美国国家公共电台 NPR London's 'Mudlark' Pulls Treasure From The Thames

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Centuries ago, poor children scraped a living from the mud along London's River Thames, scavenging among the bones and trash that washed down from the city. They were called mudlarks, and their work was dirty and dangerous. Today, people still pick things out of the river mud, but now they're looking for bits of the city's history. Writer Lara Maiklem is one of these modern-day mudlarks and has written a book called - you guessed it - "Mudlark." NPR's Petra Mayer met up with her on the banks of the Thames.

PETRA MAYER, BYLINE¹: On the north side of the river, between a pub and a railway bridge, there's a rickety metal staircase down to another world - or rather, several worlds, layered on top of each other and jumbled² together in the slightly stinky river mud.

What are these round glass things?

LARA MAIKLEM: It's the bottom of an old Victorian beer bottle.

MAYER: It's a bright, blowy day. Seagulls are wheeling overhead. Barges³ pass by in the background. And everywhere I look, there are little fragments of history. Lara Maiklem is an able guide to all this history. She's been mudlarking for more than 15 years. And her book is a detailed⁴ tour of both the Thames and the treasures you can find there, like this mysterious brown thing that I've just dug out of the mud.

This looks like a piece of pottery⁵ here.

MAIKLEM: That could be Roman. It hasn't got any glaze⁶ on it, and it's got some quite large inclusions in it. So it could be a piece of Roman pottery. Well done.

MAYER: Yay. Yay me.

We're basically walking on a giant garbage dump, Maiklem says - shattered pottery, chunks⁷ of Roman heating duct, roof tiles scarred by the Great Fire of London, glass bottles and clay pipes and so many bones, the relics⁸ of centuries of dinners. These objects tell everyday stories about lives that don't end up in the history books.

MAIKLEM: I'm finding these ordinary pieces that perhaps, almost undoubtedly⁹, nobody's touched since the last person who dropped it. Even the prehistoric¹⁰ flints, you know - the last person to touch that was the person who was maybe, you know, throwing a spear at some animal that doesn't even exist anymore. And to reach down and pick that up is like reaching back through time into history itself. And it's the closest thing I can imagine to time travel.

MAYER: And I should point out here that not everyone can just climb down onto the foreshore and start time traveling. You have to have an official permit, which Maiklem does. And she says some of her very favorite ordinary objects to find are pins.

MAIKLEM: So if you look down here very carefully, I can see one there - just here.

MAYER: I would never have spotted¹¹ that.

MAIKLEM: So this is handmade. They date from 1400 to about 1800. The pinning industry in this country was huge - so huge that they actually imported pins from France, as well, because everybody was pinned into their clothes. So those elaborate ruffs that you see Elizabeth I wearing took hundreds of pins to put together. But they dropped and lost a lot because they were wearing a lot. And they wash together in certain areas. So if you could find a patch...

MAYER: I think I see one right here.

MAIKLEM: The pins - have you got one?

MAYER: Is that one by my toe?

MAIKLEM: Just there?

MAYER: Yeah.

MAIKLEM: Yeah, just there.

MAYER: I feel like you've had to become a historian to understand all the things that you find out here.

MAIKLEM: I suppose so. I mean, I'm not an archaeologist, and I'm not a historian. I never pretend to be one. I'm just - I'm a history seeker, I suppose. And it spurs you into researching when you find these things.

MAYER: Maiklem does work with historians. She has a Facebook page where she posts her finds, and a community has grown up around it, dedicated¹² to puzzling them out. She's also taken pieces to university history departments and museums. And she says it's really important to report what you find. The U.K. has a program called the Portable Antiquities¹³ Scheme that documents the treasures found by metal detectors¹⁴ and mudlarks.

MAIKLEM: This is our history. It's our heritage. Take it home and stick it in a drawer and forget about it is criminal, I think.

