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BBC 100件藏品中的世界史011:King Den's Sandal Label古埃及王丹的凉鞋标签

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BBC 100件藏品中的世界史

011: - King Den's Sandal Label

第十一集——古埃及王丹的凉鞋标签

King Den's sandal label (made around 3000 BC). Hippopotamus ivory, found in Abydos, Egypt

古埃及第一王朝第五位国王丹的凉鞋标签,公元前约3000年,河马牙制品,出土于埃及阿拜多斯。

There's a compelling showbiz mythology of the modern big city - the energy and the abundance, the proximity to culture and power, the streets that just might be paved with gold. We've seen it and we've loved it, on stage and on screen. But we all know that in reality big cities are noisy, potentially violent and alarmingly anonymous. We sometimes just can't cope with the sheer mass of people.

现代大城市简直是创造了一种嚎头十足的娱乐圈神话——能量充沛、物欲横流,文化与权力高度集中,仿佛街道都可以是黄金铺成的。舞台上、屏幕上那一切的一切,我们对其“所见即所爱”。然而我们也深知,在现实中,大城市也充斥着嘈杂、潜在暴力和惊人匿名性。有时,我们简直就是无法应付这样庞大、高度集中的人群。

Apparently, if you look at how many numbers we're likely to store in our mobile phone, or how many names we're likely to list on a social networking site, it's very rare even for city dwellers to exceed a couple of hundred.

显而易见的,假如你看一下通常我们手机上可能储存的电话号码,或者我们在社交网站上添加的好友名单,就会发现经常一个城市居民的社交圈人群很少会有超过几百。

Social anthropologists delightedly point out that this is the size of the social group we'd have had to handle in a large Stone Age village. According to them, we're all still trying to cope with modern city life with a Stone Age social brain.

于是乎,社会学家得意洋洋地指出,早在石器时代的大村落里,几百这个数字我们恰好可以应付得来,这就是当时一个社会群体的合理大小。

So how do you lead and control a city or a state where most people don't know each other, and you can only personally persuade a very small percentage of the inhabitants? It's the central theme of this week's programmes, and it's been the key political question for over five thousand years, since the growth of the world's first cities and states.

那么,你应该如何领导和控制一个城市与国家呢?绝大多数人都不认识彼比,你自己也只能亲身说服比例非常小的居民。这是我们本周节日的中心主题;而且在超过五千年的人类历史上,自从世界上第一座城市、第一个国家的出现,这也是一个关键的政治问题。

These grew up in the world's great fertile river valleys, the Euphrates, the Tigris and the Indus, but I want to start with the most famous river of them all, the Nile.

最早期的城市与国家崛起于世界上伟大的肥沃河谷里,幼发拉底河、底格里斯河、印度河等等,然而我想从这所有河流中最著名的尼罗河开始。

"There's no doubt that warfare and the coercive power of the king is very much at the heart of the regime from an early period." (Toby Wilkinson)

“毫无疑问,国王的战争力与威摄力自古以来就是制权的心脏要素。”托比·威尔金森说道。

"It's a fine image of bashing - so it's violent, it's elegant, expressive, and it's beautiful as well." (Steve Bell)

“这威摄力的绝妙写照——充满了暴力、典雅、表现力以及美感。”史蒂夫·贝尔说道。

Today's object shows us that in the Egypt of the pharaohs, the answer to the question of how to exert leadership and state control over a large population was quite simple: force.

今天的物品向我们展示了对于古埃及的法老而言,如何发挥领导力与领导一个人口众多的国家呢?最简单的答案就是:权力。

If you're going to talk about the Egypt of the pharaohs, the British Museum gives you a spectacular choice - monumental sculptures, painted mummy cases, and much much more but, as we're talking about a society that was created by its river, I've chosen an object that came quite literally from the mud of the Nile.

如果你想谈谈关于埃及的法老,大英博物馆提供了极为壮观的选择:不朽的雕塑、彩绘木乃伊棺椁等等,种类繁多,不可胜数;然而我们想要谈论的是一个河流哺育起来的国度,我现在选择的这物品,毫不夸张地说,正是来自尼罗河的泥桨。

It's made from a tusk of a hippo, and it belonged to one of Egypt's first pharaohs - King Den. Perversely for an object that's going to let us explore power on a massive scale, it is absolutely tiny.

