BBC 100件藏品中的世界史008:Egyptian Painted Pottery Cattle埃及彩繪陶牛

BBC 100件藏品中的世界史

008:Episode 8 - Egyptian Painted Pottery Cattle

第八集——埃及彩繪陶牛

Model of four cattle (made around 5,500 years ago). Painted clay, found at El Amra, southern Egypt

四牛模型，彩繪泥塑，距今約五千五百年前，出土于埃及南部El Amra地區(qū)。

Mention excavation in Egypt, and most of us immediately see ourselves entering Tutankhamun's tomb, discovering the hidden treasures of the pharaohs and at a stroke rewriting history. Aspiring archaeologists should be warned that this happens only very rarely.

提及在埃及的考古挖掘，我們絕大多數(shù)人自然而然地就聯(lián)想到進入圖坦卡蒙的法老陵墓，挖出隱藏多年的法老大寶藏，于是乎，一夜改寫世界歷史，一舉成名天下名?？蓜e說我要打擊那些胸懷抱負、滿腔熱情的未來考古學家啊，事實上這種情況是極少發(fā)生的。

Most archaeology is of course a slow dirty business, followed by even slower recording of what has been found. And the tone of archaeological reports has a deliberate, academic, almost clerical dryness, far removed from the riotous swagger of Indiana Jones.

大多數(shù)的考古工作真是又累又苦，又慢又臟;逐一記錄下發(fā)掘出來的有用沒用的物品的過程，就更別提有多緩慢了。而且考古報告的基調(diào)幾乎千篇一律的學術味十足、幾乎是文書干燥的調(diào)調(diào)，與大家印象中“守寶奇兵”的繽紛招搖可是相去甚遠。

In 1900, a member of the Egypt Exploration Society excavated a grave in southern Egypt. He soberly named his discovery Grave A23 and noted the contents:

1900年，埃及探索學會的某一成員在埃及南部發(fā)掘處一處墓葬，他正而八經(jīng)地將這發(fā)現(xiàn)命名為墓A23，并記錄其中發(fā)現(xiàn)成果如下：

'Body, male. Baton of clay painted in red stripes, with imitation mace-head of clay. Small red pottery box, four-sided, 9 inches x 6 inches. Leg bones of small animal. Pots and - stand of 4 clay cows.'

“遺體，男性。泥塑棍棒，表面涂有紅色條紋，頂端是仿狼牙棒頭。方型小陶盒，四面9英寸x 6英寸，內(nèi)裝：小動物腳骨。陶罐若干，站立式四牛泥塑模型一件。”

These four little clay cows are a long way from the glamour of the pharaohs, but you could argue that cows and what they represent have been far more important to human history. Babies have been reared on their milk, temples have been built to them, whole societies have been fed by them, economies have been built on them. Without cows there are no cowboys, and without cowboys no Wild West. Our world would have been a different and a duller place without the cow.

當年這四只小小的陶牛與法老們輝煌與偉大真是無從相比，然而你也可以這么說，這些陶牛及其代表的意義在人類歷史上可以占有更加重要的地位。人類的嬰兒喝著牛奶成長，人類建立起供奉牛的神廟。沒有牛就沒有牛仔，沒有牛仔就沒有美國的狂野西部文化。假如沒有牛的存在，我們的世界將會變得多么的不同與乏味啊。

'They were a very important part of the Egyptian economy. It became essentially a symbol for life.' (Professor Fekri Hassan)

“它們是古埃及經(jīng)濟相當重要的一部分，牛在本質(zhì)上已經(jīng)成為一種生命的象征。” 法克瑞·哈桑教授說道。

'It's not that easy for archaeologists to pin down how food processing worked in these early stages, but some of these artefacts can give us a good insight into it.' (Professor Martin Jones)

“對于考古學家來說，精確地找出在這些人類早期階段食品加工究竟是怎么樣的，可不是一件輕松活;不過有些文物可以給我們提供一向很好的啟示。”馬丁·瓊斯教授說道。

Four horned cows stand side by side upon fertile land. And indeed they've been grazing on their little patch of grass for about five and a half thousand years. They're ancient Egyptian, more ancient even than the pharaohs or the pyramids.

