BBC 100件藏品中的世界史007:Ain Sakhri的戀人

BBC 100件藏品中的世界史

007: Ain Sakhri OR 'THE LOVERS'

第七集——Ain Sakhri的戀人

Ain Sakhri lovers figurine (made around 11,000 years ago). Stone sculpture, found near Bethlehem

Ain Sakhri的戀人塑像，石雕，距今約一萬一千年前，出土于伯利恒地區(qū)附近。

As the last Ice Age came to an end, somebody picked a pebble out of a small river not far from Bethlehem. It's a pebble that must have been tumbled downstream, banged and smoothed against other stones as it went, in the process that geologists poetically describe as 'chattering'.

隨著最后一個冰河時代宣告結(jié)束，有人從伯利恒附近流水淙淙的小溪邊，撿起了一枚鵝卵石。這肯定是一枚來自下游的卵石了，逐流而下的過程中，受流水沖刷，在砂石間反復(fù)翻滾摩擦，直到棱角盡失，成為圓滑可愛的卵石。地質(zhì)學(xué)家們很詩意地將這過程描述為“千錘百煉，終成正果”。

But about 11,000 years ago, a human hand then shaped and chipped this beautifully chattered, rounded pebble into one of the most moving objects in the British Museum. It shows two naked people literally wrapped up in each other. It's the oldest known representation of a couple having sex.

然后大約在一萬一千年前左右，一雙人手巧妙地將這枚“終成正果”的美麗卵石雕刻成了如今大英博物館館藏展品中最動人的一件。它顯示了一對赤身裸體的人纏綿緊擁的姿態(tài)，這是世界上最早描繪男女性愛的物品。

'Well it's the classic thing that we always imagine that we discovered sex, and that all other ages before us were kind of rather prudish and simple, whereas in fact obviously human beings have been emotionally sophisticated since at least 8,000 BC when this sculpture was made, and just as sophisticated as us, I'm sure.' (Marc Quinn)

“這么經(jīng)典的東西總能引發(fā)我們的想象，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)了性愛，而后在當代人之前的漫長歲月里，在這話題上我們總是顯得那么拘謹避諱。然而在公元前八千年左右這件雕塑制造出來時，顯然我們?nèi)祟愒谶@方面早已擁有復(fù)雜的情感。我相信當時的人類情感之復(fù)雜，大概與你我一樣。” 馬克·奎因說道。

'And I think it's clear that sexuality was a very very important part of the symbolic and social world.' (Ian Hodder)

“我認為很明顯的，在當時整個人類象征性與社會性的世界里，性行為已經(jīng)占據(jù)了相當重要的一部分。”伊恩·霍德說道。

At the end of the last Ice Age, as the climate warmed up across the world, humans gradually shifted from hunting and gathering to a settled way of life based on farming - and in the process, our relationship to the natural world was transformed.

在最后一次冰河時代后期，隨著全球氣候變暖，人類逐漸由過去狩獵與采集過渡到定居農(nóng)耕的生活方式;在這個過程中，我們與大自然世界的關(guān)系在產(chǎn)生了巨變。

From living as a minor part of a balanced ecosystem, we start trying to overcome nature - to take control. In the Middle East the warmer weather brought a spread of rich grasslands. People had been moving around, hunting gazelle and gathering the seeds of lentils, chick peas and wild grasses. But in the new, lusher savannah, gazelle were plentiful and they tended to stay in one place throughout the year, so the humans settled down with them.

以前我們僅僅是作為一個平衡生態(tài)大系統(tǒng)中的一小部分因子，現(xiàn)在我們開始嘗試來克服大自然，想要贏得主動權(quán)。在中東地區(qū)，轉(zhuǎn)暖的氣候帶來了一望無際的浩瀚草原，水草豐茂，土質(zhì)肥沃。人類曾經(jīng)遷徙奔波，獵捕瞪羚，采集小扁豆、鷹嘴豆與各種野草的種子;然而在這片嶄新而肥沃的稀樹大草原之上，瞪羚的數(shù)量十分充足，往往常年累月停留在同一地方不遷移，因此人類也隨之定居下來。

And once they were settled, they deliberately collected grass grains still on the stalk, and by collecting and sowing the seeds, they almost inadvertently carried out a very early kind of genetic engineering: they slowly created the world's great staple crops - wheat and barley. With this more stable life, our ancestors turned to new gods, and they made images which show and celebrate the key elements in their changing universe; food, power, worship, sex and love. And the maker of the 'lovers' sculpture was one of these people.

