英语畅谈世界文化Lesson24 金字塔 The Pyramids (埃及)

Lesson24: 金字塔 The Pyramids （埃及）

原文：

T: Traveller G:Tour guide

T: Could you tell me about these pictures?

G: The pyramids were built at around 3000-2500 BC and are one of the most impressive monuments of the ancient world. They were built as tombs for the Pharaohs, the rulers of Egypt. The first Pharaohs built simpler tombs, called mastabas. These mastabas were square buildings with a room inside for the coffin and the mummy and some things to take with you to the afterlife.

T: Like this over here in the picture?

G: Yes. Then they began to build mounds of earth on top of their mastabas, to make them grander. Ordinary princes and other aristocrats went on being buried in mastabas. The Step Pyramid is one of the first of these new fancy tombs. T: But, the pyramids we know all have filled in steps. G: Yes, a short time after these were built, the Egyptians decided to fill in the steps, and then made them more pointed on top.

T: The ones in Giza arc this style, right? I think they are

the most well-known, everyone in the world must have seen a picture of them

G: Yes, the ones in Giza were built following this design. Khufu's Great Pyramid was the tallest building on earth for almost 6vc thousand years, until the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889.

T: That's amazing! How did they build them exactly? I've heard many stories about using slaves and even aliens helping them!

G: Yes, I've heard the ones about the aliens too! A pyramid is not hard to build, if you have plenty of cheap workers available. First they built a small mastaba-style tomb on the ground, in the ordinary way. Then one theory is that they heaped up tons and tons of dirt over the tomb, leaving a tunnel Co the outside. Then they began placing huge stones all over the outside of the pyramid. To raise the stones to the top of the pyramid, they built long ramps of dirt and then rolled the stones up them. They kept making the ramps higher and longer. When it was done, they took the earth ramps away again.

T: Still, it is unbelievable how they built such massive itructurei without machinery.

译文：

T：游客 G：导游

T:你能给我讲解一下这些照片吗？

G:金字塔建于公元前3000年至公元前2500年左右，是远古世界最宏伟的历史建筑之一。它们是为埃及的统治者法老们修建的陵墓。最初法老们的陵墓‘比较简单，叫玛斯塔巴陵墓。这些陵墓是方形的建筑，里面有一个房间用来放棺材、木乃伊和一些来世所需要的随身物品。

T:就像照片中的这一个吗？

G:是的。陵墓建成之后，他们开始往墓顶上堆很多土，以便使这些墓看起来更壮观些。普通的王子和其他贵族就一直埋在这样的陵墓中。第一批奇特的新陵墓之一就是阶梯式金字塔。

T:可是我们知道的金字塔都建有台阶。

G:是的，这些金字塔建起来不久，埃及人就决定加上阶梯，然后使它们的顶部看起来更尖。

T:吉萨的那些金字塔就都是这种风格，对吧？我想这些金字塔是最有名的，全球的人都一定见过它们的照片。

G:没错，吉萨的金字塔是按照这种风格建造的。在1889年埃菲尔铁塔建成之前的5000年里，胡大大金字塔足地球上最高的建筑物。