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And to some degree, taking out elements like lead and copper, that's not too bad, but unfortunately the main element that came with the gold out of the ground was the silver, and this had not been done before.
從技術(shù)上講，析出鉛和銅這樣的元素不算太難。但遺憾的是，伴隨黃金出土的主要元素常常是銀。
So I guess that Croesus sent to his research teams and said: Your problem today lads is to discover how we can get the silver out of the gold so that we can then make a consistent coinage.
所以我猜克羅伊斯送到他的研究團(tuán)隊然后說:你們的問題是如何從金中分離出銀,這樣我們就可以做出一枚一致的貨幣。
Now silver is reasonably resistant to chemical attack, and gold of course is very resistant to chemical attack.
而從金中分離出銀的技術(shù)之前還從未實現(xiàn)過。銀對化學(xué)試劑的反應(yīng)較為遲鈍，金則更為遲鈍。
So what they did was to get either very fine powder of the gold straight from the mines, or else get bigger pieces of old gold and hammer it out into very thin sheets-a bit like the old-fashioned cigarette papers-and then put these in a pot along with common salt, that's sodium chloride.
最終，他們把直接從礦場里采出的細(xì)金粉或打得極薄的舊金片，與普通的鹽也就是氯化鈉一起放進(jìn)鍋里。
And then heat that in a furnace to about 800 degrees centigrade, and ultimately you are left with pretty pure gold.
加熱到八百攝氏度，便得到了純度很高的黃金。
So the Lydians learned how to make pure gold coins.
呂底亞人于是掌握了制造純金幣的技術(shù)。
But no less importantly, they then employed craftsmen to stamp on them symbols indicating their weight, and thus their value.
其后他們雇傭工匠為貨幣做標(biāo)記，標(biāo)明它們的重量與價值。
These first coins have no writing on them-dates and inscriptions on coins were to come much later-but archaeological evidence allows us to date our coins to around 550 BC, so the middle of Croesus's reign.
最早的貨幣上沒有文字，日期和銘文 都要到更晚期才會出現(xiàn)。但我們依靠考古證據(jù)，將這些貨幣的鑄造日期 確定到公元前550年左右，即克羅伊斯統(tǒng)治的中期。
The stamp used to indicate weight on his coins was a lion, and as the size and therefore the value of the coin decreased, ever smaller parts of the lion's anatomy were used, so for example the smallest coin shows only a lion's paw.
用于表示貨幣重量的標(biāo)記是獅子，由于貨幣的大小會隨著重量的減少而遞減，因而有時也使用獅子的某一部分。比如最小的貨幣上只有一只獅爪。