一旦定居下來，人類就開始刻意收集一些谷物還長在莖稈上的植物，在這樣收集與播種谷物的過程，他們幾乎不經(jīng)意地進行了一種非常早期的基因工程，慢慢地培育出世界偉大的主食農(nóng)作物—— 小麥和大麥。以這種更加安逸的生活為基礎(chǔ)，我們祖先開始了新的造神運動，他們創(chuàng)造出各種各樣的形象，來展示與慶賀自身周圍那日益改變的宇宙間關(guān)鍵元素：食物、權(quán)力、宗拜禮儀以及性愛。這件戀人雕塑的制造者，就是這些人類中的一員。

In the Manuscript Saloon at the British Museum, most people walk straight past the case that contains the statue of the lovers.

在大英博物館的手稿展廳部分，大多數(shù)人民經(jīng)過這對戀人雕像的展臺時，都是視而不見般地擦身而過。

Perhaps it's because from a distance it doesn't look very much; it's a small, muted, greyish stone about the size of a clenched fist. But when you get nearer to it, you can see that it's a couple, seated, their arms and legs wrapped around each other in the closest of embraces. There are no clear facial features, but you know that these two people are looking into each other's eyes.

大概是因為遠距離點來看，這件物品挺不起眼的。一枚灰不溜湫、大概握緊的拳頭般大小的石頭而已。然而當你走近點瞧瞧，這是一對男女，盤坐著，四肢交纏到對方身上，仿佛一對不可分離的鴛鴦鳥。他們沒有明確的面部特征，但你可以知道他們肯定是彼此互望，深情款款。

I think it's one of the tenderest expressions of love that I know, comparable to the great kissing couples of Brancusi and Rodin, and I asked the contemporary British sculptor, Marc Quinn, what he thought of it:

我認為這是我心目中一種表達愛意最溫柔的方式，堪比布朗庫西與羅丹那些偉大的熱吻中情侶的作品。我就此詢問了英國當代雕塑家馬克·奎恩的看法：

'It's incredible to be in the presence of this object, which is from so long ago. To me, what's incredible about this sculpture is that when you move it and look at it in different ways, it changes completely. And so here you have this thing - from the side, you have the long shot of the embrace, you see the two figures.

“這件作品年代居然這么久遠，實在是令人難以置信。對我來說，更讓人驚嘆不已的是，當你轉(zhuǎn)動這雕塑，從不同的角度來欣賞它時，呈現(xiàn)在你眼前的也絕然不同。從這個角度上，你看到雙人相擁的側(cè)面。

From another side it's a penis, from the other side a vagina, from another side it is breasts - it seems to be formally mimicking the act of making love as well as representing it. And those different sides unfold as you handle it, as you turn this object around in your hand - so they unfold in time, which I think is another important thing about the sculpture - it's not an instant thing.

從這面看，倒像是陰莖;轉(zhuǎn)過來這面呢，像是陰道;轉(zhuǎn)過來又出現(xiàn)了乳房——它似乎是很正式地在模仿性愛的動作，而不僅僅是代表這種行為。隨著你轉(zhuǎn)動角度的變化，不同的場景也在你面前一一呈現(xiàn)

You walk round it and the object unfolds in real time. It's almost like in a pornographic film, you have long shots, close-ups - it has a cinematic quality as you turn it, that you get all these different things and yet it's a poignant, beautiful object about the relationship between people.'

。你繞著這件作品走一圈，它的眾多場景似乎是實時上演，幾乎像在觀看一部色情影片，長鏡頭、特寫鏡頭——這種幾乎接近電影質(zhì)量給予你的是豐富的感受;這件美麗與感染力強烈的作品描述了人與人的關(guān)系。”

But what do we know of the people captured in this lovers' embrace? Well, the maker - or should we say the sculptor? - of the lovers, belonged to a people that we now call the Natufians, who lived in a region that straddled what is today Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, and our sculpture came from the area south-east of Jerusalem. In 1933 the great French archaeologist Abbé Henri Breuil and a French diplomat, René Neuville, visited a small museum in Bethlehem. Neuville wrote:

