Toby Wilkinson on Ptolemaic Egypt and the First Great Commercial Civilization (Ep. 278)
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler.
大家好，欢迎回到《与泰勒对话》。
Today I’m chatting with Toby Wilkinson, who is one of the world’s leading Egyptologists.
今天我正在与托比·威尔金森聊天，他是世界领先的埃及古物学家之一。
I’m quite intrigued by his latest book.
我对他的最新书很感兴趣。
It is called The Last Dynasty: Ancient Egypt from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra.
它被称为最后的王朝：古埃及从亚历山大大帝到克利奥帕特拉。
He is also a fellow at Clare College, Cambridge.
他还是剑桥克莱尔学院的研究员。
Toby, welcome.
托比，欢迎。
Thank you very much for having me on the show.
非常感谢您邀请我参加这个节目。
Ptolemaic Egypt, it lasts around 300 years.
托勒密埃及，持续了大约300年。
When exactly does it start and end, and where was it, just to give our readers, listeners an introduction?
它到底什么时候开始和结束，在哪里，只是为了给我们的读者、听众介绍一下？
Sure.
当然。
We’re talking here about Egypt, the valley of the river Nile in the northeastern corner of the continent of Africa, but always really a crossroads between Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.
我们在这里谈论的是埃及，它位于非洲大陆东北角的尼罗河谷，但实际上始终是非洲、中东和欧洲之间的十字路口。
The time period we’re talking about starts in 332 BC with Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt, and it ends in 30 BC, so 300 years later, with the death of the famous Cleopatra and Egypt’s absorption into the Roman Empire.
我们谈论的这个时期始于公元前 332 年亚历山大大帝征服埃及，结束于公元前 30 年，即 300 年后，著名的克利奥帕特拉去世和埃及被罗马帝国吞并。
Alexander is able to take over Egypt because Persian incursions had weakened it, or how did that happen?
亚历山大之所以能够接管埃及，是因为波斯的入侵削弱了它，或者这是如何发生的？
We think of Egypt as so strong and mighty and everlasting back then.
我们认为当时的埃及是多么强大、多么强大、多么永恒。
Yes.
是的。
Egypt, of course, had been a very, very mighty civilization for thousands of years, but in the centuries before Alexander the Great, it had been weakened internally and threatened externally by a variety of other powers, and it had fallen to the might of Persia.
当然，几千年来，埃及一直是一个非常非常强大的文明，但在亚历山大大帝之前的几个世纪里，它已经受到各种其他列强的内部削弱和外部威胁，并落入了强大的波斯的手中。
The Persians were hated in Egypt.
波斯人在埃及受到憎恨。
They really were loathed and despised because they didn’t celebrate or even pay due respect to Egyptian gods and Egyptian traditions.
他们确实受到厌恶和鄙视，因为他们不庆祝甚至不尊重埃及的神灵和埃及的传统。
When Alexander the Great, who himself was trying to overthrow Persia, arrived at the gates of Egypt, he was welcomed as a hero because he had thrown off the hated Persians.
当亚历山大大帝本人试图推翻波斯时，他到达埃及门口时，他受到了英雄般的欢迎，因为他摆脱了可恨的波斯人。
I suppose it was the old principle, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
我想这是一条古老的原则，敌人的敌人就是我的朋友。
Alexander the Great was welcomed as a friend into Egypt and took over control of the country almost without a fight.
亚历山大大帝作为朋友来到埃及，并几乎不战而屈人之兵，接管了这个国家。
Either technologically or institutionally, what is it that the Persians had that the Egyptians did not?
无论是在技术上还是在制度上，有什么东西是波斯人拥有而埃及人没有的呢？
The Persians had a pretty formidable army.
波斯人拥有一支相当强大的军队。
Their military technology was certainly superior to the Egyptians at the time that they conquered Egypt originally in the 6th century BC.
他们的军事技术肯定比公元前六世纪征服埃及时的埃及人先进。
Like many empires, I suppose, throughout history, they overreached themselves.
我想，就像许多帝国一样，纵观历史，他们也曾超越自己。
They overextended themselves, and they found it increasingly hard to hold together this empire stretching all the way from the Aegean to the borders of India.
他们过度扩张，发现越来越难以维持这个从爱琴海一直延伸到印度边境的帝国。
Bits of the empire started to fragment and pull away.
帝国的各个部分开始分裂并分裂。
Egypt had always had this very strong sense of its own identity.
埃及一直有强烈的自我认同感。
When it had a chance to throw off the Persian yoke, it took it.
当它有机会摆脱波斯的枷锁时，它就抓住了它。
Let’s think about some of the achievements of Ptolemaic Egypt as an era.
让我们思考一下托勒密埃及时代的一些成就。
Infrastructure.
基础设施。
What did they do that was most impressive?
他们做了什么让印象最深刻的事？
Build Alexandria.
建造亚历山大。
Alexandria the city was a new foundation established by Alexander the Great to bear his name.
亚历山大城是亚历山大大帝以他的名字命名的新基础。
Unlike all previous ancient Egyptian cities, it was a city built from the outset for commerce.
与之前所有的古埃及城市不同，它从一开始就是一座为商业而建的城市。
It was a city built on the Mediterranean coast with a great natural harbor, with facilities for loading and offloading ships.
这是一座建在地中海沿岸的城市，拥有一个巨大的天然港口，有装卸船舶的设施。
It had a great lighthouse guarding the entrance to its harbor, which became one of the wonders of the world.
它有一座巨大的灯塔守卫着港口的入口，这成为世界奇迹之一。
The whole city was really designed from the get-go as a great commercial center looking outwards to the Mediterranean, rather than inwards to the rest of Egypt.
整个城市从一开始就被设计为一个伟大的商业中心，向外眺望地中海，而不是向内眺望埃及其他地区。
Canals, artificial lake.
运河、人工湖。
What else did they do?
他们还做了什么？
They built a city quite unlike anything previously seen in the valley of the river Nile.
他们建造了一座与尼罗河谷以前所见的任何城市都截然不同的城市。
In fact, any inhabitant today of a modern city would recognize the grid iron pattern of streets.
事实上，当今现代城市的任何居民都会认出街道的网格铁图案。
Streets intersecting at right angles, that was something completely unheard of until this point in Egypt with vast public buildings.
街道以直角相交，这在埃及拥有大量公共建筑之前是闻所未闻的。
This was the Manhattan of the ancient world, if you like, in scale, in grandeur, and in the level of commercial activity.
如果你愿意的话，从规模、宏伟和商业活动水平来看，这里就是古代世界的曼哈顿。
On intellectual activity of Alexandria
论亚历山大的智力活动
How large was the library in Alexandria and how did they build that out?
亚历山大的图书馆有多大？他们是如何建造的？
This is interesting because the Ptolemaic kings not only wanted to be wealthy economically, but they wanted to be renowned throughout the ancient world as great scholar leaders.
这很有趣，因为托勒密国王不仅想在经济上变得富有，而且还想作为伟大的学者领袖而在整个古代世界享有盛誉。
They thought it was important that a new dynasty establish its credentials as a patron of the arts and of learning, not just as the head of a great commercial enterprise.
他们认为，重要的是，一个新王朝必须确立其作为艺术和学术赞助人的资格，而不仅仅是作为一个伟大商业企业的领导者。
They invited all the leading scholars from the Greek-speaking world, from right across the Mediterranean to Alexandria, where they provided them with a library, with what was called a museum or a temple of the muses, a place where scholars could think great thoughts and be well looked after.
他们邀请了希腊语世界的所有顶尖学者，从地中海到亚历山大，在那里他们为他们提供了一个图书馆，也就是所谓的博物馆或缪斯女神的神庙，一个学者们可以思考伟大思想并受到良好照顾的地方。
The library was developed over centuries, really, as the greatest repository of learning that the world had ever seen up to this point.
该图书馆经过几个世纪的发展，确实成为迄今为止世界上最伟大的知识宝库。
It is thought that maybe at its height, it contained half a million volumes, half a million manuscripts, mostly written on papyrus, but representing really the sum total of human knowledge at that time.
据认为，也许在其鼎盛时期，它包含了五十万卷书、五十万部手稿，大部分写在纸莎草纸上，但确实代表了当时人类知识的总和。
Euclid and Eratosthenes are connected to this era?
欧几里得和埃拉托斯特尼与这个时代有联系吗？
Almost any big name from ancient science has some connection with Alexandria.
几乎所有古代科学界的大人物都与亚历山大有某种联系。
Euclid, the mathematician, studied there.
数学家欧几里得曾在那里学习。
Eratosthenes, who quite amazingly calculated the circumference of the earth, he carried out those calculations in Alexandria.
埃拉托色尼非常令人惊奇地计算出地球的周长，他在亚历山大进行了这些计算。
There were leaders in the fields of astronomy, of anatomy and medicine, of geography, of philosophy, of literary theory.
