纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 015早期的写字板(5)

（单词翻译）

Clay may not seem to us the ideal medium for writing, but the clay from the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris proved to be unbeatable for all kinds of purposes, from building cities to making pots, or even, as with our tablet, for giving a quick and easy surface to write on.

黏土也许并非理想的书写载体，但来自幼发拉底和底格里斯河岸的黏土被证明是十分珍贵的，它用途广泛，能修建城市、制作陶罐，还能像我们这块黏土板一样，迅速提供一个可供书写的表面。

From the historians' point of view, clay has one huge advantage: it lasts.

从历史学家的角度来看，黏土具有巨大的优势：容易保存。

Unlike the bamboo used by the Chinese to write on, which rots quickly, and unlike paper, which is so easily destroyed, sun-baked clay will survive in the ground for thousands of years-and we're still learning from those clay tablets.

中国人用于书写的竹子极易腐烂，纸张则易于销毁，而晒干的黏土却能在干燥的地方保存数千年，使我们今天还能阅读其上的文字。

In the British Museum, we look after about 130,000 written tablets from Mesopotamia, and scholars from all over the world come to study the collection.

在大英博物馆，我们保存了超过十三万块来自美索不达米亚的黏土板，世界各地的学者都来此研究这批收藏。

While experts are still working hard on the history of the script some points are already very clear, and many of them are visible in this oblong of baked clay.

对美索不达米亚早期文字史的研究还在持续进行中，但有一些事实已十分清楚，其中很多只要从我们这块长方形的黏土板上便可看出。

You can see very clearly how a reed stylus has pressed the marks into the soft clay, which has then been baked hard so that it is now a handsome orange.

你能清晰地看到芦苇笔是如何在柔软的黏土上画出痕迹，之后经过重度烘烤，使黏土呈现出一种漂亮的橘色的。

If you tap i-you can hear that this tablet is very tough indeed, that's why it has survived; but one of our problems in the British Museum is that we often have to re-bake the clay, in order to preserve the information inscribed on them-indeed we have a separate kiln for re-cooking Mesopotamian tablets.

轻轻敲击黏土板，能发现它的质 地十分坚硬，这便是它们能保存数千年的原因。但如果遇到潮湿的环境，即便是烘烤过的黏土也会毁于一旦。大英博物馆的日常任务之一便是时 常用特制窑炉重新烘烤这批板子，以加固它们的表面，保存上面的文字。