但我們還可以知道關(guān)于這對擁抱中戀人的什么東西呢?這件戀人作品的工匠，也許我們應(yīng)該稱之為雕塑家，來自于我們今天稱之為Natufian人，大概定居在現(xiàn)今以色列、巴勒斯坦，黎巴嫩及敘利亞那個地域上，而我們這位雕塑家來自于取路撒冷東南部的某處。1933年杰出的法國考古學(xué)家兼神甫亞布·享利·布勒伊與一名法國外交官諾伊維爾參觀在伯利恒地區(qū)的一座小型博物館。諾伊維爾記錄道：

'Towards the end of our visit, I was shown a wooden casket containing various items from the surrounding areas, of which none, apart from this statuette, was of any value. I realised immediately the particular significance of the design involved and asked the source of these objects. I was told that they had been brought by a Bedouin who was returning from Bethlehem towards the Dead Sea.'

“隨著我們行程接近尾聲，有人向我展示了一個長木盒，裝有附近地區(qū)收集來的形形色色的物品，但除了這件雕像，其他都是一些毫無價值的物什。我立即意識到這件物品的特殊重要性，并詢間它的出處。人家告訴我這盒物什是一個途徑死海，從伯利恒回來的貝都因人帶來的。”

Intrigued by the figure, Neuville wanted to know more about its discovery and he sought out the Bedouin he'd been told about. He managed to track down the man responsible for the find, who took him to the very cave - in the Judean desert not far from Bethlehem - in which the sculpture of the lovers had been discovered. The cave was called Ain Sakhri, and so these sculpted lovers that had so captivated Neuville are still known as the Ain Sakhri lovers.

對著物品濃厚的興趣，驅(qū)使諾伊維爾去了解更多關(guān)于它的發(fā)現(xiàn)過程，于是他開始去打探人們所說的那位貝都因人的下落。最后他設(shè)法找到了最初發(fā)現(xiàn)這戀人雕塑的那個人。那人把他帶到了當初雕塑出土的那個洞穴，位于伯利恒不遠的朱迪亞沙漠。那個洞穴被稱之為Ain Sakhri，所以那對讓諾伊維爾著迷不已的擁抱中的戀人也便稱之為Ain Sakhri戀人了。

Crucially, the sculpture had been found with objects which made it clear that the cave had been a dwelling rather than a grave, and so our sculpture must have played some kind of role in domestic everyday life.

更重要的是，出土這對戀人雕像的同一洞穴里還發(fā)現(xiàn)了其他的物品，明確顯示了這洞穴曾經(jīng)是處日常居住場所，而不是一處墓葬。因此我們這件雕像作品在當時人們的日常生活中肯定起到某種作用。

We don't know exactly what that role might have been, but we do know that this dwelling belonged to people who were living at the dawn of agriculture. Their new way of life involved the collecting and storing of food.

我們不知道它究竟曾經(jīng)充當了什么實際角色，但我們知道這洞穴的主人生活的時代正值農(nóng)業(yè)的曙光。他們嶄新的生活方式包括了懼與儲存食物。

Wild grass seeds fall off the plant and are spread easily by the wind or eaten by the birds, but these people selected seeds which stayed on the stalk - a very important characteristic if a grass is ever going to be worth cultivating. They stripped these seeds, removed the husks and ground the grains to flour. Later, they would go on to sow the surplus seeds. Farming had begun - and ever since, together we've been breaking bread.

野草種子通常從植物上脫落一來，然后輕易地通過風力傳播，或者被鳥類吃掉，但是這些人類偏偏選擇那些保留在谷物稈上的種子，這是決定某種農(nóng)作物是否值得培育的重要一點。人類把這些種子采集、剝殼，然后把谷物碾磨成面粉。再后來，他們開始學(xué)會了把剩余的種子拿去播種。農(nóng)業(yè)誕生了——并從那刻起，直到今天，我們?nèi)匀辉诤婵久姘?/p>

The result was as profound a transformation for human beings as any revolution in history. This process of settling down did, of course, make you more vulnerable to a crop failure, pests, diseases, above all to the weather, but while things were good, society boomed.