它由河马的獠牙制成,属于埃及法老之一的国王丹所有。反差强烈的是,将要带领我们探索强大权力,却是一件微不起眼的小物品。

I'm holding it now. It's about one and a half inches square, it's very thin and it looks and feels a bit like a modern-day business card. But, in fact, it's a label - a label that was once attached to a pair of shoes; not any old shoes - these were sandals of the highest status, because this little ivory plaque is a name tag for an Egyptian pharaoh, made to accompany him as he set off to the afterlife.

我现在就拿在手心里。它大约有一英寸半,正方形,非常的薄,外观和感觉有点像是现代名片。但事实上它是一件标签,附在一双鞋上的标签;不过可不是随随便便的一双烂鞋,而是一双最高地位人穿的凉鞋,因为这张小小的牙牌是一位古埃及法老的名片,制造出来以供他来世使用。

The nearest modern equivalent I can think of to this is the ID card that everybody working in an office now has to wear round their necks to get past the security check. It's not immediately clear who was meant to read these labels, whether they're aimed at the gods of the afterlife or perhaps the servants that might not know their way around.

我认为这物品最相当于现代社会的办公室里,大家都佩戴在脖子上通过安全检查时的工作身份牌。我们现在不能立刻知道究竟这标签是给谁看的,也许是来世中的神灵,也许是那些不认识自己国王的仆人们吧。

The images themselves are made by scratching into the ivory and then rubbing a black resin into the incisions, so that you get a wonderful contrast between the black and the cream of the ivory. So, through this little ivory name tag, we're immediately close to these first kings of Egypt; rulers around 3000 BC, of a new kind of civilisation that would produce some of the greatest monumental art and architecture ever.

这些图像是先在这牙片上雕刻出来,然后再浸渍在黑色树脂里,使树脂渗进牙片的下凹处,于是就产生了美观而对比强烈的黑白图案。所以通过这小小的牙牌名片,我们马上与那些埃及早期的法老王们接近了距离,他们是公元前3000年左右一种新文明的统治者,那文明产生了人类史上一些最伟大的不朽艺术与建筑。

Before the first pharaohs, Egypt was very much a country divided, split between the east-west Mediterranean-facing strip of the Delta in the north, and the north-south string of settlements along the river itself. With the Nile flooding every year, harvests were plentiful, so there was enough food for a rapidly growing population and there was still some surplus to trade with. But there was absolutely no extra fertile land beyond the flooding area.

然而在早期法老王出现之前,埃及还是一个四分五裂的国家,分割成位于北方三角洲、面向地中海的东部西部地带,及沿着尼罗河的南北一长串的各个定居村落。随着尼罗河年年一涨一息的洪水,农作物年年丰收,所以支撑了人口的持续增加,同时还有一些盈余可以进行贸易。

So, inevitably, people fought over what land was available. Conflict followed conflict, with those from the Delta eventually being conquered by the people from the south and, just before 3000 BC, Egypt was united. It's one of the earliest societies that we can think of as a state in the modern sense, and as one of its earliest leaders, King Den had to address all the problems of control and co-ordination that a modern state has to confront today.

然而在尼罗河每年洪水淹没不到的地方,却绝对没有肥沃的土壤,于是,不可避免的,人民开始争夺那片最有利用价值的土地。年复一年,连绵不断的冲突,最终三角洲一带的部落被业自南方的人所征服了,于是古埃及大概于公元前3000年左右统一起来。这个社会人类历史上具有真正现代意义的最早期国家之一,而作为这早期古埃及的法老王之一的国王丹,也必须想办法如何去控制与调协整个王国,这些也是今天一个现代国家都会面对到的问题。

You might not expect to discover how he did it from the label on his shoes, but Den's sandals were no ordinary shoes, they were very high status items - and the Keeper of the Sandals was one of the high court officials, so it's not so surprising that on the back of the label we have a clear statement of how this pharaoh exercised power. The model evolved in Den's Egypt five thousand years ago resonates uncannily around the world to this day.

