欧文·芬克尔：破译古代文明的秘密与大洪水神话

The following is a conversation with Irving Finkel, a scholar of ancient languages, curator at the British Museum for over 45 years, and a much-admired and respected world expert on cuneiform script.

以下是与欧文·芬克尔（Irving Finkel）的对话，欧文·芬克尔是古代语言学者、大英博物馆馆长超过 45 年，也是一位备受尊敬的世界楔形文字专家。

00:00 More generally, he’s an expert on ancient languages of Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian, as well as ancient board games and Mesopotamia magic, medicine, literature, and culture.

更广泛地说，他是苏美尔语、阿卡德语和巴比伦语等古代语言以及古代棋盘游戏和美索不达米亚魔法、医学、文学和文化的专家。

I should also mention that both on and off the mic, Irving was a super kind and fun person to talk to, with an infectious enthusiasm for ancient history that, of course, I already love but fell in love with even more.

我还应该提到的是，无论是在麦克风内还是麦克风外，欧文都是一个超级友善且有趣的人，对古代历史充满感染力的热情，当然，我已经很喜欢这种热情，而且更加喜欢。

This is the Lex Fridman Podcast.

这是莱克斯·弗里德曼播客。

To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, or you can also find links to contact me, ask questions, get feedback, and so on.

为了支持它，请在描述中查看我们的赞助商，或者您也可以找到与我联系、提出问题、获取反馈等的链接。

00:53 And now, dear friends, here’s Irving Finkel.

现在，亲爱的朋友们，这是欧文·芬克尔。

Where and when did writing originate in human civilization?

人类文明的文字起源于何时何地？

Let’s go back a few thousand years.

让我们回到几千年前。

The first attempts at writing that we could call writing go back to the middle of the fourth millennium, say around 3500 BC, something like that.

我们可以称之为书写的第一次尝试可以追溯到第四个千年中期，比如公元前 3500 年左右，类似的时间。

01:05 There were people in the Middle East, individuals who lived between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, who had clay as their operating material for building and all sorts of other purposes, and eventually as a writing support.

中东有些人，居住在幼发拉底河和底格里斯河之间，他们将粘土作为他们的建筑材料和各种其他用途，并最终作为书写工具。

They somehow developed the idea of the basis of writing, which means that you can make a sign, which people agree on, on a surface that another person, when they see it, they know what sound it engenders.

他们以某种方式发展了书写基础的想法，这意味着你可以在一个表面上制作一个人们都同意的符号，当另一个人看到它时，他们知道它会发出什么声音。

That is the essence of writing: that there’s an agreed system of symbols that A can use and B can then play back, either in their heads or literally with their voices, a bit like a gramophone record.

这就是写作的本质：有一个约定的符号系统，A可以使用，B可以回放，要么在他们的头脑中，要么用他们的声音，有点像留声机唱片。

01:54 So when it really began is a terribly, terribly awkward question for us, because the truth of the matter is, we have no idea when anything began.

因此，对于我们来说，它何时真正开始是一个非常非常尴尬的问题，因为事实是，我们不知道任何事情何时开始。

And all we can say is that the oldest evidence we have is around 3500 BC, but whether that was anywhere near the time or the stage when this started off for the first time seems to me very, very unlikely.

我们只能说，我们拥有的最古老的证据是在公元前 3500 年左右，但在我看来，这是否是第一次发生的时间或阶段附近的时间或阶段都非常非常不可能。

So, among these Mesopotamians around 3500, they started to do this.

因此，在大约 3500 名美索不达米亚人中，他们开始这样做。

They made up signs which everybody understood and they could write simple pictographic messages.

他们制作了每个人都能理解的符号，并且可以写出简单的象形信息。

Foot is a foot, leg is a leg, and barley is barley.

脚是脚，腿是腿，大麦是大麦。

02:36 And then very, very gradually, they had the idea of how you could represent numerals, and then they had the idea that the pictures could also represent signs.

然后非常非常逐渐地，他们有了如何表示数字的想法，然后他们有了图片也可以表示符号的想法。

And once they had the idea that you could write sounds with pictures, that’s the crucial thing, that a picture of a foot not only meant foot but it meant the sound of the word for foot.

一旦他们有了用图片写声音的想法，那就是至关重要的事情，一只脚的图片不仅意味着脚，还意味着脚这个词的声音。

Once this happened, some probably very, very imaginative and clever persons had a kind of lightbulb moment when they realized that they could develop a whole panoply of signs which could convey sound.

一旦发生这种情况，一些可能非常非常有想象力和聪明的人就会有一种灵光一现的时刻，他们意识到他们可以开发出一整套可以传达声音的符号。

And once you had that, you’re liberated from pictographic writing into a position where you can record language.

一旦你掌握了这一点，你就从象形文字中解放出来，进入了可以记录语言的位置。

So, language, grammar, and all the rest of it, and before long, proverbs and literature and all the other things that got written down.

所以，语言、语法和所有其他的东西，不久之后，谚语、文学和所有其他的东西都被写下来了。

03:29 So it was a pretty gigantic step whenever it was taken, but we really have no idea when it was first taken.

因此，无论何时采取，这都是一个相当巨大的步骤，但我们真的不知道它是什么时候第一次采取的。

But the first evidence we have presents a sort of clear-ish picture.

但我们掌握的第一个证据呈现出一幅清晰的图景。

It was simple and it got more complicated, then it became magnificent, so that with all the signs a fluent, well-trained scribe could not only write down the Sumerian language, which was one of the native tongues of Iraq, or the Babylonian language, which was the other main language of Iraq, but also any other language he heard.

它变得简单，变得更加复杂，然后变得宏伟，因此，一个流利、训练有素的抄写员不仅可以用所有的符号写下苏美尔语（伊拉克的母语之一）或巴比伦语（伊拉克的另一种主要语言），还可以写下他听到的任何其他语言。

So, if somebody came speaking French ahead of their time and spoke out loud, he could record with these signs the sound of French.

因此，如果有人提前讲法语并大声说话，他就可以用这些标志记录法语的声音。

04:10 And we have examples of funny languages around the world in the Bronze Age, which were written in cuneiform purely by ear.