天文学、解剖学、医学、地理学、哲学、文学理论领域都有领袖人物。
They were all active in Alexandria under the patronage of the Ptolemaic kings.
他们都在托勒密国王的赞助下活跃在亚历山大。
Am I correct in thinking that the era was quite weak in philosophy in some ways?
我认为这个时代的哲学在某些方面相当薄弱，这是否正确？
There’s no great name.
没有伟大的名字。
Maybe it’s all lost manuscripts.
也许都是丢失的手稿。
It seems to be a bit like China, infrastructure intensive.
好像有点像中国，基础设施密集。
They build amazing things.
他们创造了令人惊奇的东西。
It’s commercial, but they’re not really thinkers.
这是商业性的，但他们并不是真正的思想家。
I think that would be a misrepresentation.
我认为这将是一种误传。
Alexandria under the Ptolemies didn’t produce a Socrates or a Plato.
托勒密统治下的亚历山大没有产生苏格拉底或柏拉图。
It is true.
是真的。
What its scholars did was to synthesize strands of philosophy from ancient Greek thought, ancient Egyptian thought, Babylonian thought, ancient Hebrew philosophy and religion.
它的学者所做的就是综合古希腊思想、古埃及思想、巴比伦思想、古希伯来哲学和宗教的哲学思潮。
It was a melting pot.
这是一个大熔炉。
It maybe didn’t throw up the big name, but it was a very fertile ground for the exchange and the interchange of ideas.
它也许没有出名，但它是交流和思想交流的沃土。
Say I try to read Diodorus.
假设我尝试阅读狄奥多罗斯。
There’s a lot of detail, but it’s not to me very interesting.
有很多细节，但对我来说并不是很有趣。
It just seems much worse than Herodotus, who is profound and in a way a step back.
它似乎比希罗多德差得多，希罗多德的思想深刻，在某种程度上退了一步。
Maybe that’s not representative.
也许这不具有代表性。
I think there are a lot more scholarly works, both surviving and lost, that were composed in ancient Alexandria that would be more surprising and more revelatory than those that you’ve just mentioned.
我认为还有更多的学术著作，无论是幸存的还是失传的，都是在古亚历山大写成的，比你刚才提到的那些更令人惊讶和更具启发性。
What was it exactly that was so special about the intellectual, and scientific, and productive environment of Alexandria and environs?
亚历山大及其周边地区的知识、科学和生产环境到底有何特别之处？
Was it that the Egyptians were there, or the mix of Greeks and Egyptians, or something else?
是那里有埃及人，还是希腊人和埃及人的混合体，还是其他什么？
What?
什么？
I think there are three factors, really.
我认为确实有三个因素。
One is certainly the Egyptian context.
其中之一当然是埃及的背景。
I don’t think those intellectual advances that were made in Alexandria could have been made anywhere else.
我认为在亚历山大取得的那些智力进步不可能在其他任何地方取得。
Let’s take anatomy, for example.
让我们以解剖学为例。
In the Greek world in general, there was a taboo on cutting up human bodies.
在整个希腊世界，切割人体是一种禁忌。
Of course, ancient Egypt had a long tradition of mummification, which involved dissecting human corpses.
当然，古埃及有着悠久的木乃伊传统，其中涉及解剖人体尸体。
If you were an anatomist and you wanted to make discoveries about how the organs functioned, the only place you could do that at this time was ancient Egypt.
如果你是一名解剖学家，并且想要发现器官的功能，那么目前唯一可以做到这一点的地方就是古埃及。
The same is true, actually, in many other branches of science.
事实上，在许多其他科学分支中也是如此。
The Egyptian traditions of scholarship and of learning really laid the foundations for Greek thinkers to take them to the next level.
埃及的学术和学习传统确实为希腊思想家将他们提升到一个新的水平奠定了基础。
The second aspect was the wonderful infrastructure that was put in place by the Ptolemies to lure scholars to Alexandria.
第二个方面是托勒密王朝为吸引学者来到亚历山大而建立的出色的基础设施。
They were paid handsomely.
他们得到了丰厚的报酬。
They had access to the world’s best library.
他们可以使用世界上最好的图书馆。
They had all of the facilities at their disposal.
他们拥有所有可以使用的设施。
There was really no better place to be than Alexandria.
确实没有比亚历山大更好的地方了。
The third factor was really the kleptomania of the Ptolemaic rulers.
第三个因素实际上是托勒密统治者的盗窃癖。
They were not just bibliophiles, but they wanted to acquire a copy, preferably the original, of every book and manuscript circulating in the ancient Greek world.
他们不仅仅是藏书家，而且还想获得古希腊世界流通的每一本书和手稿的副本，最好是原件。
To that end, they indulged in downright thieving.
为此，他们沉迷于彻头彻尾的盗窃。
They sent a word, for example, to Athens, which was one of the great centers of scholarship, a rival center of learning, and requested copies of books from Athens’ city library.
例如，他们向雅典发出了一封信，雅典是伟大的学术中心之一，也是一个竞争对手的学习中心，并向雅典市图书馆索要书籍的副本。
The copies arrived in Alexandria.
这些副本抵达亚历山大。
They were then seized by the Ptolemaic authorities and kept for Alexandria’s own library.
然后，它们被托勒密当局扣押并保存在亚历山大自己的图书馆中。
They were only too happy to pay the fine because they had the books.
他们很乐意支付罚款，因为他们有书。
It was a combination of factors that really led Alexandria to being the greatest center for scholars and for scholarship.
正是多种因素的结合才真正使亚历山大成为最伟大的学者和学术中心。
How good was the medicine back then?
当年的药有多好？
Let’s say they could set my broken leg, but if I’m sick and I just show up, is my doctor’s visit even positive expected value, or are they more likely to harm me than help me?
假设他们可以治愈我的断腿，但如果我生病了并且我刚刚出现，我的医生的就诊是否具有积极的预期价值，或者他们更有可能伤害我而不是帮助我？
I think we would be pleasantly surprised by the sophistication of medical understanding at this time.
我想我们会对此时医学理解的复杂性感到惊喜。
There were ancient Egyptian papyri on medicine dating back many, many centuries before the Ptolemies came to the throne.
古埃及的医学纸莎草可以追溯到托勒密登基之前许多个世纪。
These looked in detail at all sorts of different afflictions, and whether or not they could be treated, and if so, what the recommended treatments were.
这些详细研究了各种不同的痛苦，以及它们是否可以治疗，如果可以，推荐的治疗方法是什么。
I’ll give you one example: migraine.
我举一个例子：偏头痛。
Now, we think of a migraine as a relatively Western, modern phenomenon, a medical condition, but actually, the ancient Egyptians recognized it, described it.
现在，我们认为偏头痛是一种相对西方的现代现象，一种医学病症，但实际上，古埃及人认识到它，描述过它。
They came up with a word for it: half-head, migraine.
他们想出了一个词来形容它：半头、偏头痛。
They developed very sophisticated electrical treatments for migraine involving an electric discharge from the head of a catfish.
他们开发了非常复杂的偏头痛电疗法，涉及鲶鱼头部的放电。
A Nile catfish emits a low-level electric discharge, and the ancient Egyptians had discovered that applying this to the head of a migraine sufferer could have a beneficial therapeutic effect.
尼罗河鲶鱼会发出低强度的放电，古埃及人发现将其涂抹在偏头痛患者的头部可能会产生有益的治疗效果。
Goodness me, it wasn’t until the 20th century that modern medicine rediscovered the importance of electricity in terms of neural pathways.
天哪，直到 20 世纪，现代医学才重新发现电对于神经通路的重要性。
Yes, they were very sophisticated.
是的，他们非常复杂。
Should we do this today with the catfish?
我们今天应该对鲶鱼这样做吗？
If you can find one.
如果你能找到一个。
They're skulking along the bottom.
他们在底部潜行。
Maybe they live in the Mississippi too.
也许他们也住在密西西比河。
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but it does seem to have done the trick.
我不一定会推荐它，但它似乎确实达到了目的。
On the Alexandrian economy
论亚历山大的经济
What were the main exports of the Alexandria region?
亚历山大地区的主要出口产品是什么？
What are they selling, making?
他们卖什么、制造什么？
Oh, the two big exports that account for the lion’s share of Egypt’s wealth at the time are gold and grain.
哦，当时占埃及财富最大份额的两大出口产品是黄金和谷物。
Gold has been mined in Egypt for millennia up to this point, but it’s still the place in the ancient world that produces large quantities of gold.
迄今为止，埃及开采黄金已有数千年历史，但它仍然是古代世界生产大量黄金的地方。
Of course, gold has always been a great currency of international commerce.
当然，黄金一直是国际商业的重要货币。
Then Egypt is famed as the breadbasket of the ancient world.