你可能意料不到居然会在他鞋上的标签了解到他是如何做到统治他的王朝的,然而国王丹的凉鞋可不是寻常之物,它们的地位也相当之高;其实掌管法老王的凉鞋当时也是一种宫殿高职官员,因此我们现在看到的这枚牙牌标签背面居然如此清晰地描绘出法老如何行使权力的生动场面,事实上也不以为奇。国王丹五千年前行使权力的模式,在如今全世界范围内看起来,仍旧是不可思议的熟悉。

On the other side from the sandals [in the museum] is their owner, dressed in a royal head-dress with a mace in one hand and a whip in the other. King Den stands in combat, authoritatively smiting an enemy who cowers at his feet. Of course the first thing we look for is his sandals but, disappointingly, he's barefoot.

在这标签粘在凉鞋(陈列在博物馆里)的背面,刻画了凉鞋的主人,戴着皇家头饰,一手持着狼牙棒,一手握着长鞭。国王丹站在战场上,威风凛凛地鞭打着蜷缩在他脚下的敌人。当然,我们首先寻找的是他的凉鞋,但令人失望的是,他是赤着脚。

This little label is the first image in our series of a ruler - and it's striking that, right at the beginning, the ruler wants to be shown as commander-in-chief, conquering his foe. This is how, from earliest times, power has been projected through images. There's something disturbingly familiar about this kind of image - it looks to us indeed a bit like a contemporary political cartoon, and so we showed it to the political cartoonist, Steve Bell, to ask him what he made of it:

这小小的标签刻画了我们这系列中的第一位统治者,令人惊奇的是从人类最早期社会,统治者就希望作为军队的统帅,征服他的仇敌。这就是最早期权力是如何体现出来的。类似这样的场面熟悉得令人不安,看上去几乎有点像是现代的政治卡通。于是,我们把这标签拿给政治漫画家史蒂夫·贝尔看,问问他的想法:

"Well, looking at this tiny object now, it is a genuinely archetypal image of power - it's the exercise of power, it's somebody bossing it over somebody else. And this image of having a larger character dominating a smaller character is obviously not to do with physical size, it's to do with symbolic size, symbolic weight, and that even carries on into the world of naturalistic political cartoons to this very day. I did it myself only yesterday. You find that characters you focus on often you draw bigger, just because that's where the meaning is. Here we are - one of the earliest political images of all time - it is quite something. There're no laughs there - but that comes later!"

“这小小的物品看起来,真的是一种权力的真正原型形象,代表权力的行使,一个人对别人的镇压。你看,这标签上是一个身形大得多的人在威吓一个身形较小的人,显然这并不是一种真实肉体上的体型差异,而是象征性的。这一点甚至当今政治漫画界仍然很自然运用着。我自己昨天才画过这种类型的。我们看到的是人类历史上最早的政治图像之一。这画面挺严肃的,没有什么笑点,不过那些都是后话了!”

The label-maker's job 'was' deadly serious - to keep his leader looking invincible and semi-divine, and to show that Den was the only man who could guarantee what Egyptians, like everybody else, wanted from their rulers - law and order. Within the pharaoh's realm, everybody was expected to conform and to take on a clear Egyptian identity. The message of our sandal label is that the price of opposition was high and painful. And the message is carried not only in images but by writing - there are some early hieroglyphs scratched into the ivory.

标签制造的工作可是有“致命”的重要性,得确保把他的统治者描绘成无往不胜的半神,也得表现出国王丹是唯一能为他的国家带来法律与秩序的人——古埃及人,像任何其他人一样,都希望他们的统洁者能做到这点。在法老的皇权下,人人都得遵从并体现出一种明确的埃及人身份特征。我们这枚凉鞋标签上传达出的信息是:强权镇压的代价是昂贵而痛苦的。这信息不仅仅通过画面表达出来,而且刻在牙牌上边的早期象形文字也说很清楚。

The inscriptions give us the name of King Den and, between him and the enemy, are the chilling words 'they shall not exist'. This 'other' is going to be obliterated. Who he is we don't know but, to the right of the label, is an inscription which reads: 'the first occasion of smiting the east'. And, as the sandy ground beneath the figures rises to the right-hand side, it's been suggested that the enemy comes from the east, from Sinai. All the tricks of savage political propaganda are already here - the ruler calm and victorious, the alien misshapen, defeated enemy.