我们在青铜器时代有世界各地有趣的语言的例子，这些语言纯粹是通过耳朵用楔形文字书写的。

And often, sometimes the scribes who recorded by dictation or by something, wrote stuff they couldn’t understand, but somebody else could read and understand it.

通常，有时通过听写或其他方式记录的抄写员写下的东西他们无法理解，但其他人可以阅读并理解它。

So, what you have is long before the alphabet, when the alphabet was not even a dream, a complex, bewildering-looking, off-putting writing system, which was actually very beautiful, very flexible, and lasted for well over three millennia, probably closer to four millennia.

所以，你所拥有的早在字母表出现之前，当时字母表甚至还不是一个梦想，一个复杂的、令人困惑的、令人反感的书写系统，它实际上非常漂亮，非常灵活，并且持续了三千年以上，可能接近四千年。

And it took a long time for the alphabet, which anybody would say was much, much more useful and much more sensible, to displace it.

字母表花了很长时间才取代它，任何人都会说字母表更有用、更明智。

04:52 So it’s one of the major stages of man’s intellect, because quite soon after the writing first took off, the signs began to proliferate, and someone said, “Hey, we haven’t got a sign for this sound,” or, “We haven’t got a sign for this idea.” And so it began to swell out.

所以这是人类智力的主要阶段之一，因为在文字第一次出现后不久，迹象就开始激增，有人说，“嘿，我们还没有这个声音的迹象”，或者“我们还没有这个想法的迹象。”所以它开始膨胀。

And at some extremely remarkable stage, one, probably only one person, suddenly realized that if there was no control, they would grow exponentially and exponentially until it was all nonsense and everybody had their own writing.

在某个极其非凡的阶段，一个人，可能只有一个人，突然意识到，如果没有控制，他们会呈指数级增长，直到一切都是无稽之谈，每个人都有自己的写作。

And the second thing is that no one could remember them unless they were written down in a retrievable way.

第二件事是，除非以可检索的方式写下来，否则没有人能记住它们。

05:34 So they invented not only writing, they invented lexicography, which means that early in the third millennium, they put down all the things that were made of wood, and all the things that were made of reeds, and all the names of colors and of countries and all the gods and everything.

因此，他们不仅发明了文字，还发明了词典编纂学，这意味着在第三个千年初期，他们记下了所有用木头制成的东西，所有用芦苇制成的东西，以及所有颜色和国家的名称以及所有神的名称和一切。

They made a systematic attempt to make these signs to standardize them and to make them retrievable, and of course, to teach them.

他们进行了系统性的尝试，使这些符号标准化，并使它们可检索，当然，还可以教授它们。

And having exercised that rigor from the outset, it meant that the thing became streamlined and stayed more or less as it was all the way through, for three millennia or more.

从一开始就运用了这种严格性，这意味着事情变得流线型，并且在三千年或更久的时间里或多或少地保持着自始至终的状态。

Because the stamp put on it by those early visionaries, not only who came up with the system and how it would work, but to preserve it and to safeguard it, was fantastically effective.

因为那些早期有远见的人在它身上留下的印记，不仅是谁提出了这个系统以及它如何运作，而且是保护它和维护它，都非常有效。

06:26 So, it means that there were scholars in Babylon in the third century or the second century, when Alexander was there, for example.

因此，这意味着在三世纪或二世纪巴比伦就有学者，例如亚历山大在的时候。

If somebody dug up a tablet in very early writing, they would have a pretty good idea what it meant.

如果有人在很早的文字中挖出一块泥板，他们就会很清楚它的含义。

They would recognize the signs even though they were so ancient, and they’d see the relationships between them.

即使这些标志如此古老，他们也会认出它们，并且会看到它们之间的关系。

So, you have a fantastically strong system where the spinal cord was structured in a lexicographic, regular system.

所以，你有一个非常强大的系统，其中脊髓是按照字典顺序构建的、规则的系统。

So, lexicography and what the signs were was jealously safeguarded and protected, and it lasted fantastically.

因此，词典编纂和符号都受到小心翼翼的维护和保护，而且它的持续时间非常长。

We should say that the name of that system that lasted for 3,000 years is cuneiform.

应该说，这个延续了3000年的系统的名字是楔形文字。

Yeah.

是的。

07:10 So in the 19th century, about 1840, 1850, they started to find these things on excavations in Iraq, the big Assyrian cities and sometimes further south, the Babylonian cities.

因此，在 19 世纪，大约 1840 年、1850 年，他们开始在伊拉克、亚述大城市，有时甚至在更南边的巴比伦城市的发掘中发现这些东西。

They found these clay tablets, which in the ground lasted unimaginable lengths of time.

他们发现了这些泥板，它们在地下持续了难以想象的时间。

And they were all written in what we call cuneiform script.

它们都是用我们所说的楔形文字书写的。

And the cuneiform part of it means wedge-shaped, because “cuneus” in Latin means wedge.

它的楔形文字部分意味着楔形，因为“cuneus”在拉丁语中是楔子的意思。

And when they first saw these signs, they realized that a cluster of marks broke down into different arrangements of triangular shapes.

当他们第一次看到这些标志时，他们意识到一组标志分解成不同的三角形排列。

And it’s most clear on the Assyrian reliefs where the writing is very big and you can easily tell that they were that shape.

亚述浮雕上的字迹非常大，你可以很容易地看出它们就是那种形状。

On a tablet, the wedge is not quite so predominant.

在平板电脑上，楔形并不是那么占主导地位。

So, that was it.

所以，就是这样。

08:02 So, they first called them cuneatic or cuneiform, and the word stuck.

因此，他们首先称它们为楔形文字或楔形文字，这个词就被沿用下来了。

And of course, growing up in the British Museum and reading these things for a living becomes a kind of lifetime’s work to make sure that everybody in the country knows what cuneiform means.

当然，在大英博物馆长大并以阅读这些东西为生成为一种终生的工作，以确保这个国家的每个人都知道楔形文字的含义。

Because once in a while you meet somebody who never heard of the word at all, and this is appalling.

