日本語訳を! 2-(2)
お願いします。
Five thousand years ago some villages grew very large, and their headsmen grew very powerful. Two villages in particular had grown so large that we would call them towns: Nekhen in the south and Tjeni in the north. Location, location, location―it was all about location even then. Nekhen was the gateway to gold. This southernmost town of the Nile Valley was closest to the Nubian gold mines. Gold made Nekhen fat and prosperous.
Tjeni in the north was also a gateway. This town developed across the Nile from where the cliffs pinched the river into a narrow roadway. Tjeni controlled traffic on the Nile. And it was also here that tradesmen returning from the west entered Egypt. The goods they brought with them made Tjeni fat and prosperous. The wealth and power of Nekhen and Tjeni grew, and when it did, their leaders grew wealthy and powerful, too.
Nothing says wealthy like things. The rarer something is, the more exotic and the finer the quality, the louder it shouts about its owner, "Look at me, I'm rich and powerful, I have all these fabulous things!" Artists no longer had to squeeze their craft making into what time they had left after tending their garden and milking their cows. People would gladly trade whatever the artist needed for the artist's talents. And now enough people lived in one spot to keep the artist busy all year.
For artists location meant something, too. One of the best locations for an artist in ancient Egypt was near a cemetery. The more power people had in life, the more fantastic their burial had to be. The dead were steady customers. Artists sculpted stone vases, molded clay figures, crafted gold jewelry, and carved stone palettes for the tombs of the rich and famous.
お礼
少々説明不足でしたが、まさにその貿易業務でのレターです。 大変助かりました。有難うございました。