埃及被誉为古代世界的粮仓。
It produces a superabundance of grain thanks to the fertility of the Nile and the benign climate.
由于尼罗河的肥沃和温和的气候，这里生产出丰富的谷物。
It produces more than it needed for its own consumption, by comparison with poorer agricultural regions in Greece and Asia Minor, which struggled to produce enough food.
与难以生产足够粮食的希腊和小亚细亚较贫穷的农业地区相比，它的产量超出了自身消费所需。
Yes, gold and grain were the absolute engine of Egyptian prosperity.
是的，黄金和谷物是埃及繁荣的绝对引擎。
There’s metalwork, there’s glass.
有金属制品，有玻璃。
What else is there, manufacturing, as we would call it today?
还有什么，我们今天所说的制造业？
Oh, yes.
哦是的。
There’s a big ceramics industry, so producing not just pots, but terracotta statues and votive objects.
这里有一个庞大的陶瓷工业，因此不仅生产陶器，还生产兵马俑和祭物。
There’s glassmaking, as you’ve said.
正如你所说，有玻璃制造。
There’s advanced metallurgy, goldsmithing, ironworking, copper and bronze foundries.
这里有先进的冶金、金加工、铁加工、铜和青铜铸造厂。
There’s what we might call the decorative arts, so sculpture, painting.
这就是我们所说的装饰艺术，比如雕塑、绘画。
All of these things thrived in ancient Alexandria.
所有这些东西都在古亚历山大蓬勃发展。
Do they have living standards sustainably above subsistence, or is this a Malthusian equilibrium, where they get some wealth and then more people survive and the wage falls again, and it doesn’t get much above what is required to keep people alive?
他们的生活水平是否持续高于温饱，或者这是马尔萨斯均衡，他们获得了一些财富，然后更多的人生存下来，工资再次下降，但工资并没有高于人们生存所需的水平？
Depended on where you lived, I think.
我认为取决于你住在哪里。
If you were an urban dweller of Alexandria, you were living significantly above subsistence levels.
如果您是亚历山大的城市居民，您的生活水平将大大高于维持生计的水平。
You were a merchant, you were a trader, you were an artisan, you were manufacturing objects or trading objects.
你是一个商人，你是一个贸易商，你是一个工匠，你在制造物品或交易物品。
Yes, you had a decent standard of living by the standards of the ancient world.
是的，按照古代世界的标准，你们的生活水平相当不错。
If you were a peasant laboring in the fields of Upper Egypt, it was a pretty hand-to-mouth existence, as it always had been.
如果你是一个在上埃及田地里劳作的农民，那你的生活就只能勉强糊口，一如既往。
What stops the living standards from being equalized?
是什么阻碍了生活水平的平等？
Is there a barrier to entering the city, or why don’t people flow in, as they do, say, in modern India, until the living standards are roughly equal?
进入城市是否存在障碍，或者为什么人们不像现代印度那样涌入城市，直到生活水平大致相等？
They do flow in, but there’s an important dimension to Ptolemaic society, which is the ethnic divide.
他们确实涌入，但托勒密社会有一个重要的维度，那就是种族鸿沟。
Put very bluntly, the ruling class were Greek-speaking immigrants from the Mediterranean world, of course, presided over by a Greek-speaking dynasty of pharaohs, the Ptolemies.
直白地说，统治阶级是来自地中海世界的希腊语移民，当然，统治者是希腊语法老王朝托勒密王朝。
Greek speakers more or less monopolized all of the key positions of office.
讲希腊语的人或多或少地垄断了所有重要的办公室职位。
Then the vast majority of the population out in what the Greeks call the khôra, the countryside, were indigenous Egyptians, most of whom probably couldn’t converse in Greek, which was the language of government and diplomacy.
当时，在希腊人所说的“khôra”（乡村）里，绝大多数人口都是土生土长的埃及人，他们中的大多数人可能不会用希腊语交谈，而希腊语是政府和外交的语言。
It was a society of two halves.
这是一个由两半组成的社会。
How much slavery is there?
奴隶制有多少？
Slavery is one of the less attractive aspects of the Greek package that comes to Egypt with the Ptolemies.
奴隶制是随着托勒密王朝传入埃及的希腊一揽子计划中不太有吸引力的方面之一。
Up until this point in Egypt, there hasn’t really been slavery in the way that we would recognize it.
到目前为止，埃及还没有真正存在我们所认识的奴隶制。
There’s been feudalism, but there’s not been slavery.
有封建制度，但没有奴隶制。
The Greeks introduce slavery to Egypt.
希腊人将奴隶制引入埃及。
They buy and sell slaves in markets, including in Alexandria.
他们在包括亚历山大在内的市场上买卖奴隶。
It’s still not a defining feature of Ptolemaic society in the way that it would be later in ancient Rome, but it has reared its ugly head for the first time in Egyptian history.
它仍然不像后来的古罗马那样是托勒密社会的一个决定性特征，但它在埃及历史上第一次露出了丑陋的头。
On the Ptolemaic Empire
论托勒密帝国
Given all the successes, what should I think of as the limiting principle behind rule here?
鉴于所有的成功，我应该将什么视为规则背后的限制原则？
It stretches as far as what we would call Cyprus today, but it never becomes a very large area, right?
它一直延伸到我们今天所说的塞浦路斯，但它永远不会成为一个很大的区域，对吗？
Now, it doesn’t become the next Roman Empire.
现在，它不会成为下一个罗马帝国。
Why doesn’t it?
为什么不呢？
At its greatest extent, the Ptolemaic Empire includes much of the coast of modern-day Libya, certainly Cyprus, the Nile Valley, parts of present-day Lebanon, and Syria and Turkey, and some islands in the Aegean.
托勒密帝国最大的版图包括现代利比亚的大部分海岸，当然还有塞浦路斯、尼罗河谷、现今黎巴嫩的部分地区、叙利亚和土耳其，以及爱琴海的一些岛屿。
It’s not as big as the Roman Empire would later be.
它没有后来的罗马帝国那么大。
What are its constraining factors?
其制约因素有哪些？
Partly, it’s a lack of ambition.
部分原因是缺乏雄心。
Not a lack of ambition, moderate ambition.
不是缺乏野心，而是适度的野心。
The Ptolemies really want to rule Egypt, which is regarded as the jewel in Alexander the Great’s crown.
托勒密王朝确实想统治被视为亚历山大大帝王冠上的明珠的埃及。
It’s the most prosperous part of his empire.
这是他的帝国最繁荣的部分。
The other territories that they conquer in a ring around Egypt are really only there as a defensive buffer zone to protect Egypt.
他们在埃及周围征服的其他领土实际上只是作为保护埃及的防御缓冲区。
They have no particular ambition to create a world empire as Alexander the Great did.
他们并没有像亚历山大大帝那样创建一个世界帝国的特别野心。
That was one constraining factor.
这是一个限制因素。
They are also not the only players in the ancient world.
他们也不是古代世界中唯一的玩家。
There are other powerful dynasties of kings in Asia and in the Greek mainland who have territorial designs of their own.
亚洲和希腊大陆还有其他强大的国王王朝也有自己的领土设计。
It keeps these various powers in equilibrium, and it stops one of them becoming dominant, really, until the Romans upend the whole system.
它使这些不同的权力保持平衡，并阻止其中一个成为主导，实际上，直到罗马人颠覆整个体系。
I suppose, yes, those are the two constraining factors, ambition and competition.
我想，是的，这就是两个限制因素：野心和竞争。
Do you think the Romans had the ambition in a way Ptolemaic Egypt did not?
您认为罗马人有托勒密埃及所没有的野心吗？
Yes, I do.
是的，我愿意。
I think the Romans were motivated by a real desire to conquer.
我认为罗马人的动机是真正的征服欲望。
Ancient Roman military leaders were only as good as their last victory on the battlefield.
古罗马军事领袖的功绩取决于他们在战场上最后的胜利。
You see that in the later days of the Republic and the beginning of the empire.
你可以在共和国后期和帝国初期看到这一点。
Whereas in ancient Egyptian tradition, certainly, military success was not the benchmark of a successful reign.
然而，在古埃及的传统中，军事上的成功当然并不是统治成功的基准。
It was something that you needed to do in order to protect your own borders.
这是你为了保护自己的边界而需要做的事情。
There were other achievements—honoring the gods, building great temples, presiding over a glittering civilization—that were considered equally important.
还有其他成就——尊敬众神、建造伟大的寺庙、主持辉煌的文明——也被认为同样重要。
How is it that all this ends, or at least starts to decline?
这一切是如何结束的，或者至少是开始衰退的？
What’s the mechanism?
机制是什么？
It begins with the finances.
这要从财务开始。
The Ptolemaic Empire becomes overstretched.
