2015年ESL之旅行交通购物 08 Visiting an Archaeological Site

Visiting an Archaeological Site

Lillian: Look at this! I?m going to take this home as a souvenir. 

Bruce: You can?t do that. That might be an artifact of some kind. It belongs to this archaeological site. 

Lillian: It?s just a rock. No one will miss it. 

Bruce: That?s not the point. Everything here should be preserved. That?s the point of doing a careful excavation¹. Everything should be recorded and nothing should be lost. 

Lillian: Take it easy. It?s not like I?m defacing anything. And if they?re trying to preserve this site, why are they doing this dig? Wouldn?t it be better just to leave it frozen in time? 

Bruce: The point is to learn more about the peoples of ancient civilizations who lived here in prehistory. 

Lillian: In my opinion, it?s disrespectful to disturb burial mounds² and tombs. They were never meant to be desecrated³ like this. 

Bruce: Some people would agree with you, but that?s the price we have to pay to add to our knowledge about human history. I really think you should leave that rock where you found it. It could be a fossil. 

Lillian: Do you really think so? 

Bruce: You never know. You could hold in your hand the key to understanding this entire civilization. 

Lillian: Wow, if I take it, I could preserve it for posterity⁴. 

Bruce: What happened to leaving things undisturbed? 

Lillian: That?s before I realized I could go down in history for my own discovery! 

 

Script by Dr. Lucy Tse 

1 excavation   

n.挖掘，发掘；被挖掘之地

参考例句：

• The bad weather has hung up the work of excavation.天气不好耽误了挖掘工作。
• The excavation exposed some ancient ruins.这次挖掘暴露出一些古遗迹。

2 mounds   

土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆

参考例句：

• We had mounds of tasteless rice. 我们有成堆成堆的淡而无味的米饭。
• Ah! and there's the cemetery' - cemetery, he must have meant. 'You see the mounds? 啊，这就是同墓，”——我想他要说的一定是公墓，“看到那些土墩了吗？

3 desecrated   

毁坏或亵渎( desecrate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The invading army desecrated this holy place when they camped here. 侵略军在这块圣地上扎营就是对这块圣地的亵渎。
• She shouldn't have desecrated the picture of a religious leader. 她不该亵渎宗教领袖的画像。

4 posterity   

n.后裔，子孙，后代

参考例句：

• Few of his works will go down to posterity.他的作品没有几件会流传到后世。
• The names of those who died are recorded for posterity on a tablet at the back of the church.死者姓名都刻在教堂后面的一块石匾上以便后人铭记。