科学美国人60秒 SSS Oldest Known Indigo Dye Found in Peru
时间：2018-12-24 作者：英语课 分类：2016年Scientific American(九)月
Many people remember the colors of the rainbow by the acronym 1 ROY G. BIV. For red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo 2 and violet. Well, the color indigo just made news.
Indigo gets its name from the plant Indigofera tinctoria and its relatives, which supply the dye that makes fabric 3 the rich, beautiful color between blue and violet.
Indigo dye was used around the ancient world in fabrics 4 created from Egypt to China to Meso and South America. And it’s in South America that researchers recently found the oldest known example of fabrics dyed with indigo.
The artifacts were discovered at Huaca Prieta, a ceremonial mound 5 on the coast in northern Peru. But their color was initially 6 hidden by the grey tones that had leached 7 into them from the materials used in the mound itself. But when a conservator carefully washed the fabric, the true colors reappeared.
“And it was at that point that I realized we probably had indigo and it was probably the world's oldest indigo.”
Jeffrey Splitstoser, an anthropologist 8 at George Washington University
“Which was really exciting. I hadn't thought I'd be discovering, or we would be discovering, the world's oldest indigo, when I took on this project.”
The research is in the journal Science Advances. [Jeffrey C. Splitstoser et al, Early pre-Hispanic use of indigo blue in Peru]
The dyed fabric is about 6,000 years old.
“In the Middle East there are inscriptions 9 that discuss blue fabrics that date to about 3100 B.C. These are just texts though. And so we think they're referring probably to the earliest Old World indigo-blue dyed textiles. So that would date to about 5,000 years ago, 3100 B.C. And so these are at least 1,000 years older than that. And the earliest known indigo blue textiles were from Egypt and they date to around 4400 B.P., before present. So these are almost 2,000 years older than those.”
Splitstoser says that the discovery means it’s likely that the techniques to dye fabric blue were developed in the Americas before they were developed in Egypt.
“It really means that we have to look at the ancient Andes as one of the earliest sources of textile innovations in the world.”
—Cynthia Graber
[The above text is a transcript 10 of this podcast.]
- That's a mouthful of an acronym for a very simple technology.对于一项非常简单的技术来说，这是一个很绕口的缩写词。
- TSDF is an acronym for Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facilities.TSDF是处理，储存和处置设施的一个缩写。
- The sky was indigo blue,and a great many stars were shining.天空一片深蓝，闪烁着点点繁星。
- He slipped into an indigo tank.他滑落到蓝靛桶中。
- The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
- I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。
- cotton fabrics and synthetics 棉织物与合成织物
- The fabrics are merchandised through a network of dealers. 通过经销网点销售纺织品。
- The explorers climbed a mound to survey the land around them.勘探者爬上土丘去勘测周围的土地。
- The mound can be used as our screen.这个土丘可做我们的掩蔽物。
- The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
- Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。
- They believe that the humic materials are leached from decaying plant materials. 他们认为腐植物料是从腐烂的植物体浸沥而来。 来自辞典例句
- The concept holds that uranium is leached by groundwater from tuffeceous rocks. 该理论认为，来自凝灰岩的地下水淋蚀铀。 来自辞典例句
- The lecturer is an anthropologist.这位讲师是人类学家。
- The anthropologist unearthed the skull of an ancient human at the site.人类学家在这个遗址挖掘出那块古人类的颅骨。
- Centuries of wind and rain had worn away the inscriptions on the gravestones. 几个世纪的风雨已磨损了墓碑上的碑文。
- The inscriptions on the stone tablet have become blurred with the passage of time. 年代久了，石碑上的字迹已经模糊了。
- A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
- They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。