因为偶尔你会遇到一个根本没有听说过这个词的人，这是令人震惊的。

So, people do survive, however.

然而，人们确实生存下来。

But it’s an important mission because such an achievement by man and so much knowledge was encapsulated in these lumps of clay, because they used it for everyday things like letters and business documents and contracts.

但这是一项重要的使命，因为人类的如此成就和如此多的知识被封装在这些粘土块中，因为他们将其用于信件、商业文件和合同等日常事务。

This is one thing.

这是一回事。

And then the kings wrote long, elaborate accounts of their campaigns and their military activities.

然后，国王们写下长篇详尽的记述，记录他们的战役和军事活动。

08:46 And then there was proper literature and magic and medicine and all other genres of literature that we would naturally list on a sheet of paper in alphabetic writing, what you would use writing for.

然后还有适当的文学、魔法、医学以及所有其他类型的文学，我们自然会以字母顺序在一张纸上列出它们，以及您将使用书写的目的。

They basically did.

他们基本上做到了。

And it had the unexpected quality that most of these clay things lasted in the ground until now.

而且它具有意想不到的品质，大多数这些粘土物品一直留在地下直到现在。

So, however many hundreds of thousands of tablets are in the world’s museums and collections, there must be millions of them in the ground awaiting excavation.

因此，无论世界各地的博物馆和收藏品中有数十万块石板，地下肯定还有数百万块石板等待挖掘。

So in a way that’s a comforting thought, because they’re safe there and protected.

因此，从某种程度上来说，这是一个令人欣慰的想法，因为他们在那里很安全并受到保护。

You said that the development of cuneiform, of these tablets, of written language is one of the greatest, probably the greatest invention in human history.

你说楔形文字、这些泥板和书面语言的发展是人类历史上最伟大的发明之一，可能是最伟大的发明。

09:26 How hard do you think it was to come up with this?

你认为想出这个有多难？

And we should make clear that that very specific element of encoding sound on the tablet, that’s the genius invention.

我们应该明确的是，在平板电脑上编码声音的非常具体的元素，这是天才的发明。

Drawing a picture makes sense.

画一幅画是有道理的。

Okay, here’s, you know, barley.

好吧，这是，你知道的，大麦。

Here’s the sun.

这是太阳。

Here’s whatever, the actual object.

这就是实际的物体。

Exactly.

确切地。

But to actually write down sound is a genius invention.

但真正写下声音是一项天才的发明。

Well, I think it’s rather paradoxical, because the first generation or so of tablets that we have are written in these pictographic signs where each sign means what it looks like.

嗯，我认为这是相当矛盾的，因为我们拥有的第一代左右的平板电脑是用这些象形符号书写的，每个符号都代表它看起来的样子。

10:05 So, this is a very limited method of recording messages, and it doesn’t lend itself to recording grammar.

因此，这是一种非常有限的记录消息的方法，并且不适合记录语法。

And then the secondary phase, as we understand it from archaeology, is the perception that you could take these signs, still meaning what they look like but also what the words sounded like.

然后，第二阶段，正如我们从考古学中理解的那样，是一种感知，即你可以接受这些标志，仍然意味着它们的外观，以及单词听起来的样子。

So, then you have all these wonderful ice cubes which express all the sounds of the language from which you can record words and grammar and everything else.

所以，你就拥有了所有这些美妙的冰块，它们表达了语言的所有声音，你可以从中记录单词、语法和其他一切。

Now, the thing is, the received law from Assyriology is it was that way around, that first we had pictures and secondly we had sound.

现在，问题是，亚述学公认的法则是这样的，首先我们有图像，其次我们有声音。

10:55 Well, I have to say, I find this very hard to believe, because if you had a group of people in an environment where it was compellingly necessary to make a system that you made marks on a surface which everybody could understand and use, why wouldn’t you start out with signs that made sounds?

好吧，我不得不说，我发现这很难相信，因为如果你有一群人在一个环境中，迫切需要制作一个系统，你可以在每个人都能理解和使用的表面上做标记，那么你为什么不从发出声音的标志开始呢？

Because everybody speaks the same language, right?

因为每个人都说同一种语言，对吗？

So, they didn’t have A, B, C, D, E, F, G, but they could easily work out all the vowels and consonants without naming them as vowels and consonants, but they’re component parts.

所以，他们没有A、B、C、D、E、F、G，但他们可以很容易地算出所有的元音和辅音，而不用将它们命名为元音和辅音，但它们是组成部分。

So, they could have had signs that started out…

所以，他们可能有开始的迹象……

Because if you decided you had…

因为如果你决定你有......

We have 26, let’s say they had 50 signs that would create the sound, they could write anything without any further trouble.

我们有 26 个，假设他们有 50 个可以发出声音的符号，他们可以写任何东西，没有任何进一步的麻烦。

11:44 So, I find it very bewildering that they started off with the least flexible and the least adaptable system of pictographs and then they moved on to the sound.

所以，我觉得很困惑，他们从最不灵活、最不适应性的象形文字系统开始，然后转向声音。

I don’t know why they bothered with it.

我不知道他们为什么要为此烦恼。

And my hunch is that the archaeological evidence that we have on this score is ultimately misleading, because I think this: that probably for a very, very long time before the Sumerians, people in the world, the world of what we call the Middle East, were in contact.

我的预感是，我们在这方面所掌握的考古证据最终是误导性的，因为我认为：在苏美尔人、世界上的人们、我们所谓的中东世界之前，可能有很长一段时间存在接触。

They traded, they probably even had wars, and they had messages between them.

他们进行交易，甚至可能发生战争，并且他们之间有消息。

And I think there was a long running system of communication between people who didn’t share a language for whom pictures would suffice.

我认为，不同语言的人们之间存在着一个长期运行的交流系统，对他们来说，图片就足够了。

So, if merchants come and they have three sheep to sell, so they draw three little sheep.

所以，如果商人来了，他们有三只羊要卖，那么他们就画三只小羊。

12:35 You know how much it is and what they are and so forth.