托勒密帝国变得捉襟见肘。
It has to invest hugely in its armed forces in order to fend off not just the growing predations of Rome, but actually its closer neighbors as well.
它必须对其武装部队进行巨额投资，不仅是为了抵御罗马日益增长的掠夺，而且实际上也是为了抵御其更近的邻国。
That leads to higher taxes.
这会导致更高的税收。
There’s a series of climatic shocks, poor Niles leading to poor harvests.
一系列的气候冲击，可怜的奈尔斯河导致收成不佳。
It’s a perfect storm.
这是一场完美的风暴。
The economy goes south pretty quickly.
经济快速下滑。
The only solution that the Ptolemies can see is to go cap in hand to Roman moneylenders to bail out the Egyptian economy.
托勒密王朝能想到的唯一解决办法就是向罗马放债人求助，以救助埃及经济。
That then really gives Rome leverage over Egypt.
这确实让罗马对埃及有了影响力。
That all gets bound up in the republican politics of Rome and in the rivalry between Caesar and his rivals, and then ultimately Octavian, who becomes the first emperor, Augustus.
这一切都与罗马的共和政治以及凯撒和他的对手之间的竞争以及最终成为第一位皇帝奥古斯都的屋大维联系在一起。
Egypt goes from being a great civilization, confident of itself, to being a pawn in other people’s power play.
埃及从一个对自己充满信心的伟大文明，变成了其他国家权力游戏中的棋子。
Ultimately, Rome is able to march into Alexandria, overthrow Cleopatra, and seize Egypt for itself.
最终，罗马能够进军亚历山大，推翻克利奥帕特拉，并夺取埃及。
It’s a salutary lesson for our own time that a civilization can appear to the outside world to be magnificent, and wealthy, and successful, but actually the seeds of its own destruction are usually lying there somewhere just waiting for the conditions to germinate.
对于我们这个时代来说，这是一个有益的教训：一个文明在外界看来可能是辉煌、富裕和成功的，但实际上它自身毁灭的种子通常就埋藏在某个地方，等待发芽的条件。
Do we have a sense of how high the tax burden was then or government spending as a share of GDP?
我们是否了解当时的税收负担或政府支出占GDP的比例有多高？
Anything numerically?
有什么数字吗？
Nothing that we can lay our hands on in that sense.
从这个意义上说，我们没有什么可以触手可及的。
No reliable statistics, but we do have papyrus records of farmers complaining of the increasing tax burden, complaining that an ever-increasing amount of their harvest is being taken by the state in the form of an agricultural produce tax.
没有可靠的统计数据，但我们确实有农民抱怨税收负担增加的纸莎草记录，抱怨国家以农产品税的形式征收越来越多的收成。
We can’t chart this in graphs, but we definitely get a sense from the people on the ground that this is becoming increasingly burdensome.
我们无法用图表来表示这一点，但我们确实从现场人员那里得到了这样的感觉：这正变得越来越繁重。
There was a system back then where companies would bid for government-backed monopolies and they’d hold them as a franchise.
当时有一个系统，公司可以竞标政府支持的垄断企业，并将其作为特许经营权持有。
How did that work out?
结果怎么样？
That’s right, particularly with regard to the manufacture of certain products which were controlled by the government.
是的，特别是在政府控制的某些产品的制造方面。
So I’m thinking here of oil, cooking oil, for example.
所以我在这里想到的是油，例如食用油。
That was a government monopoly, but you could bid to acquire the franchise to produce cooking oil.
那是政府垄断，但你可以竞标获得生产食用油的特许经营权。
If you won the franchise, then it was pretty lucrative because you then had an effective monopoly on this until the next bidding war came around.
如果你赢得了特许经营权，那么这是非常有利可图的，因为你可以有效地垄断这一点，直到下一次竞购战到来。
The same was true for farming crown land, so land held by the government.
耕种公有土地（即政府持有的土地）也是如此。
If you thought you could farm this more productively than the last guy, then you might be prepared to bid a little bit more and then you’d reap the benefits.
如果你认为你可以比上一个更高效地耕种，那么你可能会准备出价更高一点，然后你就会获得收益。
It was quite an interesting economic system.
这是一个非常有趣的经济体系。
This was entirely new in ancient Egypt.
这在古埃及是全新的。
This was a product of the Ptolemies and of their desire to maximize the tax take, really.
这实际上是托勒密王朝以及他们最大化税收的愿望的产物。
How important a figure is Cleopatra in this whole history?
克利奥帕特拉在整个历史中有多重要？
Is it just marketing, and Shakespeare, and Elizabeth Taylor, or was she really at the center of what was happening?
这只是营销、莎士比亚和伊丽莎白·泰勒，还是她真的是正在发生的事情的中心？
Did she matter?
她重要吗？
She mattered.
她很重要。
She was the last Egyptian pharaoh, because after her, Egypt as an independent nation ceases to exist and it becomes part of the Roman Empire.
她是最后一位埃及法老，因为在她之后，埃及作为一个独立国家不复存在，并成为罗马帝国的一部分。
More than that, she was the inheritor of a dynasty that had ruled for 300 years.
更重要的是，她还是一个统治了三百年的王朝的继承人。
She managed to play the cards that she had been dealt more effectively than her immediate predecessors.
她比她的前任更有效地打出了她手中的牌。
She was very smart.
她很聪明。
All ancient authors agreed upon that point.
所有古代作家都同意这一点。
She was very charismatic.
她很有魅力。
She was a great strategist.
她是一位伟大的战略家。
She was the only Ptolemy ever to learn to speak Egyptian, so she could actually speak to her own people in their language rather than through a translator.
她是唯一一个学会说埃及语的托勒密人，因此她实际上可以用自己的语言与自己的人民交谈，而不是通过翻译。
I suppose the question for me is not so much why did Cleopatra ultimately fail, but how did she manage to survive and succeed for so long when all the other parts of Alexander’s empire had already been gobbled up by the might of Rome?
我想对我来说问题不在于为什么克利奥帕特拉最终失败了，而在于当亚历山大帝国的所有其他部分都已经被罗马的力量吞并时，她是如何生存并成功这么长时间的？
Yes, she does matter.
是的，她确实很重要。
She manages to maintain and preserve not only her inheritance, but the inheritance of 3,000 years of pharaonic civilization against all the odds.
她克服重重困难，不仅保住了自己的遗产，而且还保住了三千年法老文明的遗产。
Of course, ultimately, we all know how the story ends, but she had a remarkable run of success.
当然，最终我们都知道故事的结局，但她取得了非凡的成功。
On unanswered questions in Ptolemaic Egypt
关于托勒密埃及未解答的问题
If there were two or three burning questions, maybe you think about them every day, things you don’t know about Ptolemaic Egypt, but wish you did, what’s on your shortlist?
如果有两三个紧迫的问题，也许你每天都会思考它们，关于托勒密埃及你不了解但希望你知道的事情，你的候选名单上有什么？
I’d love to know where Cleopatra was buried.
我很想知道克利奥帕特拉被埋在哪里。
Cleopatra’s tomb has never been found, probably because it now lies underwater.
克利奥帕特拉的坟墓从未被发现，可能是因为它现在位于水下。
Much of ancient Alexandria has, by combination of earthquake and rising sea levels, been submerged under the waters of the Mediterranean.
由于地震和海平面上升，古代亚历山大的大部分地区被淹没在地中海水域之下。
That almost certainly includes the mausoleum where Cleopatra was buried.
这几乎肯定包括埋葬克利奥帕特拉的陵墓。
It would be good to discover that.
如果能发现这一点就好了。
Equally, it would be very neat to find the burial place of Alexander the Great, the guy who started it all off.
同样，如果能找到亚历山大大帝的埋葬地，他就是这一切的始作俑者，那就太好了。
Ancient authors who recorded visits to Alexander’s tomb tell us that he was buried in a glass coffin, richly overlaid with gold.
记录参观亚历山大陵墓的古代作家告诉我们，他被埋在一个玻璃棺材里，棺材上覆盖着丰富的黄金。
It would be pretty amazing to find that, too.
发现这一点也将是非常令人惊奇的。
Those are two of the persistent questions that nag at Egyptologists and archaeologists, finding the tombs of those two great figures from ancient history.
这是埃及古物学家和考古学家在寻找古代历史上两位伟大人物的坟墓时一直困扰着的两个问题。
For me personally, I’d quite like to just be transported in a time machine back to Ptolemaic Alexandria, and walk the streets, and soak up the vibe, and see what it was really like.
就我个人而言，我很想乘坐时光机回到托勒密亚历山大，漫步在街道上，感受那里的氛围，看看它到底是什么样子。
Say conceptually, what’s the biggest cause and effect mystery about this whole history, something you don’t know and would like to know?