這四只帶角的牛肩并肩站成在肥沃的土地上，它們就在那塊小草地上吃草，渡過了五千五百年的漫長歲月。它們來自古埃及，甚至比古法老金字塔的年代還要久

These cows are miniatures - small models, hand-moulded out of a single lump of Nile river clay. And on them you can still see very faint traces of black-and-white paint applied after the clay had been lightly baked.

這四只牛是實物小縮影，或者說是小模型，一次性手工造模成型，材料是一小塊尼羅河粘土。在它們身上，當初粘土微火烘培后所涂上的黑白涂料仍舊留有隱隱約約的痕跡。

Like toy farm-animals of the sort most of us played with as children, they stand only a few inches high, and the clay base that they share is roughly the size of a dinner plate. These cows were buried with a man in a cemetery near a small village near El Amra in southern Egypt.

就像我們當小孩時玩的玩具農(nóng)場動物一樣，這些陶牛模型站著有幾英寸高，托著它們的粘土盤也就餐盤大小。這些陶牛是一個男性的隨葬品，地置大概在南部埃及靠近El Amra地區(qū)的小村落附近。

Like all the objects I've chosen this week, these creatures speak of the consequences of climate change and human responses to it. They have a story to tell about their owner that stretches far beyond Grave A23.

就像本周我選擇的其他物品一樣，這些陶牛也描述了氣候變化和對人類生活產(chǎn)生的相關影響。它們擁有自己的故事，遠遠超越了這處命名為墓A23的墓葬地。

 

 

All of the things found in this grave were intended to be useful in another world and, in a way never imagined by the people who placed them there, they are. But they're useful for us, not for the dead. Because they allow us unique insights into remote societies, their way of death casting light on their way of life, and perhaps even more important, they give us some idea not just of what people did but of what they thought and believed.

這座墳墓中出土的一切物品，當初為了以供墓主來生使用;如今它們的有用之處，卻是當年人們放置物品時絕對想象不到的。因為它們是對我們這些活著的人有用，而不是那些死去的前人。因為它們?yōu)槲覀兞私饽沁b遠的人類早期社會提供了獨特的見解，他們的死亡方式恰恰折射出他們當初的生活方式。也許更重要的是，這些隨葬品讓我們了解到的，不止是當時人們做了什么，還有他們在想什么，相信什么。

Most of what we know about early Egypt, that's Egypt before the pharaohs and the hieroglyphs, is based on burial objects that archaeologists have discovered, objects like these little cows. They come from a time when Egypt was populated only by small farming communities living along the Nile Valley.

早期古埃及是指埃及法老與象形文字出現(xiàn)之前的年代，通常現(xiàn)在我們對那段時期的了解，大部分都來自于這些類似這些小陶牛的考古發(fā)掘成果。它們所處的那個年代，古埃及人類們還只是形成規(guī)模不大的農(nóng)耕小村落，零星地散布在尼河羅谷上。

Compared to the spectacular gold and tomb ornaments of later Egypt, these little clay cows are a modest thing. Funerals at that point were simpler; they didn't involve embalming or mummifying; that kind of practice wouldn't come for another thousand years. Instead we find a simpler way of burying people.

與古埃及晚期壯麗輝煌的黃金與墓飾相比，這些小小的陶牛真是登不上大雅之堂。然而在這個時期，墓葬禮儀通常相對簡單，沒有涉及到防腐處理或者木乃伊化，這兩種習俗還要晚一千年才出現(xiàn)。相對的，根據(jù)我們所發(fā)現(xiàn)的，當時采用了一種更簡單的方式來埋葬死者。

The owner of our four clay cows would have been laid in an oval pit. He would have been placed in a crouched position, lying on a mat of rushes, facing the setting sun. And around him were his grave goods - items of value for his journey into the afterlife, five and a half thousand years ago; among them his four clay cows. Cow models like this one are quite common, so we can be fairly sure that cows must have played a significant part in Egyptian daily life - such an important part, in fact, that they couldn't be left behind when the owner passed through death and on into the afterlife. How did this humble beast become so important to human beings? Martin Jones, Professor of Archaeological Science at Cambridge University, is an expert in the archaeology of food:

我們這些小陶牛的墓主被長眠著一座橢圓型的土坑里。他被放置成為蜷縮的姿勢，躺在一張蒲草墊上，面向落日的方向。他身邊環(huán)繞著他的隨葬品，都是一些在他踏上來生旅程上可以用到的物品，而這些掩埋在五千五百年歲月塵埃中的物品，就包括他的四只小陶牛。類似的陶牛模型在那時的埃及相當普遍，所以我們可以肯定牛在當時人類日常生活發(fā)揮了相當重要的作用。作用性大到，即使主人的死亡也不能使他與他的牛群分開，要一同帶往來生。那么這種不起眼的牲畜是如何變得對人類如此重要的呢?劍橋大學的考古學教授馬丁·瓊斯是食物考古專家：

'If we think of the human diet in two steps - one is with early modern humans, there is an enormous adventurous diversification. We were eating everything - seeds, fish, mammoths, birds - anything that moves we are finding a way to eat it. And then there is a second episode, which starts around ten thousand years ago, where we seem to home in on a small number of target species, particularly grass seeds (what we call cereals), underground tubers, and a small number of animals.'

“如果我們把人類飲食分成兩個階段，第一階段便是早期現(xiàn)代人種，當時人類的飲食范圍真是一種龐大而冒險的多樣化。幾乎什么東西都吃——種子、魚、猛犸象、鳥類等等。只要那東西會動，我們就會想方設法抓來吃。然后第二階段，大概開始于一萬年前左右， 我們開始把注意力集中在種類相對較少的食物品種上，最多的是草籽，或者我們所說的谷物，地下塊莖，還有就是極少數(shù)的動物。

The story begins over nine thousand years ago, in the vast expanses of the Sahara. In Egypt then, instead of today's landscape of arid desert, the Sahara was a lush, open savannah with gazelles, giraffes, zebras, elephant and wild cattle roaming through it - happy hunting for humans.

故事大概開始于九千年前左右，在撒哈拉那廣袤無垠的土地上。然而當年的埃及，可不是如今這般干旱荒涼的沙漠景觀，那年的撒哈拉一派郁郁蔥蔥、草水豐盛、一望無際的熱帶稀樹大草原，羚羊、長頸鹿、斑馬、大象和野牛等動物就在這片沃土上生息繁衍——對人類而言，這卻是一片狩獵的沃土了。

But around eight thousand years ago, the rains that nourished this landscape dried up. Without rain, the land began to turn to the desert that we know today, leaving people and animals to seek ever-dwindling sources of water. This dramatic change of environment meant that people had to find an alternative to hunting.

然后大概在八千元前左右，曾經(jīng)滋養(yǎng)著這方水土的雨水突然干涸。沒有了雨水，土地開始沙化，逐漸演變成我們今天所熟悉的大沙漠，迫使人類與動物背井離鄉(xiāng)，到處尋找日益減少的水源。這種戲劇性的劇烈環(huán)境變化，意味著人們不得不尋找一種方式來代替狩獵。

Somehow they found a way to tame wild cattle. No longer did they just chase them, one by one, they learnt how to gather and manage herds, with which they travelled and from which they could live. Cows became almost literally the lifeblood of these new communities. The needs of fresh water and pasture for the cattle now determined the very rhythm of life as both human and animal activity became ever more intertwined.

也不知如何，他們尋找到了一種方法來馴服野牛。人類不再逐一地追逐著野牛，而是學會了如何集合它們，如何馴化它們。人類在遷徙的過程中帶上了牛群，人類依靠著牛群而生存。牛群于是漸漸變成了這種新興人類群體的生命線。隨著人類與牛群彼此互動變得越來越相互交織，尋找牛群所需的新鮮水源與肥沃牧草開始變成人類生活的主旋律。

What role did these early Egyptian cattle play in this sort of society? What did they keep cows for? Professor Fekri Hassan has excavated and studied many of these early Egyptian graves:

那么在早期古埃及社會，牛群扮演了什么樣的角色呢?人們養(yǎng)牛群在干什么?法克瑞·哈桑教授挖掘與研究過許多這些早期的古埃及墳墓：

'These people had farming villages, and I happen to have excavated sites in the Naqada region. And we found remains of animal enclosures, as well as evidence for the consumption of cattle. We found the bones of these animals. And these items, these models of cattle, were probably produced a millennium or more after cattle were introduced into Egypt.'