这铭文告诉了我们这法老的名字是丹,然后在他与他的敌人之间是一句令人心寒的话:“他们不得存在。”这些“他们”终将被消灭。虽然我们不知道这里的“他们”指的是谁,不过这标签的右侧刻的是:“第一次东征”。而且在人物形像脚下的沙质地面向东方延伸,这说明了敌人是来自于东部的,有人在猜,也许是西奈半岛。总之,这里集中体现了所有野蛮的政治宣传伎俩:顺我者昌,逆我者亡。

The area that this Egyptian state was able to coerce and control is staggering; at its height, it included virtually all the Nile Valley from the Delta to what is modern Sudan, as well as a huge area to the east up to the borders of Sinai. We asked archaeologist Toby Wilkinson what state building on this scale required:

当时埃及国王能够进行强权统治的疆土范围之大令人咋舌,在王朝鼎盛时期,几乎囊括整个尼罗河谷,从三角洲到现代苏丹,向东直达西奈半岛的边界。我们请教了考古学家托比·威尔金森,到底建设这么大规模的王朝需要什么呢?

"Well obviously this is an early period in Egypt's history, when the nation is still being consolidated, not so much territorially as ideologically and psychologically. And the king and his advisers are looking for ways to reinforce Egypt's sense of its own nationhood, and support for their regime.

“嗯,显然这是埃及历史上一个早期的阶段,国家仍旧在扩张兼并中,思想上与心理上还没形成一种固定疆土的理念。法老与他的智囊团不断地寻找可以进一步强化埃及自身的国家民族意识及支持他们政权的方法。

And I think they realised, as world leaders have realised throughout history, that nothing binds a nation and a people together quite so effectively as a foreign war against a common enemy, whether that enemy is real or manufactured. And so warfare plays really a key role in, if you like, the consolidation of the Egyptian sense of their own nationhood."

我认为他们已经意识到了,作为世界各国领导人都清楚的一点,纵观历史,对于一个国家或一个民族而言,没有什么比团结一致对抗一个共同敌人具有更大的约束力与凝聚力,这敌人真实也好,假想也罢,都无所谓。因为我们可以说,战争是真的扮演了关键的作用,帮助埃及人进一步巩固自我的建国意识。”

It's a discouragingly familiar strategy. You win hearts and minds at home by focussing on the threats from abroad, but the weapons that you need to crush the enemy can come in handy when you're dealing with domestic opponents as well. The political rhetoric of foreign aggression is backed up by very brisk policing at home.

这是一种令人沮丧的熟悉伎俩。当把所有注意力集中到对抗外敌上,你能够赢取国内的民心;然而在需要的场合上,用来粉碎敌人的武器也可以直接施用于自己国内的有反抗情绪的老百姓身上。对外侵略的政治修辞总有相当犀利的国内政策来支持。

 

古埃及王丹的凉鞋标签.jpg

 

The apparatus of the modern state had been forged. And the enduring consequences were artistic as well as political. Only power of this order could organise the enormous building projects that these early pharaohs embarked on.

现代国家这种机器建造起来了,产生了艺术上与政治上的持久性后果。也只有这种秩序的力量,能组织起人力建设起这些早期法老下令开工的那些伟大建设工程。

Den's elaborate tomb with granite shipped from hundreds of miles away, and the later, even grander pyramids, were possible only because of the extraordinary power the Egyptian pharaohs could exercise over the minds and the bodies of their subjects.

国王丹那宏伟的坟墓上的共岗岩,都来自于数百英里外的地区。后来的金字塔墓更加是气势恢弘。这一切,都是因为埃及法老在埃及民众心目中,拥有可以操纵他们身心、超同寻常的力量。

In the next programme, I'll be looking further east, beyond Sinai to Mesopotamia - modern-day Iraq. Two rivers there, not one, and not one great unitary state like Egypt, but competing groups of rich city states. But the same problems confront the rulers: how do you control these large, prosperous - but always turbulent - populations? And in part at least, they came up with the same answer: force.

在下期的节目中,我去探索更加东方的地方,跨过西奈半岛,到达美索不迷米亚——现代的伊拉克。那里流淌着不止一条,而是两条河流,那里也没有一个如同埃及一样伟大的统一中央王国,而且是散布着彼此竞争的富裕城市国家。然而所有的统治者都面临着同样的问题:究竟应该如何控制好这些人口众多而繁荣,共同又动荡不安的民族?至少从某方面而言,他们也采同了相同的措施:权力。

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