消失的法老城市13

　　But it had taken Pusch and Bietak years of excavation¹ just to unearth² the garrison³. At this rate of digging ,it would take hundreds of years to prove if theyhad truly found the site of Piramesse. And so they turned, instead, to a new technology that without lifting a stone would conclusively⁴ unlock the secrets ofwhat lay beneath the fields of Qantir. But when it arrived ,the electron magnetic scanner was hardly the piece of cutting edge technology they’d expected.
Nobody believed ever that it would work. Just the same we said ok, you took the trouble of coming here, now let’s set up the device.
The worlds and foundations of ancient settlements all leave telltale traces in the ground. The electron magnetic scanner can penetrate⁵ the ground to readthose traces. If the foundations of Piramesse were beneath these fields, the scanner would review traces of the roads, walls and buildings hidden therewithout the need to dig. At first, no one thought for a moment that any thing of any interest would be reviewed in the scans. But they were wrong.
There it was. Absolutely incredible. none of us believed it. There was the layout of a building. We were literally⁶ trying and I can’t, I must admit it I'mstill close to trying remembering these days.
Laid out before him, were the outlines of a building hidden just a few centimeters beneath the ground.
We could see the wall is going like this. And there it is destroyed and so and so and. So we said ok immediately backed out to the field, continued themagnetic measurements. This is it. It really works.
Since that first day, they have scanned an area of two square kilometers around Qantir. The largest study of its kind in the world. Exposed, for the firsttime in thousands of years, beneath the fields of Qantir are the foundations of the vast ancient city of Piramesse.

1 excavation   

n.挖掘，发掘；被挖掘之地

参考例句：

• The bad weather has hung up the work of excavation.天气不好耽误了挖掘工作。
• The excavation exposed some ancient ruins.这次挖掘暴露出一些古遗迹。

2 unearth   

v.发掘，掘出，从洞中赶出

参考例句：

• Most of the unearth relics remain intact.大多数出土文物仍保持完整无损。
• More human remains have been unearthed in the north.北部又挖掘出了更多的人体遗骸。

3 garrison   

n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防

参考例句：

• The troops came to the relief of the besieged garrison.军队来援救被围的守备军。
• The German was moving to stiffen up the garrison in Sicily.德军正在加强西西里守军之力量。

4 conclusively   

adv.令人信服地，确凿地

参考例句：

• All this proves conclusively that she couldn't have known the truth. 这一切无可置疑地证明她不可能知道真相。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• From the facts,he was able to determine conclusively that the death was not a suicide. 根据这些事实他断定这起死亡事件并非自杀。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 penetrate   

v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解

参考例句：

• Western ideas penetrate slowly through the East.西方观念逐渐传入东方。
• The sunshine could not penetrate where the trees were thickest.阳光不能透入树木最浓密的地方。

6 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。