从概念上来说，整个历史中最大的因果谜团是什么，是你不知道又想知道的？
I suppose for me it would be why was it that Julius Caesar decided to throw in his lot with Cleopatra, which was not the obvious choice for a military general.
我想对我来说，这就是为什么尤利乌斯·凯撒决定与克利奥帕特拉投身于他的命运，这对于军事将军来说并不是显而易见的选择。
At that time of the famous meeting between the two, the tide was with Cleopatra’s brother, Ptolemy XIII.
在两人著名的会面时，克利奥帕特拉的弟弟托勒密十三世占据了主导地位。
He had the army on his side.
他有军队在他一边。
He seemed to have the wind in his sails.
他似乎有风帆。
Why was it that Caesar turned his back on his military instincts and decided to side with a woman?
为什么凯撒背弃了他的军事本能并决定站在女人一边？
In the ancient Roman world, the idea that a woman might be a leader, and a great leader at that, was anathema.
在古罗马世界，女性可能成为领导者，而且是伟大领导者的想法是令人厌恶的。
It’s a very peculiar choice for Caesar.
对于凯撒来说，这是一个非常奇特的选择。
Of course, historians have put it down to chemistry, to love, but this was a great tactician.
当然，历史学家将其归因于化学反应、爱情，但这是一位伟大的战术家。
There must have been more to it than that.
肯定还有更多的事情要做。
I’d like to get into his head and find out what was really motivating him.
我想深入他的内心，找出真正激励他的因素。
On modern Alexandria and the future of archaeology
论现代亚历山大和考古学的未来
When you visit contemporary Alexandria, do you learn anything about this ancient era?
当您访问当代亚历山大时，您对这个古代时代有了解吗？
There’s not much to see, to be honest with you.
老实说，没什么可看的。
There are a few monuments left over from this Ptolemaic period.
这里有一些托勒密时期留下的纪念碑。
In today’s Egypt, Alexandria is a big metropolis.
在今天的埃及，亚历山大是一个大都市。
It’s a bustling, busy, noisy, dirty city like any other big city.
与其他大城市一样，这是一个熙熙攘攘、忙碌、喧闹、肮脏的城市。
It’s quite hard to see through that and glimpse anything of the ancient city that it once was.
很难透过它看到这座古城曾经的样子。
For me, ancient Alexandria exists in the imagination and in the writings of ancient historians, but it’s quite hard to perceive on the ground today.
对我来说，古代亚历山大存在于想象和古代历史学家的著作中，但今天很难在实地感知到。
Do you like current Alexandria?
你喜欢现在的亚历山大吗？
I’ve been there once.
我去过那里一次。
I enjoyed walking along the sea and eating seafood.
我喜欢沿着海边散步和吃海鲜。
So much of it seemed to be a dirty mess.
其中大部分看起来都是一团脏乱。
Like any great city, I find it has a vitality to it, which is quite energizing.
和任何一座伟大的城市一样，我发现它有一种活力，非常充满活力。
It’s not a place that you go in search of the ancient past, I think.
我认为这不是一个寻找古老过去的地方。
How is it we’re likely to learn more about Ptolemaic Egypt?
我们如何才能更多地了解托勒密埃及？
Is it underwater discovery, DNA studies, LiDAR, recovering manuscripts using AI?
是水下发现、DNA 研究、激光雷达、利用人工智能恢复手稿吗？
What are the frontiers for learning more?
学习更多知识的前沿是什么？
All of the above.
上述所有的。
You’ve just put your finger on it.
你刚刚把手指放在上面。
Only recently, there’s been underwater archaeology, which has reconstructed the appearance of one of the islands in the great harbor of Alexandria, which it turns out Cleopatra spent a great deal of time fortifying and turning into a great commercial/dynastic port.
直到最近，水下考古重建了亚历山大大港中的一个岛屿的外观，事实证明克利奥帕特拉花费了大量的时间来加固这座岛屿，并将其变成了一个伟大的商业/王朝港口。
That’s only come up out of the sea in the last year or two.
那是最近一两年才从海里捞出来的。
That’s pretty astonishing.
这真是太令人惊讶了。
The fact that we can now read rolls of papyrus without unrolling them through X-rays and AI, we are poised really at the beginning of a revolution in the study of ancient texts because many of these papyrus rolls are too friable, too fragile to unroll.
事实上，我们现在可以在不通过 X 射线和人工智能展开纸莎草卷的情况下阅读它们，我们确实正处于古代文本研究革命的开始，因为许多纸莎草卷太脆弱，太脆弱而无法展开。
If we can now read them with modern technology, that will open up whole new vistas of understanding of the ancient world.
如果我们现在可以用现代技术来阅读它们，那将为理解古代世界开辟全新的视野。
Archaeological science is really poised to make some huge new breakthroughs, I think, in the study of the ancient world.
我认为，考古科学确实有望在古代世界的研究中取得一些巨大的新突破。
What’s the binding constraint?
绑定约束是什么？
Obviously, money always matters, but is there enough talent, and interest, and people who know the languages or who know AI to do this?
显然，金钱总是很重要，但是是否有足够的人才、兴趣以及懂语言或懂人工智能的人来做到这一点？
What’s holding back progress from not being faster?
是什么阻碍了进展不更快？
Archaeology is still quite a small subject.
考古学仍然是一个很小的学科。
It’s not something that many people choose to study at university, not by comparison with economics, or math, or whatever it might be.
这不是很多人选择在大学学习的东西，不是与经济学、数学或其他任何学科相比。
It’s still quite a niche pursuit.
这仍然是一个相当小众的追求。
Funding, as always, is a constraint.
一如既往，资金是一个限制因素。
Mounting a big archaeological excavation or underwater exploration is not a cheap undertaking.
进行大型考古发掘或水下探索并不是一件便宜的事情。
It’s not an inexpensive thing to do, and the sources of funding are constrained.
这不是一件便宜的事情，而且资金来源也受到限制。
I guess getting more people into the discipline and finding ways for them to utilize their talents, that would be great.
我想让更多的人进入这个学科并找到让他们发挥才能的方法，那就太好了。
I think the understanding is there, but it’s shared amongst a fairly small group of experts.
我认为人们已经有了共识，但只有一小部分专家达成了共识。
Bringing more people into the discipline would certainly be a good thing.
让更多的人加入这个学科无疑是一件好事。
On other topics in ancient Egypt
关于古埃及的其他话题
Most of your books are about non-Ptolemaic ancient Egypt, the kingdoms.
你的大部分书都是关于非托勒密王朝的古埃及王国。
I have a few questions about those.
我对此有几个问题。
Of course.
当然。
To what extent can we trust Herodotus?
我们在多大程度上可以信任希罗多德？
More than we used to think we could.
比我们以前想象的要多。
It was fashionable 50 years ago to decry Herodotus as a charlatan, making up stories, tall tales of Egypt, none of which seem to stack up.
五十年前，流行谴责希罗多德是江湖骗子，编造故事，编造埃及的荒诞故事，但这些故事似乎都站不住脚。
The more we’ve done archaeological excavation, the more documents that we’ve unearthed, the more it turns out that Herodotus was actually quite accurate in many ways.
我们进行的考古发掘越多，出土的文献越多，就越证明希罗多德在很多方面实际上是相当准确的。
Yes, of course, he embellished his accounts, as all historians, ancient and modern, do, I suppose, to an extent.
是的，当然，我想，正如所有古代和现代历史学家所做的那样，他在一定程度上修饰了自己的叙述。
At his core, Herodotus is not that unreliable.
从本质上来说，希罗多德并不是那么不可靠。
Is there talk of Israel in Egyptian hieroglyphic texts?
埃及象形文字中是否有提及以色列？
If so, what do we learn from those?
如果是这样，我们可以从中学到什么？
In the entire corpus of ancient Egyptian writing, the name Israel only occurs once.
在整个古埃及文字中，以色列这个名字只出现过一次。
This is on a victory stele from the reign of Merneptah.
这是梅尔内普塔统治时期的胜利石碑。
This is the late 13th century BC.
这是公元前13世纪末。
It’s in the context of a whole list of lands and peoples that the Egyptian pharaoh has conquered.
这是在埃及法老征服的一系列土地和人民的背景下进行的。
Israel is included there, not as the name of a territory, but as the name of a tribe.
以色列也包含在那里，不是作为领土的名称，而是作为部落的名称。
The phrase is, “Israel is vanquished, his seed is no more.” This is referring to the Israelites, rather than Israel as a territory.
这句话是：“以色列被征服了，他的后裔不再存在了。”这是指以色列人，而不是以色列作为领土。
It’s almost a footnote in the ancient Egyptian record.
这几乎是古埃及记录中的一个脚注。
It’s always been one of those curiosities.
这一直是人们的好奇心之一。
People looking for echoes of the biblical, the Judeo-Christian narrative in ancient Egyptian texts, they don’t find a lot, and Israel occurs just the once.
