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The Shang Dynasty had seen the growth of China's first large cities.
公元前一千五百年左右，商朝建立，它建立起中國第一批大型城市。
Their last capital, at Anyang on the Yellow River in north China, covered an area of 30 square kilometres and had a population of 120,000-at the time it must have been one of the largest cities in the world.
這一朝代的最后一個首都位于中國北方黃河流域的安陽，占地三十平方公里，人口超過一點二萬，在當時必定是世界上最大的城市之一。
Life in Shang cities was highly regulated, with 12-month calendars, decimal measurement, conscription and centralised taxes.
在商代，城市生活已十分規律，有將一年劃分為十二個月的歷法、十進制的度量衡單位、兵役制度以及中央稅收制度。
As centres of wealth, the cities were also places of outstanding artistic production in ceramics and jade and, above all, in bronze, and all these skills continued to flourish after the Shang had been replaced by the victorious Zhou.
城市既是財富中心，也是杰出藝術品如陶器、玉器，尤其是青銅器的制作中心。但在那時，約三千年前的地中海與太平洋地區，已有的社會都在坍塌，新勢力將取而代之。
Now making a bronze vessel like our gui bowl is an extraordinarily complicated business.
這樣的青銅器是最具代表性的中國古物之一，制作工藝極為繁復。
First you need to mine and smelt the ores that contain both copper and tin, in order to make the bronze itself.
先要將銅礦石與錫礦石熔化以制作青銅，再將青銅液倒進模具鑄造。
Then comes the casting, and here Chinese technology led the world.
中國的青銅工藝世界領先。
Our gui was not made as a single object, but as separate pieces cast in different moulds which were then joined together to make one complex and intricate work of art.
這件簋并非一次成型，而是用不同的模具制作出不同的部位，再進行組合，最終成為復雜而精細的藝術品。
The result is a vessel that at that date could have been made nowhere else in the world.
這樣的作品，當時世界上沒有其他任何國家能夠制作。