這種結(jié)果與人類歷史上任何一次革命性轉(zhuǎn)變一樣，產(chǎn)生的影響是極其深刻的。定居生活的過程中，確實使人類更加容易遭受各種威脅——谷物失收、蟲災(zāi)、疾病等，幾乎都由氣候變化決定;然而遇上風調(diào)雨順的好年頭，人類社會就會蓬勃發(fā)展。

A guaranteed abundant food source fuelled a sustained population explosion, and people began to live in large villages of between two or three hundred - the highest concentration of people the world had yet seen. When your larder is stocked, the pressure is off and you've got time to think, and these rapidly growing, settled communities had the leisure to work out new social relationships and to contemplate the changing pattern of their lives.

這種很有保障的豐富食物來源成就了持續(xù)性的人口大爆炸，人們開始生活在兩三百人組成的大村落里，這樣的規(guī)模是史無前例的。當你家里的儲藏架上填得滿滿的，壓力便降低了，你開始有閑心進行思考;再加上生活在這快速發(fā)展、落戶安居的村落里，人們也開始有閑心來培養(yǎng)出新的社會關(guān)系，并且認真地考慮關(guān)于他們生活模式的各種轉(zhuǎn)變。

Our little sculpture of the entwined lovers may be a response to this new way of living - a different way of thinking about ourselves. What does it mean to depict the sexual act in this way, at this time? Archaeologist Ian Hodder, of Stanford University, has done a lot of work on this period and he sees here a process he calls the 'domestication of the mind':

我們這件纏繞緊擁的戀人小雕塑也許恰恰代表了這種嶄新的生活方式，一種看顧人類自身的不同思維。在歷史上這個時期，采用這種表現(xiàn)手法來描繪性愛行為，這究竟意味著什么呢?斯坦福大學(xué)的考古學(xué)家伊恩·霍德對這段歷史時期研究頗深，他將這里觀察到的現(xiàn)象稱之為“心靈的馴化”過程：

'The Natufian culture is really before fully domesticated plants and animals, but you already have a sedentary society. And so, I think that this particular object, because of its focus on humans and human sexuality in such a clear way, is part of that general shift towards a greater concern with domesticating the mind, domesticating humans, domesticating human society, being more concerned with human relationships rather than on the relationships between humans and wild animals, and on the relationships between wild animals themselves.'

Natufian文化其實存在于人類完全馴化植物與動物之前，然而當時已經(jīng)產(chǎn)生了一個定居社會。因此，我覺得因為這件特殊物品如此清晰地集中刻畫出人類性行為，也反映人類心靈上馴化、身體上馴化、社會上馴化、過程中思維變遷的一種巨大轉(zhuǎn)折;人們變得更加關(guān)注人與人之間的關(guān)系，而不是像以前一樣，只關(guān)心那些人與野獸，野獸與野獸之間的關(guān)系。

As you hold the Ain Sakhri pebble and turn it round, what's striking is not just that there are clearly two human figures rather than one, but that it's impossible, because of the way the stone has been carved, to say which is male and which is female - could that generalised treatment, that ambiguity, have been a deliberate intention on the part of the maker?

當你把玩著這枚Ain Sakhri卵石，轉(zhuǎn)過來轉(zhuǎn)過去地觀察，讓人感嘆的不僅僅是這是一件雙人而非單人雕像，更重要的是從這石頭雕刻的方式，根本就區(qū)分不清哪個是男，哪個是女。這種模糊處理，這種模棱兩可性，當年雕塑家是否是有意而為之的呢?

We just don't know, but we don't know either how this little statue would have been used. Some scholars think it might have been connected with fertility, but Ian Hodder takes a different view:

我們無從知曉，同時我們也無法弄清這件小小雕像當年的真正用途。有些學(xué)者認為可能與生育有關(guān)，但伊恩·霍德采取不同的看法：

'This object is one that could be read in many ways, and I think that earlier on, one would have often thought that these notions of sexual coupling, and sexuality itself, were linked to ideas of the mother goddess, because it's been assumed that when you have the first farmers their main concern is the fertility of the crops.

“這物品顯然可以有不同的詮釋方式，而且我覺得在人類早期，很容易就可以把性愛及性行為本身與母系女神本身聯(lián)系起來，因為大家都在覺得，當最早期的農(nóng)耕人類出現(xiàn)了，自然而然的他們主要關(guān)心的使是農(nóng)作物的生育能力。”

'My own view is in fact that the evidence is not really supporting this idea of a dominant mother goddess very early on, because there are now very exciting new discoveries that really have no representations of women at all - most of the symbolism is very, very phallocentric, so my view at the moment is that sexuality is important in these early farming societies, but not in terms of reproduction/fertility, children and mothering and nurturing - that sort of thing, it's really more clearly about the sex act itself.'