你知道它有多少以及它们是什么等等。

And so I think that what happened with the Sumerians, with their pictographic signs, is that those signs are right at the end of a very, very, very long period of time, when somebody thought, “What we can do is take these stupid inhibited no smoking signs and write language.” That is what I think happened.

所以我认为苏美尔人的象形文字符号发生的事情是，这些符号是在非常、非常、非常长的一段时间结束时发生的，当时有人想，“我们能做的就是把这些愚蠢的禁止吸烟符号写下来。”我认为这就是发生的事情。

That’s what I think happened.

我认为这就是发生的事情。

Is this a controversial statement?

这是一个有争议的说法吗？

Highly controversial.

极具争议性。

13:05 Many Assyriologists would leave the room.

许多亚述学家会离开房间。

13:12 But I’m not scared of controversy because it’s natural.

但我并不害怕争议，因为这是自然的。

I mean, if you think about it, it’s natural because you don’t have to have an alphabet to divide your word into sounds, see?

我的意思是，如果你仔细想想，这很自然，因为你不需要字母表来将你的单词分成声音，明白吗？

For example, in Sumerian, you have a funny system, right?

例如，在苏美尔语中，你有一个有趣的系统，对吧？

You have a root, like “du,” which means “to go.” And then you have prefixes, like E or Mu or Ba, and one’s a passive, one’s an active, and this and this.

你有一个词根，比如“du”，意思是“去”。然后你有前缀，比如 E 或 Mu 或 Ba，一个是被动的，一个是主动的，还有这个和这个。

So when you have a sentence, you have one of the Mu, Ba, or E prefixes, then you have the root, and then you have things at the end.

所以当你有一个句子时，你有 Mu、Ba 或 E 前缀之一，然后你有词根，然后你有结尾的东西。

So it is called agglutinative by people who like to make things look more important than they are.

因此，那些喜欢让事情看起来比实际情况更重要的人将其称为“凝集”。

So you have the central thing, you slap stuff on the beginning, slap stuff on the end, and each particle creates a bit of meaning.

所以你有中心的东西，你在开头加上一些东西，在结尾处加上一些东西，每个粒子都会产生一点意义。

13:56 So you have a long verb which tells you, “He would’ve done it if he could, but he couldn’t,” kind of thing, in the form of the verb.

所以你有一个很长的动词，它以动词的形式告诉你，“如果他能的话，他就会这么做，但他不能”。

But the thing is, if you wanted to write it down, you and I decided to write it down, so the first thing we would do is have a sign Mu, and then we’d have Ba, and then we’d have E, because every five minutes people made those noises.

但问题是，如果你想写下来，你和我决定写下来，所以我们要做的第一件事就是标出 Mu，然后是 Ba，然后是 E，因为每五分钟人们就会发出这些声音。

You see what I mean?

你明白我的意思吗？

Yeah, absolutely.

是的，绝对是。

14:16 Do you think it’s possible we might find much, much older…

你认为我们有可能发现更老的东西吗？

I do

我愿意

…cuneiform-type tablets?

…楔形文字板？

Or pictographic-type tablets, before the cuneiform and its drawing type, and I’ll tell you why.

或者是象形文字板，在楔形文字及其绘图类型之前，我会告诉你原因。

14:26 Because there’s this marvelous site in Turkey called Gobekli Tepe.

因为土耳其有一个奇妙的地方，叫做哥贝克力石阵。

Oh yeah?

哦，是吗？

Do you know about Gobekli Tepe?

你了解哥贝克力石阵吗？

Yes, of course.

是的当然。

Well, everybody knows about the buildings and the architecture.

嗯，每个人都知道建筑物和建筑风格。

14:37 Everybody knows about it.

每个人都知道这件事。

If you go all the way through the photographs, which the archeologists unwisely put online, you will find in the middle of one color plate with lots of other things, a round green stone like a scarab from Egypt.

如果你仔细浏览考古学家不明智地放在网上的照片，你会发现在一个有很多其他东西的彩色板的中间，有一个圆形的绿色石头，就像来自埃及的圣甲虫。

That’s to say, it has an arched back and a flat bottom.

也就是说，它的背部是拱形的，底部是平的。

And on the flat bottom, there are hieroglyphic signs carved in the stone.

而在平坦的底部，石头上刻满了象形文字。

No one said anything about it at all, but it’s clear to me, A, that this was a stamp to ratify, where the carvings of the signs on clay or some other sealing material would leave an impression.

没有人对此说过任何话，但我很清楚，A，这是一张需要批准的邮票，在粘土或其他密封材料上雕刻的标志会留下印象。

It must be that.

一定是这样的。

So this is about 9000 BC.

所以这大约是公元前9000年。

15:26 Now when I was a boy at university, my professor said to me that the reason writing evolved in Mesopotamia is because they had complex cities with ziggurats and big buildings and lots of people and they had to organize everything, and so they invented writing to cope with it.

现在，当我还是个大学男孩时，我的教授对我说，书写在美索不达米亚发展的原因是因为他们有复杂的城市，有金字形神塔和大型建筑，还有很多人，他们必须组织一切，所以他们发明了书写来应对它。

Well, if they had to cope with that in Sumer in 3000 BC, they sure as hell had to do it at Gobekli Tepe, because they’ve hardly even begun to finish excavating the sites of…

好吧，如果他们必须在公元前 3000 年的苏美尔处理这个问题，那么他们肯定必须在哥贝克力石阵上解决这个问题，因为他们甚至还没有开始完成对……遗址的挖掘。

15:54 …Gobekli Tepe.

……哥贝克力石阵。

They go on and on like Manchester and Newcastle United.

他们就像曼彻斯特联队和纽卡斯尔联队一样继续前进。

And really, the old rule would be you could not have architecture like that, planned and built according to principle with all the different people.

事实上，旧的规则是你不能拥有这样的建筑，根据原则与所有不同的人一起规划和建造。

You couldn’t have that without writing in southern Iraq.

如果不在伊拉克南部写作，你就不可能拥有这样的经历。

So how come suddenly then 7,000 years earlier, they do it there?