“這些人類生存在農(nóng)耕村落里，我碰巧發(fā)掘過Naqada地區(qū)附近的考古遺址。我們發(fā)現(xiàn)了一些動物外殼遺骸，以及人類食用牛的證據(jù)。我們發(fā)掘了這些動物的骨頭。這些物品，這些陶牛模型，可能大概出現(xiàn)在馴化牛被引進埃及的千年之后。”

Study of the bones of these cattle from ancient times shows the ages at which the animals were killed. Surprisingly, many of them were old, at least too old if they were being kept only for food. So unless the early Egyptians enjoyed very tough steak, these are not in our sense beef cattle.

對于這些遠古時期馴化牛骨骼的研究結果告訴了我們這些家畜宰殺時的年齡。令人驚訝的是，其中大部分已經(jīng)是老牛了，至少對于肉用牛而言，真是太過老了。因此除非三埃及人真的相當享受啃著又干又硬的老牛排，這些牛絕對不是我們印象中的肉用牛。

And they must have been kept alive for other reasons - perhaps to carry water or possessions on journeys. But it seems more likely they were tapped for blood which, if you drink it or add it to stews, gives you essential extra protein - it's something we find in many parts of the world, and it's still done today by the nomadic peoples in Kenya.

那么，它們肯定是人類為了其他目的而養(yǎng)育起來的。有可能是在人類遷徙過程中做些挑水或負重之類的工作吧。不過看上去似乎還有另一種可能性——人類的目的是牛血，例如直接飲用，或者添加到燉菜里頭，可以補充額外的蛋白質(zhì)。這種用途我們已經(jīng)在世界上很多地區(qū)都發(fā)現(xiàn)了，而且如今肯尼亞的游牧人民仍舊這么做。

So are our four cows a walking blood bank? The more obvious answer, that they were dairy cows, we can probably rule out, because for several reasons milk was unfortunately off the menu. Not only did these early domesticated cows produce very little milk but, more importantly for humans, drinking cows' milk is very much an acquired skill. Martin Jones again:

這樣說來我們那四只陶牛豈不是四只活動血庫的縮影?奶牛這種更明顯的答案我們大概已經(jīng)可以排除，因為很不巧的基于若干原因，牛奶是上不了當時人類菜譜的了。首先這些早期馴化牛根本就產(chǎn)生不了多少牛奶，但最重要的仍是，對人類而言，喝牛奶其實是一種獲得性的技能。馬丁·瓊斯再次說道：

'There are a range of other foods that our distant ancestors would not have eaten as readily as we do, something as commoplace as milk is something that we have had to evolve to tolerate, because milk is biologically designed just for very young mammals, and we needed to genetically evolve in order to tolerate drinking milk as adults, and indeed a great number of modern peoples around the world don't have that tolerance of drinking milk as adults.'

“有些品種的食物我們那些遙遠的祖先消化吃來可不如我們一樣的容易。像牛奶這樣對我們再尋常不過的食物，人類當初不得不通過漫長的演化過程來適應。這是因為奶類從生物角度而言，就是專門作為非常年輕的哺乳類動物幼崽準備的。作為成人要適應喝奶，我們還需要從基因上進化。事實上現(xiàn)在世界各地還有相當部分的成年人類沒有辦法消化牛奶。”

So, drinking cows' milk would probably have made these early Egyptians very ill, but they and many other populations eventually adapted. We're not only what we eat, we are essentially what our ancestors - with great difficulty - 'learned' to eat.