“我個人觀點是，其實并沒有充足證據(jù)來支持這種說法，能讓我們認為在人類早期社會就有一位占主導(dǎo)地位的生育女神這種概念的存在，因為現(xiàn)在出土了很多振奮人心的新發(fā)現(xiàn)，然而強調(diào)女性形象的卻幾乎沒有，其中絕大多數(shù)都陽性象征性非常強。因此，我目前的看法是，在那些早期農(nóng)耕社會里，性行為是一種重要的概念，而非生育能力、子母關(guān)系或哺育后代等等。顯而易見的這物品表現(xiàn)的是性行為本身。”

Certainly, to me, the tenderness of the embracing figures suggests not reproductive vigour, but love. People are beginning to settle and to form stable families, to have more food, and therefore more children, and perhaps this is the first moment in human history when a mate could become a husband or a wife.

當然對我而言，這柔情款款，纏綿悱惻的擁抱，強調(diào)的不是生育活力，而是在傳達一種愛。當人類開始定居，并形成穩(wěn)定的家庭，有了富余的食物，因此能夠養(yǎng)育更多的孩子;也許就是在此刻的人類歷史上，出現(xiàn)了配偶這種概念，丈夫與妻子。

All these ideas may be present in our sculpture of the lovers, but we're still largely in the realm of historical speculation. On another level though, it speaks to us absolutely directly, not as a document of a changing society but as an eloquent work of art. Sculptor Marc Quinn again:

也許以上可能性都在我們這對戀人雕塑中可以傳達出來，然而我們?nèi)缃襁€處于揣測歷史的階段。從另一層面而言，它的身份可以不是一件記錄轉(zhuǎn)變中社會的文件，而是一件杰出的藝術(shù)作品，與我們直接溝通。雕塑家馬克·奎因再次說道：

'There's the difference between art and artefact. An artefact is something from a time that stays in that time like a piece of pottery and it becomes like a relic of that time.

“藝術(shù)品與人工制品之間存在著差異。人工制品來源于某個時代，停留于那個時代，像一件陶器，最終成為了屬于它那個時代的遺跡。

An artwork is something that is from a time, but is also eternally in the present moment, and I think you can definitely say that this sculpture is in the present moment.

藝術(shù)品來源于某個時代，卻能超越那個時代存活在當代，具有永怛的生命力。

That to me is the great strength of making artwork, you are making essentially emotional time-machines; you're making an object of meditation that will communicate with people in ten thousand years time (were it to survive) in a very direct way - I mean, certain things are beyond time.'

對于我而言，藝術(shù)品擁有一種偉大的藝術(shù)力量。是在創(chuàng)造一種本質(zhì)上的情感時間機器，是在創(chuàng)造一種凝聚了思想的物品，即使經(jīng)歷萬年漫漫時光，仍舊可以以非常直接的方式與人類進行構(gòu)通。我的意思是，某種事物是可以超越時間的。”

But in a sense nearly all objects speak 'beyond time'. Throughout this series I'll be trying to discover the stories of the people whose hands made the objects - their fears, their hopes, sometimes even their loves. From the Ain Sakhri lovers to Rodin's statue of 'The Kiss' there are 11,000 years of human history, but not, I think, much change in human desire.

然而在某種意義上，幾乎任何物品都可以“超越時間”來與我們對話。在本系列中，我將嘗試去發(fā)現(xiàn)雙手創(chuàng)造這些物品的人們的故事——他們的恐懼與希望，有時甚至是他們的愛。Ain Sakhri戀人與羅丹“吻”的雕像之間隔著一萬一千前的悠悠歲月，然而我覺得人類的欲望卻不曾怎么改變過。

In the next programme, we're on less romantic territory. I'm with the world's first cowboys, perhaps more accurately the world's first cattle herders, in Egypt, and with another statue - of four small cows.

在下期節(jié)目，我們將踏入并不怎么浪漫的新領(lǐng)域。我要去探索世界上第一位牛仔。也許更準確而言是在埃及的世界上第一位牧民，還有另一件雕像——四頭小母牛。