那么，为什么他们突然在 7000 年前就在那里这么做了呢？

That, and that green stone shows that they had writing.

那个，还有那块绿色的石头表明他们有文字。

That was an official who sealed this, got the stuff or whatever it was, or it was his dad’s name or whatever it is, got a wiggly snake and a wiggly this.

那是一位官员密封了这个，得到了东西或其他东西，或者是他父亲的名字或其他东西，得到了一条蠕动的蛇和一条蠕动的这个。

That is pictographic writing.

那就是象形文字。

Maybe even as phonetic writing, I don’t know, but it was writing thousands of years before in the south.

也许是拼音文字，我不知道，但数千年前南方就有文字了。

And that’s what I think it is.

我就是这么认为的。

16:43 You know, people came with metal or precious stones from Anatolia.

你知道，人们从安纳托利亚带来了金属或宝石。

They knew that in the south they had lots and lots of stuff, they wanted to trade, they had to communicate.

他们知道南方有很多很多的东西，他们想要贸易，他们必须沟通。

And it’s basically like having a cigarette with an X through the middle.

这基本上就像是一支中间有 X 的香烟。

Everybody in the world knows what that means.

世界上每个人都知道这意味着什么。

They don’t know what the word for cigarette is in this language or cancer or filter or tobacco, it doesn’t matter.

他们不知道这种语言中的“香烟”、“癌症”、“过滤嘴”或“烟草”这个词是什么，但这并不重要。

It’s pictographic writing.

是象形文字。

We still use it.

我们仍然使用它。

And it’s above all kinds of mess.

它高于各种混乱。

And I think that was the prevailing system because I honestly believe that the people at this time were not stupid.

我认为这是普遍的制度，因为我真诚地相信当时的人们并不愚蠢。

They weren’t gorillas.

他们不是大猩猩。

They weren’t less advanced than we are.

他们并不比我们先进。

They were probably indistinguishable from what we are.

他们可能与我们没有什么区别。

17:25 So you have merchants and wanderers and people who say, “Let’s go down the river and see where we end up.” And people looking for money, looking for women, looking for everything.

因此，商人、流浪者和人们说：“让我们顺流而下，看看我们最终会去哪里。”人们寻找金钱，寻找女人，寻找一切。

I mean, that’s surely how it was.

我的意思是，事情确实就是这样。

But if you look at those Gobekli buildings with a skeptical eye, how it could be.

但如果你以怀疑的眼光看待那些哥贝克力建筑，你会发现事情怎么会这样。

I mean, the finish of it is astonishing, the structure of it, the vision of it.

我的意思是，它的完成、它的结构、它的愿景都是令人惊讶的。

So the workforce and the tools and the organization, you know, what do they do it with?

那么劳动力、工具和组织，你知道，他们是用什么来做的？

A megaphone?

扩音器？

“Your breakfast!” And all that kind of stuff.

“你的早餐！”诸如此类的事情。

No way.

决不。

No way.

决不。

So that’s a really controversial statement that…

所以这是一个非常有争议的声明……

It is really controversial

确实是有争议的

…at the time of Gobekli Tepe, there may have already been a writing system.

……在哥贝克力石阵时代，可能已经有了书写系统。

There was, because the thing is about it, that it’s a seal to ratify.

因为事情就是这样，所以这是一个需要批准的印章。

18:04 It’s not just a squiggle on a pot and you can say, “Oh, that’s just a piece of…” This is a finished thing with a flat surface.

它不仅仅是锅上的一个曲线，你可以说，“哦，那只是一块……”这是一个具有平坦表面的成品。

You press it down, so you have some contract, you have some building arrangement.

你按下它，这样你就有了一些合同，你就有了一些建筑安排。

That we’re paying for these bricks, whatever it was, and the official person had to squash it down and it leaves the impression.

我们正在为这些砖块付费，无论它是什么，而官方人员必须将其压扁，从而留下印象。

I mean, I am a great believer in Sherlock Holmes- …as a teaching system for intelligence and rationality and logic in thinking.

我的意思是，我非常相信福尔摩斯——……作为智力、理性和思维逻辑的教学体系。

I read those stories a million times when I was a kid, and one of the things which impresses me most of all was this point quoted by Holmes, not original to him, that it is theoretically possible to infer the Niagara Falls from a raindrop.

当我还是个孩子的时候，我读过这些故事一百万遍，其中最让我印象深刻的是福尔摩斯引用的这一点，这并非他原创，理论上可以从雨滴推断出尼亚加拉瀑布。

That’s a powerful statement.

这是一个强有力的声明。

18:52 Yeah.

是的。

It’s a powerful statement.

这是一个强有力的声明。

18:54 Well, that seal from Gobekli Tepe is a raindrop from which I infer writing, and it’s perfectly possible they all wrote on flat leaves.

嗯，哥贝克力石阵的印章是一滴雨滴，我从中推断出文字，而且很可能它们都写在扁平的叶子上。

After all, in many parts of the world, that’s what happened.

毕竟，在世界许多地方，这就是发生过的事情。

So, for example, in the Indus Valley, people write the most abject nonsense about the Indus Valley writing system, but all we have is seals, basically.

举例来说，在印度河谷，人们写下了关于印度河谷书写系统的最卑鄙的废话，但我们基本上只有印章。

So they are also for ratification purposes, and they have the name of the owner in three or four or maybe five signs, and it’s probably me, son of my dad, or milkman or whatever it is.

所以它们也是为了批准的目的，它们有三个或四个或五个标志的所有者的名字，这可能是我，我父亲的儿子，或者送奶工或其他什么。

And it’s obvious, it’s obvious that they had writing on a perishable material.

很明显，很明显他们在易腐烂的材料上写了字。

They can’t just have had inscribed stone seals, and many parts of India today write on palm leaf.

他们不可能只是刻有石印，今天印度的许多地方都在棕榈叶上写字。

Why should it be any different?

为什么它应该有所不同？

19:45 So people think, you know, “Oh, well, just because it’s now, it wouldn’t be then.” But actually, that argument is utterly, utterly fallacious, because the process of evolution is stymied left, right, and center by inertia.

