纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 050传丝公主画版（4）

"The term 'Silk Road' was coined by a German geographer¹ called Ferdinand von Richthoven as late as 1887. It was never called the Silk Road before then, and then of course that fed into it all the romance of silk itself, its beauty, its luxury.

"I think the place of the Silk Road in the western imagination, the romance that it has, is actually quite a recent thing. Obviously certain products on the Silk Road gathered a kind of mystique, particularly when they came from a long way away. Not just a great cost, but also a strangeness, because people perhaps did not know the civilisations that had produced them."

As Colin Thubron implies, mysteries often generate stories to explain them, and since silk was by far the most important product travelling along this route, it inevitably² inspired - in fact it needed - its own myth. Luxurious³, beautiful and enduring, silk is almost synonymous with the land that first produced it over four thousand years ago and monopolised it for so long - ancient China. Long before the Roman Empire appeared, silk was already cultivated in China and exported on an industrial scale. The mysteries of its production were a highly protected secret; but secrets as profitable as this one never last, and Khotan was one of the beneficiaries.

1 geographer   

n.地理学者

参考例句：

• His grandfather is a geographer.他的祖父是一位地理学家。
• Li Siguang is a famous geographer.李四光是一位著名的地理学家。

2 inevitably   

adv.不可避免地；必然发生地

参考例句：

• In the way you go on,you are inevitably coming apart.照你们这样下去，毫无疑问是会散伙的。
• Technological changes will inevitably lead to unemployment.技术变革必然会导致失业。

3 luxurious   

adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的

参考例句：

• This is a luxurious car complete with air conditioning and telephone.这是一辆附有空调设备和电话的豪华轿车。
• The rich man lives in luxurious surroundings.这位富人生活在奢侈的环境中。