人们在古埃及文献中寻找《圣经》、犹太基督教叙事的回声，但他们找不到很多，而以色列只出现过一次。
Say the legal reasoning in the Book of Exodus, the commandments, the constitutional structure, the covenant, to what extent, if any, do you feel that comes from Egypt?
比如说《出埃及记》中的法律推理、诫命、宪法结构、圣约，你觉得它在多大程度上（如果有的话）来自埃及？
I think there was a lot of sharing of ideas in the ancient world.
我认为古代世界有很多想法的分享。
The idea that Egypt was on its own, and the Middle East was on its own, and the Greek world was on its own, not at all.
埃及是独立的，中东是独立的，希腊世界是独立的，根本不是。
There was always exchange of people, and materials, and commodities, and ideas.
人员、材料、商品和思想的交流始终存在。
If you look at, for example, some of the Psalms, you’ll find not just echoes, but entire chunks of ancient Egyptian literature that have been, as we would say today, cut and pasted from one to the other.
例如，如果你看一些诗篇，你不仅会发现回声，而且会发现整段古埃及文学，就像我们今天所说的那样，从一篇到另一篇被剪切和粘贴。
People of learning, scribes, writers, poets, certainly would have shared ideas with others of their kind across national and linguistic boundaries.
有学问的人，抄写员，作家，诗人，当然会跨越国家和语言的界限与其他同类分享想法。
The more we study the ancient world, the more of these interconnections become apparent to us.
我们对古代世界研究得越多，这些相互联系就越明显。
How much of a sense of, say, India did the ancient Egyptians have?
比如说，古埃及人对印度有多少了解？
Not a lot until the Persians.
在波斯人之前，情况并不多。
As we spoke about at the beginning, the Persian Empire runs at its eastern extremity right up to the borders of India, and also includes much of Egypt.
正如我们一开始谈到的，波斯帝国的东端一直延伸到印度边境，还包括埃及的大部分地区。
It’s through that medium that the Egyptians become cognizant of Indian civilization.
埃及人正是通过这种媒介认识了印度文明。
For example, Darius I, great emperor of Persia, but also ruler of Egypt, he cuts an early version of the Suez Canal to join the Red Sea with the Nile, and sets up along his canal a whole series of boundary stones.
例如，波斯伟大的皇帝、埃及的统治者大流士一世，他开辟了早期版本的苏伊士运河，将红海与尼罗河连接起来，并沿着运河竖起了一系列界石。
On them, he has an inscription which celebrates him as a great leader.
上面刻有他的铭文，颂扬他是一位伟大的领袖。
He mentions the lands under his control in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.
他在古埃及象形文字中提到了他控制下的土地。
They include Sindh, the ancient name for India.
其中包括信德省（Sindh），印度的古称。
It was really through the medium of the Persians that these two great civilizations come to know each other.
这两个伟大的文明确实是通过波斯人相互了解的。
When did the quality of ancient Egyptian jewelry peak, and can we infer anything from that?
古埃及珠宝的品质何时达到顶峰，我们可以从中推断出什么吗？
I think different Egyptologists would have different opinions on this.
我想不同的埃及古物学家对此会有不同的看法。
I personally think that the most sophisticated and refined jewelry was produced in the 12th dynasty.
我个人认为最精致、最精致的珠宝是在第十二王朝制作的。
This is between about 1950 and 1800 BC.
这是大约公元前 1950 年至 1800 年之间。
Very beautiful designs inlaid with carnelian, and turquoise, and lapis lazuli, gold filigree work.
非常美丽的设计，镶嵌红玉髓、绿松石、青金石、金丝细工。
It’s a very refined aesthetic.
这是一种非常精致的美学。
Why?
为什么？
I think because you had a strong and stable regime that was able to be a great patron of the arts.
我认为因为你们有一个强大而稳定的政权，能够成为伟大的艺术赞助人。
I like to compare Egypt in the 12th dynasty with France under the Sun King Louis XIV.
我喜欢将第十二王朝的埃及与太阳王路易十四统治下的法国进行比较。
It was a time when arts and craftsmanship really excelled under royal patronage.
在那个时代，艺术和手工艺在皇室的赞助下确实非常出色。
Later on, the Egyptians produced heavier, more gaudy, more showy jewelry, but to my mind, the 12th dynasty is really the pinnacle.
后来，埃及人制作了更重、更艳丽、更艳丽的珠宝，但在我看来，第十二王朝才是真正的顶峰。
Have you been to the new Cairo museum yet?
您去过新开罗博物馆了吗？
Not yet, but I’m going later this year.
还没有，但我今年晚些时候要去。
It’s incredible.
太不可思议了。
Looking forward to it immensely.
非常期待。
Yes.
是的。
It was much better than what I was expecting.
这比我的预期要好得多。
That’s good to hear.
很高兴听到这个消息。
How were the pyramids built?
金字塔是如何建造的？
With a lot of people and a lot of grunt work, but essentially hauling blocks of stone on wooden sledges up from the quarry to the building site, up large ramps of earth, and then laid in place very carefully and dressed from the top down as they cleared all of their ramps away.
虽然有很多人和很多繁重的工作，但本质上是用木制雪橇将石块从采石场拖到建筑工地，爬上大土坡道，然后非常小心地放置到位，并在清理所有坡道时从上到下铺装。
It can be done.
这是可以做到的。
It just requires a big workforce and a lot of time.
它只需要大量的劳动力和大量的时间。
No major role for hydraulics or water?
液压或水没有重要作用？
In those days, the Nile, during the inundation when it was flooded, came right up to the base of the Giza plateau.
那时，尼罗河在洪水泛滥时，直达吉萨高原的底部。
It would have been possible to float blocks of stone from the quarries on the other side of the river right up to the base of the building site in a way that couldn’t be done today.
本来可以将河对岸采石场的石块直接漂浮到建筑工地的底部，而这种方式在今天是无法做到的。
Yes, some blocks brought to the building site by water, but then dragged up the slope to the site itself.
是的，一些块被水带到了建筑工地，但随后被拖上斜坡到达工地本身。
In one of your books, you defined ancient Egyptian civilization as monumental hieroglyphics and divine kingship.
在您的一本书中，您将古埃及文明定义为不朽的象形文字和神圣的王权。
Is that still true?
这仍然是真的吗？
Why are those the essentials?
为什么这些是必需品？
Writing defines the civilization from the outset until the very end.
书写从始至终定义了文明。
Writing is not just a means of communication.
写作不仅仅是一种沟通方式。
It’s not even principally a means of communication in ancient Egypt.
在古埃及，它甚至不是一种主要的通讯手段。
Hieroglyphics—quite literally, the signs of gods, the sacred signs—is a way of recording for posterity an ideal state of being.
象形文字——字面意思是神的符号、神圣的符号——是为后人记录理想存在状态的一种方式。
This includes rule by the pharaohs.
这包括法老的统治。
It encodes their whole worldview.
它编码了他们的整个世界观。
It’s not just a way of communicating everyday ideas.
这不仅仅是交流日常想法的一种方式。
It is coeval with Egyptian civilization, so very much a defining feature.
它与埃及文明同时代，因此是一个决定性的特征。
Then kingship.
然后是王权。
What makes pharaonic Egypt pharaonic is the fact that it had a pharaoh.
法老埃及之所以成为法老，是因为它有一位法老。
A pharaoh is not just a king.
法老不仅仅是国王。
He is god on earth.
他是地球上的神。
He’s god incarnate.
他是神的化身。
Ancient Egyptian society was almost like a pyramid itself with the king, the pharaoh, at the apex.
古埃及社会几乎就像一座金字塔，国王法老位于塔尖。
The idea that the gods and the people had this contract mediated through the person of the king is the defining idea of ancient Egyptian civilization, and gives rise to all of those aspects that we would recognize today as most characteristically Egyptian: pyramids, temples, tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
诸神和人民通过国王本人签订契约的观念是古埃及文明的决定性观念，并产生了我们今天所认为的最具埃及特色的所有方面：金字塔、寺庙、帝王谷的坟墓。
It’s all there because of the idea of divine kingship.
这一切都是因为神圣王权的观念而存在。
Why is it relatively so stable for so incredibly long?
为什么它在如此长的时间内相对如此稳定？
That’s a good question.
这是一个好问题。
Egypt is fairly secure within natural borders for much of its history.
在其历史的大部分时间里，埃及在自然边界内都相当安全。
If you think about it, it’s bounded by deserts with the Mediterranean Sea to the north.
如果你仔细想想，它的边界是沙漠，北面是地中海。
The only land bridge between Egypt and the continent of Asia is this very narrow isthmus along the northern fringe of the Sinai Peninsula.
埃及和亚洲大陆之间唯一的陆桥是沿着西奈半岛北部边缘的这条非常狭窄的地峡。
It’s quite hard for aggressive forces actually to infiltrate Egypt.