所以人们会想，你知道，“哦，好吧，只是因为现在是这样，那时就不会了。”但实际上，这个论点是完全错误的，因为进化的过程受到惯性的左右和中心的阻碍。

Inertia is nearly as strong as evolution, and this is something that the people who talk about progress and ideas have no idea about.

惯性几乎和进化一样强大，这是那些谈论进步和思想的人所不知道的。

First of all, your whole line of work, you’re making me realize, is a kind of Sherlock Holmes type of process.

首先，你让我意识到，你的整个工作流程是一种夏洛克·福尔摩斯类型的过程。

20:07 The deciphering of the language, archaeology, of taking those pieces of evidence and trying to reconstruct a vision of that world.

破译语言、考古学、获取这些证据并试图重建那个世界的愿景。

And now you’re making me realize that even all the cuneiform tablets we have is just a raindrop compared to the waterfall of thousands of years of humans.

现在你让我意识到，与人类数千年的瀑布相比，即使我们拥有的所有楔形文字板也只是雨滴。

Yes, we have a lot, but it’s nothing in comparison with what existed.

是的，我们有很多，但与现有的相比，这根本不算什么。

20:39 But not only that, you see, we don’t have to decipher anymore.

但不仅如此，你看，我们不必再破译了。

We can read Akkadian or Babylonian, Sumerian pretty well fluently.

我们可以流利地阅读阿卡德语、巴比伦语、苏美尔语。

That’s not a problem.

那不是问题。

So the information which you can get from these sources, especially three millennia of sources, is very, very substantial.

因此，你可以从这些来源，尤其是三千年的来源中获得的信息非常非常丰富。

Very substantial, but it means that Assyriologists have the inbuilt idea that what we have is something like all there ever was, which is absurd.

非常重要，但这意味着亚述学家有一种内在的观念，即我们所拥有的东西就像曾经存在过的一切一样，这是荒谬的。

For example, there’s a period called the Ur III Period, where people lived in city-states.

例如，有一个时期叫乌尔三世时期，人们生活在城邦中。

They wrote very small account tablets by the thousand, and there were two or three major cities where this is the way they lived.

他们写了数千块很小的牌匾，有两三个主要城市就是他们的生活方式。

21:25 People had to bring tithes and offerings, and everything was recorded by what I always refer to, and people sympathize with, is the ancestors of the Inland Revenue, because everything had to be written down so that some schmuck could check it and fill out the ledger, and some other schmuck above him could okay it, so there’s no funny business or no mistakes.

人们必须带来什一税和奉献，一切都被记录下来，我总是提到，人们同情的是税务局的祖先，因为一切都必须写下来，以便某个笨蛋可以检查并填写分类帐，而他上面的其他笨蛋也可以接受它，所以没有有趣的事情或没有错误。

Now, the thing is, there are thousands of those tablets written in about 2100 to 2000 BC, thousands of them, about the size of a box of matches.

现在的问题是，大约有数千块写于公元前 2100 年至 2000 年的泥板，大约有一盒火柴那么大。

21:55 So people like to generalize about the Sumerians at this time of the world, but they probably all came out of two rooms, because they were dumped when they were no longer needed in some kind of room, and the archaeologists in the 19th century came down on these, and then all the locals came and they dug them up and they sold them all over the place, and they’ve gone all over the world.

所以人们喜欢对这个世界上的苏美尔人进行概括，但他们可能都是从两个房间里出来的，因为当他们不再需要在某种房间里时，他们就被扔掉了，19世纪的考古学家对这些进行了研究，然后所有的当地人都来了，他们把它们挖出来，到处卖，然后他们就跑到了世界各地。

Thousands and thousands of them, out of probably two storage rooms, which is not a whole culture or a whole country, or their whole history, or their belief systems.

成千上万的人，可能在两个储藏室里，这不是一个完整的文化或一个完整的国家，或他们的整个历史，或他们的信仰体系。

So our view of it is skewed by the nature of the material, and sometimes the material is opulent and benevolent, but not always, and sometimes the people who work with skewed material don’t even realize how skewed it is.

因此，我们对它的看法会受到材料的本质的影响，有时材料是丰富和仁慈的，但并非总是如此，有时使用扭曲材料的人甚至没有意识到它有多么扭曲。

22:47 I mean, you know, it’s quite remarkable.

我的意思是，你知道，这非常了不起。

So, in all your time of studying cuneiform tablets, do you sometimes late at night get a glimpse of the waterfall?

那么，在您研究楔形文字板的过程中，您有时会在深夜瞥见瀑布吗？

22:50 Like, can you imagine?

就像，你能想象吗？

Yes, I can imagine.

是的，我可以想象。

23:01 I can imagine easily, because once in a while, a library is discovered.

我很容易想象，因为偶尔会发现一个图书馆。

In the 1850s at Nineveh, which was the Assyrian capital, there was a fat king, king of the world, called Ashurbanipal, and he had a fantastic library, and he promoted it.

1850年代，在亚述首都尼尼微，有一位肥胖的国王，世界之王，名叫亚述巴尼拔（Ashurbanipal），他拥有一座很棒的图书馆，并大力宣传它。

He impounded tablets, he had them brought to Nineveh.

他扣押了药片，并让人将它们带到尼尼微。

He wanted all the prevailing knowledge and all knowledge from before under one roof.

他想要所有流行的知识和所有以前的知识都集中在一个屋檐下。

It was a kind of Alexandria thing.

这是一种亚历山大的事情。

So he was a trained scholar, and this is what he did, and they found it in the 19th century.

所以他是一位受过训练的学者，这就是他所做的，他们在 19 世纪发现了这一点。

They dug it up, Layard and those people.

他们把它挖了出来，莱亚德和那些人。

So what did they find?

那么他们发现了什么？

They found the tablets higgledy-piggledy all over the floor of a huge room and in the corridors and everything.

他们发现这些平板电脑乱七八糟地散落在一个大房间的地板上、走廊里和所有地方。

23:43 And lots of them broken and lots of them burnt.