MAYER: At the end of the afternoon, Maiklem spreads out our finds on a convenient riverside rock, arranging them chronologically¹⁵ from a Roman mosaic¹⁶ tile to a 17th-century clay pipe to a shard¹⁷ of blue and white Victorian pottery, a miniature history of England picked from the river mud.

Petra Mayer, NPR News, London.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 jumbled   

adj.混乱的；杂乱的

参考例句：

• Books, shoes and clothes were jumbled together on the floor. 书、鞋子和衣服胡乱堆放在地板上。
• The details of the accident were all jumbled together in his mind. 他把事故细节记得颠三倒四。

3 barges   

驳船( barge的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The tug is towing three barges. 那只拖船正拖着三只驳船。
• There were plenty of barges dropping down with the tide. 有不少驳船顺流而下。

4 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

5 pottery   

n.陶器，陶器场

参考例句：

• My sister likes to learn art pottery in her spare time.我妹妹喜欢在空余时间学习陶艺。
• The pottery was left to bake in the hot sun.陶器放在外面让炎热的太阳烘晒焙干。

6 glaze   

v.因疲倦、疲劳等指眼睛变得呆滞，毫无表情

参考例句：

• Brush the glaze over the top and sides of the hot cake.在热蛋糕的顶上和周围刷上一层蛋浆。
• Tang three-color glaze horses are famous for their perfect design and realism.唐三彩上釉马以其造型精美和形态生动而著名。

7 chunks   

厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分

参考例句：

• a tin of pineapple chunks 一罐菠萝块
• Those chunks of meat are rather large—could you chop them up a bIt'smaller? 这些肉块相当大，还能再切小一点吗？

8 relics   

[pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸

参考例句：

• The area is a treasure house of archaeological relics. 这个地区是古文物遗迹的宝库。
• Xi'an is an ancient city full of treasures and saintly relics. 西安是一个有很多宝藏和神圣的遗物的古老城市。

9 undoubtedly   

adv.确实地，无疑地

参考例句：

• It is undoubtedly she who has said that.这话明明是她说的。
• He is undoubtedly the pride of China.毫无疑问他是中国的骄傲。

10 prehistoric   

adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的

参考例句：

• They have found prehistoric remains.他们发现了史前遗迹。
• It was rather like an exhibition of prehistoric electronic equipment.这儿倒像是在展览古老的电子设备。

11 spotted   

adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的

参考例句：

• The milkman selected the spotted cows,from among a herd of two hundred.牛奶商从一群200头牛中选出有斑点的牛。
• Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.山姆的商店屯积了有斑点的短袜。

12 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。

13 antiquities   

n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 )；古迹；古人们；古代的风俗习惯

参考例句：

• There is rest and healing in the contemplation of antiquities. 欣赏古物有休息和疗养之功。 来自辞典例句
• Bertha developed a fine enthusiasm for the antiquities of London. 伯沙对伦敦的古迹产生了很大的热情。 来自辞典例句

14 detectors   

探测器( detector的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The report advocated that all buildings be fitted with smoke detectors. 报告主张所有的建筑物都应安装烟火探测器。
• This is heady wine for experimenters using these neutrino detectors. 对于使用中微子探测器的实验工作者，这是令人兴奋的美酒。 来自英汉非文学 - 科技

15 chronologically   

ad. 按年代的

参考例句：

• Manuscripts show cases arranged topically not chronologically. 从原稿看案例是按专题安排的而不是按年代次序安排的。
• Though the exhibition has been arranged chronologically, there are a few exceptions. 虽然展览的时间便已经安排好了，但是也有少数的例外。

16 mosaic   

n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的

参考例句：

• The sky this morning is a mosaic of blue and white.今天早上的天空是幅蓝白相间的画面。
• The image mosaic is a troublesome work.图象镶嵌是个麻烦的工作。

17 shard   

n.（陶瓷器、瓦等的）破片，碎片

参考例句：

• Eyewitnesses spoke of rocks and shards of glass flying in the air.目击者称空中石块和玻璃碎片四溅。
• That's the same stuff we found in the shard.那与我们发现的碎片在材质上一样。