Beginnings英国起源(5)-英语听力

[00:00.693]So Skara Brae was not just an isolated settlement of fishers and farmers.
看来斯卡拉布雷并不只是渔夫和农民与世隔绝的世外桃源。 [00:06.000]Its people must have belonged to some larger society.
这些人一定从属于成熟强大的社群。 [00:09.363]One sophisticated enough to mobilise the army of toilers and craftsmen needed.
人员组成复杂到足以动员起劳工与工匠所组成的大军。 [00:15.069]Not just to make these monuments, but to stand them on end.
不仅能建造起这些庞然大物，还将其立置起来。 [00:20.052]And they were just as concerned about housing for dead as the living.
而他们对地宫的关注，绝不逊于生前的寓所。 [00:26.291]The mausoleum at Maes Howe, a couple of miles from Skara Brae, seems no more than a swelling on the grassy landscape.
在斯卡拉布雷数英里外的麦豪石室，看上去不过是青草间一处隆起地块。 [00:34.356]But this is, as it were, a British pyramid and in keeping with our taste for understatement.
其实它堪称不列颠之金字塔，其含蓄与我们的审美情趣不谋而合。 [00:41.041]It reserves all its impact for the interior.
将所有华美尽藏于室内。 [00:47.551]Imagine them open once more.
试想将这墓穴再次打开。 [00:49.598]A detail from a village given the job of pulling back the stone seals, lugging the body through the low opening in the earth.
一个村民受雇，进入将石门封死，匍匐穿进这条深入的地洞。 [00:58.051]Up 36 feet of narrow, tight-fitting passageway, lit only once a year by the rays of the winter solstice.
一条长达三十六英尺狭窄，并只有在每年冬至才会沐浴日光的通道。 [01:07.631]A death canal, constriction, smelling of the underworld.
一条紧，窄并弥漫着阴森气息的冥界之路。 [01:28.131]Finally the passageway opens up to this stupendous, high-vaulted masonry chamber.
最终，这条通道将我们引向了这巨大的穹窿形石室。 [01:35.443]Some of these tombs would have been elaborately decorated with carvings in the form of circles or spirals, like waves or the breeze-pushed clouds.
一些装饰华美的陵墓，被雕刻上圆圈或是螺旋的形状，犹如波浪，又如清风掠过的云海一般。 [01:45.090]Others would have had neat little stone stores or cubicles where the bodies would be laid out on shelves.
另一些则附有精巧的小型石室，便于死者的遗体存放于搁架之上。