侵略势力实际上很难渗透到埃及。
It has pretty secure natural borders.
它有相当安全的自然边界。
It has an incredibly fertile ecology thanks to the river Nile, so it’s able to produce more than enough food for its own purposes and really power a great civilization.
由于尼罗河的存在，它拥有极其肥沃的生态系统，因此它能够为自己的目的生产足够的食物，并真正为伟大的文明提供动力。
Climate, ecology, natural borders, I think they make a pretty strong and stable combination.
气候、生态、自然边界，我认为它们是一个非常强大和稳定的组合。
Why not just cross the Mediterranean with boats—it’s very much a navigable sea—and start taking things?
为什么不直接乘船穿越地中海——这是一片非常适合通航的海洋——然后开始拿东西呢？
It seems open as prey.
它似乎像猎物一样开放。
Curiously enough, the Egyptians throughout most of their history don’t seem to have been motivated by a great sense of empire building.
奇怪的是，埃及人在其大部分历史中似乎并没有强烈的帝国建设意识。
They had a sense of themselves as a chosen people and the sense of their land as a chosen land.
他们感觉自己是被选中的民族，也感觉自己的土地是被选中的土地。
When they write about other countries and cultures, they are very pejorative.
当他们写到其他国家和文化时，他们都是非常贬义的。
They’re very denigrating of other countries and cultures because Egypt is very special.
他们非常诋毁其他国家和文化，因为埃及非常特别。
The land of Egypt, the people of Egypt are unique.
埃及的土地、埃及的人民都是独一无二的。
They are God’s creation.
他们是上帝的创造物。
They never really have that same sense of wanting to conquer lots of other territories because nothing in their minds could ever live up to Egypt and the Egyptians.
他们从来没有真正想要征服许多其他领土，因为他们心目中的任何事物都无法辜负埃及和埃及人的期望。
This is a very speculative question, but I’m sure you’ve thought about it.
这是一个非常具有推测性的问题，但我相信您已经考虑过。
Humankind has been around for a long time and it seems there’s not much progress.
人类已经存在了很长一段时间，但似乎并没有太大的进步。
Then all of a sudden, there’s the Sumerians, the Assyrians, the ancient Egyptians, then more.
然后突然间，出现了苏美尔人、亚述人、古埃及人，等等。
What is it you think happened?
你认为发生了什么？
Was it writing?
是写的吗？
Something else?
还有别的事吗？
I think when we look at the origins of these great civilizations, all within a few centuries of each other, there’s a combination of factors that each one individually perhaps wouldn’t have tipped the balance, but taken together they made a difference.
我认为，当我们审视这些伟大文明的起源时，它们都在几个世纪之内，存在着多种因素的结合，其中每一个因素单独来看可能不会打破平衡，但综合起来它们就产生了影响。
Climate, very important one.
气候，非常重要的一个。
This is a period where there is a shift in the rain belt across North Africa and the Middle East.
这是北非和中东雨带发生转移的时期。
It shifts further south.
它进一步向南移动。
It leads to the drying out of large swathes of land that had previously been inhabitable by cattle herders and small-scale farmers.
它导致以前牧牛人和小农户居住的大片土地变得干燥。
What this does is concentrate population in river valleys.
这样做的目的是将人口集中在河谷。
People head for the permanent sources of water.
人们寻找永久水源。
That critical mass of people in a fairly constrained area does give rise to social change and to the emergence of civilization.
在相当有限的地区存在足够数量的人口，确实会引发社会变革和文明的出现。
Climatic stress, climate change, environmental pressures, certainly a big factor right across the Middle East.
气候压力、气候变化、环境压力无疑是整个中东地区的一个重要因素。
There’s a whole world of people, and for 300,000, 400,000 years this never happens.
整个世界都是人，三十万、四十万年来，这种情况从未发生过。
I always find that strange.
我总觉得这很奇怪。
Maybe it did happen and there’s no surviving record of it, but that’s strange as well.
也许它确实发生过，而且没有任何现存的记录，但这也很奇怪。
I’m not sure that I’ve got a satisfactory answer to your question, Tyler.
我不确定我是否对你的问题得到了满意的答案，泰勒。
It’s a good one.
这是一个很好的。
Why at this moment in history did it all suddenly come together and not before?
为什么在历史的这个时刻，这一切突然聚集在一起，而不是之前？
Yes, I need to ponder that one a little more.
是的，我需要再考虑一下。
Here’s a very sociological question.
这是一个非常社会学的问题。
In America in particular, how is it that King Tut became so very famous?
特别是在美国，图坦卡蒙国王为何如此出名？
When I was six years old, I knew who King Tut was, but I had no idea, say, of Napoleon.
当我六岁时，我知道图坦卡蒙国王是谁，但我不知道拿破仑。
I’m not even sure I knew who Hitler was.
我什至不确定我是否知道希特勒是谁。
How did it become such a big deal?
它是如何变得如此重要的？
The discovery of King Tut’s tomb was the first archaeological discovery of the modern media age.
图坦卡蒙陵墓的发现是现代媒体时代的第一个考古发现。
Lord Carnarvon did a very smart thing.
卡那封勋爵做了一件非常聪明的事。
He entered into an exclusive relationship with The Times of London to cover the excavation and the discovery of all these amazing objects.
他与伦敦《泰晤士报》建立了独家合作关系，报道所有这些令人惊叹的物品的挖掘和发现。
It was hot property in media terms.
从媒体角度来说，这是一个热门房产。
The Times then syndicated its stories around the world.
随后《泰晤士报》在世界各地联合报道它的故事。
It was also something about the era.
这也与那个时代有关。
I think the early 1920s, the world was picking itself up after the First World War.
我认为 20 年代初，世界在第一次世界大战后正在复苏。
There was a real hunger for glamour and stories of beauty, and opulence, and magnificence.
人们对美丽、富裕和壮丽的魅力和故事有着真正的渴望。
It struck a chord with the zeitgeist, you might say.
你可能会说，它与时代精神产生了共鸣。
It was a combination of the media frenzy, the time, and also, let’s face it, ancient Egypt is just such a visually appealing civilization.
这是媒体狂热、时代的结合，而且，让我们面对现实吧，古埃及就是一个如此具有视觉吸引力的文明。
It’s a civilization that produced great art, but it’s also the exoticism of Egypt.
这是一个产生了伟大艺术的文明，但它也是埃及的异国情调。
It’s the sheer antiquity of Egypt.
这是埃及的纯粹古老。
I think all of these ingredients just combined to make it the gift that kept on giving as far as the media were concerned.
我认为所有这些因素结合在一起，使它成为媒体关注的不断赠送的礼物。
It became a global sensation in a way that no discovery really before or since ever had.
它以前所未有的方式引起了全球轰动。
There’s the old Hollywood movie The Mummy.
有一部好莱坞老电影《木乃伊》。
There was the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, which I think is maybe still there.
好莱坞有埃及剧院，我想它可能还在那里。
Do you see anything like this obsession coming back today?
今天你看到这种痴迷的现象又回来了吗？
Are there any signs of that?
有任何迹象吗？
Not to the same degree as there was in the 1920s when Egyptian themes were picked up in almost every domain from architecture, as you say, to jewelry design, and costume, and songs, and films.
与 1920 年代的程度不同，当时埃及主题几乎渗透到各个领域，如你所说，从建筑到珠宝设计、服装、歌曲和电影。
The Egyptian influence is still one of the traditions that artists and designers do draw upon from time to time, whether it’s the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas or Egyptian elements that are popping up in art and design.
埃及的影响仍然是艺术家和设计师时不时借鉴的传统之一，无论是拉斯维加斯的卢克索酒店还是艺术和设计中突然出现的埃及元素。
It doesn’t have perhaps the same worldwide appeal that it did in the 1920s.
它或许不再像 20 年代那样在全球范围内具有吸引力。
If you think about current Egypt, and surely you’ve spent a lot of time there, knowing a great deal about the distant past, does it give you any insight or does it just feel quite unconnected to you?
如果你想想现在的埃及，你肯定在那里呆了很多时间，对遥远的过去了解很多，它会给你任何洞察力还是只是感觉与你完全无关？
Both and, I would say.
我想说，两者都是。
Particularly when you’re out of the cities, in the countryside, in a small Egyptian village, you will see patterns of subsistence, of farming, architecture of mud brick houses that has changed very little in 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 years.
特别是当你离开城市、在乡村、在埃及的一个小村庄时，你会看到生存模式、农业模式、泥砖房的建筑模式在 3000 年、4000 年、5000 年里几乎没有变化。
The rhythm of life, the patterns of life in a rural Egyptian community are still very recognizable from the days of the pharaohs.
