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Tribes and little kingdoms are coalescing into larger units, ones that will eventually become the nation states that we know today. England, Scotland and Denmark on one side, Japan and Korea on the other. For all these countries, these are the critical centuries.
部落与小国联合起来，形成如今我们熟悉的大国。其中一端是英国与丹麦，另一端则是日本与新罗。对这些国家来说，这几个世纪是他们历史上的关键点。
Lying between north-east China and Japan, the Korean peninsula was, like England at the same date, fragmented by competing kingdoms. In 668, the southernmost kingdom, Silla, with the backing of China-then, as now, the regional superpower-conquered its neighbours and imposed its rule from the far south to quite a bit north of what is now Pyongyang. It never controlled the far north, but the unified Silla kingdom for the next three hundred years ruled most of what is now Korea from its imperial capital in the south, Kyongju, a city splendidly adorned with grand new buildings.
朝鲜半岛地处日本与中国东北之间。同英国一样，当时这里也分成了许多相互征战的小国。公元668年，最南端的新罗国在中国唐朝政 府的支持下吞并了半岛上的其他国家，将自己的疆土从最南端扩张到了 北部今平壤一带。它的势力从未涉及半岛的最北端（与今日中国接壤的部分)，但在接下来三百年的时间里，这个统一的新罗国从自己位于南部 的首都庆州发号施令，统治着今日朝鲜与韩国的绝大部分疆土。庆州兴建了许多豪华的新建筑，城市被装扮得极为华丽。
The object in this programme is a roof tile that comes from one of those new buildings, in this case a temple, and it tells us a great deal about the achievements and the apprehensions of the young Silla state.
大英博物馆所藏的这片陶瓦便来自当时这些新建筑中的一幢。它曾是一座庙宇的屋瓦，向我们讲述了公元七百年左右，年轻的新罗国的成就与忧惧。
I've got the tile in my hand now. It's about the size of a large old-fashioned roof slate, so just under a foot (30 cm) square, and it's made of heavy cream-coloured clay. The top and the sides are edged with a roughly decorated border, and in the middle of the tile is a fearsome face looking straight out at me.
瓦当的大小类似于大的老式石板瓦，略小于三十厘米乘三十厘米，用乳黄色的黏土制成，顶部和两边都有装饰粗糙的瓦缘，中间是一张可怕的脸，直直地望着我。
