻璃的，并不只是制作并且进口它们。
5 .The trade with Mesopotamia was probably a friendly, mutual trade...because, uh, Mesopotamian glass was usually white or yellow, so Mesopotamians might have said something like, "We'll give you two white disks for two red disks." There's no proof of that, uh—at least not yet...
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，所以美索不达米亚平原地区的人可能会说这样的话：”我们拿两个白色的玻璃盘子换你们两个红色的玻璃盘子“。当然，到现在为止，还没有相关证据。