其中很多都破损了，很多都被烧毁了。

So ever since then, until really quite recently, Assyriologists who spent all their…

所以从那时起，直到最近，亚述学家们花费了他们所有的……

Well, people who work on these Nineveh tablets spent all their time joining the bits together, and you have the story about Gilgamesh and the goddess who falls in love with him in the garden, and she wants to seduce him, and dot, dot, dot, you can’t find the bit…

嗯，制作这些尼尼微石碑的人花了所有的时间把这些碎片连接在一起，你有关于吉尔伽美什和在花园里爱上他的女神的故事，她想引诱他，但点，点，点，你找不到这些碎片......

So you look for another bit and you look for another bit.

所以你寻找另一位，你寻找另一位。

And gradually, they piece together the literature, and the assumption has always been that if you put them all together again, you’ll have the whole library.

渐渐地，他们将文献拼凑在一起，并且一直假设，如果你将它们再次组合在一起，你将拥有整个图书馆。

24:14 But it’s the absolute opposite.

但事实恰恰相反。

Because what happened was that the Babylonians in the south, in my opinion, they worked hand-in-glove with the Elamites from Iran.

因为在我看来，南方的巴比伦人与来自伊朗的埃兰人密切合作。

They had a pincer movement and they beat Assyria, they conquered Assyria.

他们进行了钳形攻势，他们击败了亚述，他们征服了亚述。

And they ran through the capital and they set fire to everything.

他们跑遍了首都，放火烧毁了一切。

Pinched all the women and took all the jewelry and all the gold.

掐死了所有的女人，夺走了所有的珠宝和黄金。

And people say that in a fit of pique, they destroyed the library.

人们说他们一怒之下毁掉了图书馆。

But they wouldn’t destroy the library because it was the giant brain from which the Assyrians ran a world empire, and it had all the knowledge in the world.

但他们不会摧毁图书馆，因为它是亚述人统治世界帝国的巨大大脑，它拥有世界上所有的知识。

They destroyed that?

他们毁掉了那个？

They spoke the same language, they had the same writing system.

他们说同样的语言，有同样的书写系统。

They’d have taken them all safely home, cart after cart after cart.

他们会把他们全部安全地带回家，一辆车接着一辆车。

24:58 And I think what’s left there is duplicates and broken things, the things that got dropped and everything, and that’s what everyone thinks it is.

我认为剩下的就是重复的、破损的东西、掉落的东西等等，这就是每个人的想法。

So this is also a controversial point.

所以这也是一个有争议的点。

You’re just nonstop…

你简直就是不停歇……

But it’s common…

但这很常见……

…starting trouble.

……开始麻烦了。

It’s common sense.

这是常识。

25:11 It’s common…

这很常见……

You’re gonna get both of us canceled today.

今天你会让我们俩都被取消。

But you see, the thing is, it’s predicated on the assumption that what we have is only what there was.

但你看，事实是，它是基于这样的假设：我们所拥有的只是曾经存在的。

25:14 And this is such a fallacy.

这是一个谬论。

It needs to be attacked left, right, and center.

需要向左、向右、中间攻击。

So, a lot of the cuneiform language is already deciphered.

因此，许多楔形文字已经被破译。

25:29 Can you speak to the deciphering process?

您能讲一下破译过程吗？

How hard is it?

有多难？

Maybe take us to this place for you yourself first learning a language, figuring out the puzzle of it.

也许带我们到这个地方，让你自己先学习一门语言，解决它的谜题。

How does it feel?

感觉如何？

What does it look like to a brain that doesn’t deeply understand it?

对于一个不能深入理解它的大脑来说，它是什么样子的？

And how do you then piece stuff together?

然后你如何将东西组合在一起？

Maybe you can go to the early days, sort of the Rosetta Stone of cuneiform.

也许你可以回到早期，有点像楔形文字的罗塞塔石碑。

That’s important.

这很重要。

26:01 Well, the first thing is how the cuneiform writing system works, because the crucial point, and once you see it, it makes a lot of things clear, is that they wrote in syllables.

嗯，第一件事是楔形文字书写系统是如何工作的，因为关键点是，一旦你看到它，很多事情就清楚了，那就是它们是用音节书写的。

So if you take the English alphabet, which of course they didn’t, you have the letter B, G, D, P, H, and so forth.

因此，如果你采用英文字母表（当然他们没有），你就会得到字母 B、G、D、P、H 等等。

They couldn’t write a consonant.

他们不会写辅音。

They couldn’t do that.

他们不能那样做。

So what they did is they had a vowel before a consonant or one after.

所以他们所做的就是在辅音之前或之后有一个元音。

Say you have “Ab” and “Ba.” But as they had four vowels, you had to have Ab and Ba, Ib and Bi, Ub and Bu, Eb and Be.

假设您有“Ab”和“Ba”。但由于它们有四个元音，所以必须有 Ab 和 Ba、Ib 和 Bi、Ub 和 Bu、Eb 和 Be。

26:43 So you had the range of things clustered around what we call a consonant.

所以你有一系列的东西聚集在我们所说的辅音周围。

So they had all those for all the letters, which gave them a basic system.

所以他们拥有所有字母的所有这些，这给了他们一个基本系统。

There was much more to it than that, and it was more complicated than that.

事情远不止这些，而且比这更复杂。

We don’t have to really go into it, but basically if you are a Babylonian and you want to write the word “museum,” which of course is one of the most important words in the English language and other languages too.

我们不必真正深入探讨它，但基本上，如果您是巴比伦人并且您想写“博物馆”这个词，这当然也是英语和其他语言中最重要的单词之一。

So what you would do is you would write the syllable mu-

所以你要做的就是写下音节 mu-

27:09 And then the sign “Z” and then the sign “um.” So you split the word up into its component syllables.

然后是“Z”符号，然后是“嗯”符号。所以你把这个词分成了它的组成音节。

When you read it in your mind, you squash them together into “museum.” That’s the basic system.