埃及农村社区的生活节奏、生活方式从法老时代至今仍然非常清晰。
Contrast that with the cities of Cairo or Alexandria.
与开罗或亚历山大等城市进行对比。
These are big modern metropolises that don’t seem to have very much to do with or very many visible signs of the ancient world.
这些都是现代大都市，似乎与古代世界没有太大关系，也没有太多明显的迹象。
It’s both and.
两者都是和。
For me, as an Egyptologist, I love getting into the rural parts of Egypt because there one can almost feel the past as still very much present.
对我来说，作为一名埃及古物学家，我喜欢进入埃及的农村地区，因为在那里人们几乎可以感受到过去仍然存在。
What’s the most interesting rural part for you to go to?
你去的最有趣的农村地区是哪里？
I love middle Egypt, which is the stretch of the Nile Valley between Cairo and Luxor.
我喜欢埃及中部，这是开罗和卢克索之间尼罗河谷的一段。
It’s not very much visited by tourists, but there’s a rhythm of life there which is slower than in the big cities.
这里的游客不多，但那里的生活节奏比大城市慢。
It’s a place where the past feels much more tangible.
在这里，过去的感觉更加真实。
It’s scenically very beautiful.
风景非常美丽。
Cliffs coming very close to the river’s edge.
悬崖非常接近河边。
Yes, I love middle Egypt.
是的，我喜欢埃及中部。
How important is ancient Egypt as an object of political display today?
古埃及作为当今政治展示的对象有多重要？
The Egyptian government, obviously, that has been contested.
显然，埃及政府对此提出了争议。
Insofar as the lineage can be claimed, or new discoveries shown off, or the new museum in Cairo, to what extent does it bolster the claims of the current rulers, or is that more or less irrelevant?
就可以声称的血统，或展示的新发现，或开罗的新博物馆而言，它在多大程度上支持了现任统治者的主张，或者这或多或少无关紧要？
I think it’s a really good question.
我认为这是一个非常好的问题。
I think Egypt is a proud nation, and the Egyptians are a proud people.
我认为埃及是一个自豪的国家，埃及人是一个自豪的人民。
I think they are very proud of their past and like to share, I think, with the world the achievements of the Egyptian civilizations of the past.
我认为他们对自己的过去感到非常自豪，并且喜欢与世界分享过去埃及文明的成就。
I think they draw great sustenance and a great sense of their own position in the world from their ancient forebears.
我认为他们从古代祖先那里汲取了丰富的营养，并对自己在世界上的地位有了深刻的认识。
Putting it very prosaically, of course, tourism is absolutely critical to the Egyptian economy.
当然，平淡地说，旅游业对埃及经济绝对至关重要。
There are literally millions of people dependent upon the tourist dollar, and those tourists largely come to Egypt for its ancient remains.
确实有数百万人依赖旅游收入，而这些游客主要是为了其古老的遗迹而来到埃及的。
Some go to the Red Sea for scuba diving, but most come to Egypt to admire its temples, and its tombs, and its pyramids.
有些人去红海潜水，但大多数人来到埃及是为了欣赏它的寺庙、坟墓和金字塔。
It is both a source of national pride and a source of national income.
它既是民族自豪感的源泉，也是国民收入的源泉。
On Toby’s career
托比的职业生涯
For our final segment, just a few questions about you and your career.
在我们的最后一部分，我只问几个关于您和您的职业的问题。
What is it you had to learn to do what it is you’ve been doing?
为了做你一直在做的事情，你必须学会什么？
I’ve had a pretty—I was going to say circuitous career.
我的职业生涯很美好——我想说的是迂回曲折。
I’ve done lots of different things.
我做过很多不同的事情。
I suppose if there’s a common thread to everything I’ve done, whether it’s in my writing or in my leadership roles: It’s all about communication.
我想如果我所做的一切有一个共同点的话，无论是在我的写作中还是在我的领导角色中：这都是关于沟通的。
I love to take a lot of information, distill it, and to communicate it in a way that hopefully is accessible and relatable.
我喜欢获取大量信息，对其进行提炼，并以一种易于理解和产生共鸣的方式进行交流。
I guess that’s the common thread.
我想这就是共同点。
I like words.
我喜欢文字。
I’ve always loved words since I was a kid.
我从小就喜欢文字。
Manipulating words, whether it’s writing a book or writing a strategy, it’s all about words at the end of the day and how you tell a story.
操纵文字，无论是写书还是写策略，归根结底都是关于文字以及如何讲故事。
What languages did you have to learn?
你必须学习哪些语言？
I can get by in French, German, a modicum of Italian.
我能说法语、德语，还有一点意大利语。
I can make myself understood in Arabic.
我可以用阿拉伯语表达自己的意思。
Those are the modern languages.
这些是现代语言。
Then in terms of ancient languages, ancient Egyptian, of course.
那么就古代语言而言，当然是古埃及语。
I dabbled a little bit in Sumerian, and Akkadian, and Hittite once upon a time, but I’ve forgotten much of that now.
我曾经接触过一点苏美尔语、阿卡德语和赫梯语，但现在我已经忘记了很多。
How did you end up doing development work for Clare College Cambridge?
您最终是如何为剑桥克莱尔学院从事开发工作的？
Oh, that’s a long story.
哦，那是一个很长的故事。
I think I would say that research in the humanities can be quite a solitary occupation, unlike in the sciences where scientists are working in labs and teams.
我想我会说，人文学科的研究可能是一项相当孤独的职业，不像科学家在实验室和团队中工作的科学领域。
In the arts and humanities, more often than not, you’re on your own in the library.
在艺术和人文学科中，通常情况下，你只能独自待在图书馆里。
I enjoy that, but I also enjoy working with people and in bigger teams of people.
我很享受这一点，但我也喜欢与人合作以及在更大的团队中工作。
I was able at a fairly early stage in my career to ride both horses, to work in bigger teams in a much more outward-facing role whilst maintaining my research and my interest in ancient Egypt.
在我职业生涯的早期阶段，我能够同时骑两匹马，在更大的团队中担任更加外向的角色，同时保持我对古埃及的研究和兴趣。
It’s been a great combination.
这是一个很棒的组合。
How has that changed your scholarship, having the connection to the external world, seeing what’s relevant, seeing what other people think is relevant?
这如何改变了你的学术，与外部世界的联系，看到什么是相关的，看到什么是其他人认为相关的？
I hope it’s helped me to write for a broader readership.
我希望它能帮助我为更广泛的读者写作。
If I look back at some of the first things that I wrote as an academic, they were pretty esoteric, pretty dry and dusty, as a lot of academic journal articles tend to be.
如果我回顾一下我作为一名学者所写的最初的一些东西，它们非常深奥、非常枯燥、充满灰尘，就像许多学术期刊文章一样。
I now try to write in a style that is well grounded in research, but accessible to anybody who’s interested in the ancient world.
我现在尝试以一种以研究为基础的风格进行写作，但任何对古代世界感兴趣的人都可以理解。
I think that has come out of needing to be much more outward-facing.
我认为这是因为需要更加外向。
You worked for a while as a dean in Fiji, is that correct?
您在斐济担任过一段时间的院长，对吗？
Yes, I headed up the national university in Fiji for a period.
是的，我曾领导过斐济国立大学一段时间。
That was pretty exciting, especially as it coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, so that brought a whole set of challenges.
这是非常令人兴奋的，特别是当它与 COVID-19 大流行同时发生时，因此带来了一系列的挑战。
Again, common thread being one of communication.
同样，共同点是沟通之一。
Leadership is really all about communication.
领导力实际上就是沟通。
I was also able to indulge my love of languages by learning some Fijian as well, which is a fascinating language.
我还可以通过学习一些斐济语来满足我对语言的热爱，这是一门令人着迷的语言。
Before my final question, just another plug for your last book, The Last Dynasty: Ancient Egypt, from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra.
在我提出最后一个问题之前，请先介绍一下您的上一本书《最后的王朝：古埃及，从亚历山大大帝到克利奥帕特拉》的另一个插件。
I enjoyed reading all of your books.
我很喜欢读你所有的书。
Finally, what will you do next?
最后，你接下来要做什么？
I’ve just finished my next book, actually, which is on another aspect of the ancient world.
事实上，我刚刚完成了我的下一本书，这是关于古代世界的另一个方面。
I can’t say much more than that because I’ve signed an NDA with a Hollywood documentary producer.
我不能说更多，因为我已经与一位好莱坞纪录片制片人签署了保密协议。
Watch this space.
留意这个空间。
It may be coming to a screen near you as well as to a bookstore near you fairly soon.
它可能很快就会出现在您附近的屏幕上以及您附近的书店中。
Toby Wilkinson, thank you very much.
托比·威尔金森，非常感谢你。
Thank you for having me.
谢谢你有我。
Photo Credit: Benjamin Frei
照片来源：本杰明·弗雷