因此，對當年的早期古埃及人，喝牛奶可能會讓他們病得厲害。然而他們及其他地區(qū)的人類通過演化最終學會了適應。我們不僅僅是由我們吃的東西所決定，基本上我們就是由我們祖先克服重重困難，最終學會“吃”的成品。

But in early Egypt cows were probably also kept as a kind of insurance policy. If crops or the immediate surroundings were damaged by fire, communities could always fall back on the cow for nourishment as a last resort; perhaps not the best thing to eat, but always there. They were also socially and ceremonially significant but, as Fekri Hassan explains, their importance went even deeper:

不過早期古埃及，牛也可以被當成一種風險保障來飼養(yǎng)。假如作物失收或者遭遇了火災之類的，人類村落最終總能把飼養(yǎng)的家牛當成最后的資源，可能不是最佳選擇，但是最保險的選擇。牛群還承載著重要的社會與禮儀上的意義。然而按照法克瑞·哈桑的解釋，其重要性甚至更深：

'Cattle have always had religious significance, both the bulls and the cows; it's related mostly to life. In the desert a cow was the source of life. And we have many representations in rock art, where we see cows with their calves in a more-or-less a religious scene - and we also see human female figurines, also modelled from clay, with raised arms as if they were horns. So it seems to me that cattle were quite important in religious ideology.'

“牛一向具有宗教意義，無論是公牛還是母牛都一樣;它主要涉及到生命。在沙漠里頭，一頭牛曾經(jīng)是生命之源。我們可以在早期巖石藝術上找到很多的印證，看到許多母牛與它們的小牛出現(xiàn)在一些差不多是宗教場景中——同時我們還發(fā)現(xiàn)在女性人型俑，也是粘土模型，高高舉起的雙手就像是牛角。所以在我看來，這些牛群在古人類的宗教意識中地位相當重要。

The cattle in front of me don't show any outward signs of being particularly special. On closer inspection, however, they don't look like the cows you find on the farm today, anywhere across Europe, North America or the Middle East. Their horns are strikingly different - they curve forwards and much lower than any cows that we know, and that's because they're not like the cows that we know.

擺在我面前的這幾只陶牛，乍一看外表上沒啥出奇。然而一旦仔細觀察，就可以看出它們長得跟我們現(xiàn)代歐洲、北美或者中東任何農(nóng)場上的牛群一點都不像。它們的牛角極明顯的不同。那牛角前彎的弧度很大，而且比我們所見過的任何牛都要低。其實這恰恰因為它們本不是我們?nèi)缃袼赖募茵B(yǎng)牛。

All the cows alive in the world today descend from Asia. Our Egyptian model cows look different from the ones we know today because they were descended from native African cattle, which have now become extinct.

現(xiàn)代存活的所有家養(yǎng)牛都是亞洲牛的后代。我們這些早期古埃及的陶牛模型看起來與我們所熟悉的牛不一樣，是因為它們是非洲本土原生牛，早就已經(jīng)滅絕了。

Along the Nile Valley, the cow eventually transformed human existence, and in fact became so much a central part of the Egyptian world that it even inspired worship. We all need our gods to be close to what we eat.

悠悠歲月的尼羅河流域，牛群最終改變了人類的生存方式，事實上也構成了古埃及世界的中央部分，甚至引發(fā)了人類對它們的宗拜意識。我們都需要我們的神在某種意義上接近我們的食物。

Whether this cow worship started as early as the time of our little model cows is still a matter of debate, but in later Egyptian mythology the cow takes on a prominent role in religion, worshipped as the powerful cow goddess Bat.

是否最初的牛崇拜出現(xiàn)于我們這小陶牛模型制造出來的時代，這問題還在爭議中，然而更晚期的埃及神話中，牛在宗教中起了很突出的作用，被當成強大的牛女神Bat來崇拜。

She is typically shown with the face of a woman and the ears and horns of a cow. And we can see just how far cattle have gained in status, by the fact that subsequently, Egyptian kings were honoured with the title Bull of his Mother - the cow had come to be seen as the creator of the pharaohs.

她通常是擁有女性的臉孔及牛耳和牛角。隨后歷史中，牛的地位更是得以大大提升，埃及法老通常加上“他母親的公牛”這樣的稱號——牛甚至成為法老的創(chuàng)造者。

In the next programme, I'm moving from cows to corn - but I'm staying with the gods - this time, the all-powerful god of maize, in Mexico.

在接下來的節(jié)目里，我將把注意力從牛身上轉(zhuǎn)移到玉米上，然而依靠與神相伴。這次我要介紹的是在墨西哥，那全能的玉米之神。