2016-06-03 UK’s ‘oldest’ hand-written document 考古学家发现英国“最古老”手写文献

文字稿

考古学家透露他们在伦敦挖掘出了一批罗马木板，这其中包括英国有史以来最古老的手写文献。以下是 David Sillito 的报道。

“Londinio Mogontio” – “To Mogontius in London”. It’s not a long address but it didn’t have to be.

In and around AD50, London was a small bustling frontier town and these tiny scratches into a Roman writing tablet show the first ever mention of the new city.

The tablets found in the mud of the banks of the Walbrook, one of London’s lost rivers, are Britain’s oldest written documents.

And with their details of arguments over debts, legal action and requests to brewers suggest that the life and business of the City of London was already set just a year or two after the Roman invasion.

词汇表

bustling 喧闹的，繁忙的
scratches 刻写的笔迹
banks 河岸
debt 欠款，债务
legal action （法律）诉讼
brewers 酿造啤酒的人
the City of London (as the capital’s financial district) 伦敦金融城（英国首都伦敦的商业及金融中心）
was already set （当时）已成型

测验

请听报道并回答下列问题。

1. Why didn’t the address on the hand-written document have many details?

2. What makes this tablet more remarkable than the other documents found in the excavation?

3. What were the documents about?

4. Which two parts of the report indicate how London has changed?

答案

1. Why didn’t the address on the hand-written document have many details?
Because London was a small town.

2. What makes this tablet more remarkable than the other documents found in the excavation?
Because it shows the first ever mention of the new city.

3. What were the documents about?
They had details of arguments over debts, legal action and requests to brewers.

4. Which two parts of the report indicate how London has changed?
It said that it was a small town and also that some rivers, like the Walbrook, disappeared.