纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 025克罗伊斯金币(4)

And to some degree, taking out elements like lead and copper, that's not too bad, but unfortunately the main element that came with the gold out of the ground was the silver, and this had not been done before.

从技术上讲，析出铅和铜这样的元素不算太难。但遗憾的是，伴随黄金出土的主要元素常常是银。

So I guess that Croesus sent to his research teams and said: Your problem today lads is to discover how we can get the silver out of the gold so that we can then make a consistent coinage.

所以我猜克罗伊斯送到他的研究团队然后说:你们的问题是如何从金中分离出银,这样我们就可以做出一枚一致的货币。

Now silver is reasonably resistant to chemical attack, and gold of course is very resistant to chemical attack.

而从金中分离出银的技术之前还从未实现过。银对化学试剂的反应较为迟钝，金则更为迟钝。

So what they did was to get either very fine powder of the gold straight from the mines, or else get bigger pieces of old gold and hammer it out into very thin sheets-a bit like the old-fashioned cigarette papers-and then put these in a pot along with common salt, that's sodium chloride.

最终，他们把直接从矿场里采出的细金粉或打得极薄的旧金片，与普通的盐也就是氯化钠一起放进锅里。

And then heat that in a furnace to about 800 degrees centigrade, and ultimately you are left with pretty pure gold.

加热到八百摄氏度，便得到了纯度很高的黄金。

So the Lydians learned how to make pure gold coins.

吕底亚人于是掌握了制造纯金币的技术。

But no less importantly, they then employed craftsmen to stamp on them symbols indicating their weight, and thus their value.

其后他们雇佣工匠为货币做标记，标明它们的重量与价值。

These first coins have no writing on them-dates and inscriptions on coins were to come much later-but archaeological evidence allows us to date our coins to around 550 BC, so the middle of Croesus's reign.

最早的货币上没有文字，日期和铭文 都要到更晚期才会出现。但我们依靠考古证据，将这些货币的铸造日期 确定到公元前550年左右，即克罗伊斯统治的中期。

The stamp used to indicate weight on his coins was a lion, and as the size and therefore the value of the coin decreased, ever smaller parts of the lion's anatomy were used, so for example the smallest coin shows only a lion's paw.

用于表示货币重量的标记是狮子，由于货币的大小会随着重量的减少而递减，因而有时也使用狮子的某一部分。比如最小的货币上只有一只狮爪。