当你在脑海中读到它时，你就把它们挤在一起成为“博物馆”。这就是基本系统。

They had other signs which gave you a clue as to the meaning and the bits around the edge, but it’s basically syllabic writing.

他们还有其他标志可以让你了解其含义和边缘的部分，但它基本上是音节书写。

So when you go to university to study cuneiform, what you have to learn is all the signs and all their values, because unfortunately they didn’t just have one for each, they had multiple ones.

所以当你去大学学习楔形文字时，你必须学习的是所有的符号和它们的所有值，因为不幸的是它们不只是每个符号，而是有多个符号。

And the reason is not that they were mad or they wanted to make life hell, but because the syllables derive from the writing of Sumerian words.

原因并不是他们疯了或者他们想让生活变成地狱，而是​​因为这些音节源自苏美尔文字的书写。

So the Sumerian vocabulary had a lot of words that were probably differentiated by tone.

因此，苏美尔语词汇中有很多单词可能是通过声调来区分的。

28:07 So you might have “Ba” and then a rising “A” and then a lowering…

所以你可能会先听到“Ba”，然后是上升的“A”，然后是下降的……

and these signs all retain the “Ba” value even though there were no tones.

这些符号虽然没有声调，但都保留了“Ba”值。

So it means if you look at a sign list, there’s a lot of signs.

所以这意味着如果你看一下标志列表，就会发现有很多标志。

You have “Ba” number one, which is the common.

你有第一名“Ba”，这是常见的。

Then there’s “Ba” number two, “Ba” number three, and you have to learn them all.

然后是第二个“Ba”，第三个“Ba”，你必须全部学会。

And when you read, you have to learn how to do it.

当你阅读时，你必须学会​​如何去做。

So in the modern world, if you go to university to do Assyriology, which I hope you and all of your disciples will do as soon as possible, you actually have to cope with two languages: the Sumerian and the Babylonian.

因此，在现代世界，如果你去大学学习亚述学（我希望你和你所有的弟子尽快这样做），你实际上必须应对两种语言：苏美尔语和巴比伦语。

Now, the first thing is this, that the Babylonian language is a Semitic tongue, which although it’s extinct, is connected to or related to Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopic, Syriac.

现在，第一件事是，巴比伦语言是闪族语言，虽然它已经灭绝，但与希伯来语、阿拉姆语、阿拉伯语、埃塞俄比亚语、叙利亚语有联系或相关。

28:56 All that family of Semitic languages which are still alive, it’s an early example of one of those.

所有仍然存在的闪族语言家族，都是其中之一的早期例子。

So that when the decipherment came along, it was the Semitic dictionary that they fell back on to identify words, nouns, and roots.

因此，当破译出现时，他们依靠闪米特词典来识别单词、名词和词根。

The other language, which is Sumerian, the one when you stick bits in the beginning and stick bits at the end, is not only not Semitic, it’s not related to any other known language.

另一种语言是苏美尔语，它不仅不是闪米特语，而且与任何其他已知语言都没有关系。

Oh, no.

哦，不。

Yeah, this is a bewitching thing.

是的，这是一件令人着迷的事情。

29:26 It’s a bewitching thing to me, and this is how to understand it.

这对我来说是一件令人着迷的事情，这就是如何理解它。

Because the languages that we study in the world today, linguists study, they more or less all fall into a language group.

因为我们今天在世界上研究的语言，语言学家研究的语言，它们或多或少都属于一个语言组。

So you have Indo-European with Spanish, Italian, Latin, Hittite, and so forth, and that’s French, that’s one group.

所以印欧语系有西班牙语、意大利语、拉丁语、赫梯语等等，这是法语，这是一组。

And you have Germanic and you have Slavonic.

有日耳曼语和斯拉夫语。

And most languages, even the far-flung ones, fall into what can be seen to be maybe big and airy groups, their family like that.

大多数语言，甚至是那些分布广泛的语言，都属于看似庞大而飘逸的群体，就像他们的家族一样。

There’s not one for Sumerian.

没有一个适合苏美尔语。

So this means that the truth that languages do not exist in a vacuum but they’re part of a big family must always have been true.

因此，这意味着语言并不存在于真空中，而是一个大家庭的一部分，这一事实必定始终是正确的。

So that when writing arrives about 3000, say, 300 BC, to write properly.

因此，当文字出现大约 3000 年，比如说公元前 300 年时，就可以正确书写了。

30:19 It means that Sumerian was recorded just in time, but the big languages, maybe in China, in Russia, in somewhere else in Asia, that were related to Sumerian-

这意味着苏美尔语被及时记录下来，但主要语言，也许在中国，在俄罗斯，在亚洲其他地方，都与苏美尔语有关-

Are gone?

走了吗？

…

……

30:34 are all gone.

都消失了。

They’re gone forever and ever and ever, unless something amazing happens.

他们永远永远地消失了，除非有什么惊人的事情发生。

So we’ve got the one representative of this bizarre family.

所以我们找到了这个奇怪家庭的一位代表。

Is that-

难道是——

Amazing.

太棒了。

It is.

这是。

30:44 And it’s a very stimulating thing to imagine.

这是一件非常令人兴奋的事情。

I personally believe that Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens for sure had language, for sure they talked to one another.

我个人认为尼安德特人和早期智人肯定有语言，他们肯定可以互相交谈。

It’s impossible that they didn’t.

他们不可能没有。

The point came when they did, they did.

当他们这样做的时候，重点就来了，他们确实做到了。

And the Neanderthals, 800,000 years of living in Europe.

还有尼安德特人，他们在欧洲生活了 80 万年。

They had to deal with the Ice Age, they all lived together, they bring up their children.

他们必须应对冰河时代，他们住在一起，抚养他们的孩子。

You think they couldn’t speak anything?

你以为他们什么都不能说吗？

They have the same apparatus.

他们有相同的设备。

And if you have a human brain, then it responds to stimulus.

如果你有一个人脑，那么它就会对刺激做出反应。

And the more stimulus there is for communication, I mean, the idea that you and I are out hunting rhino…

我的意思是，你和我外出狩猎犀牛的想法越多，对交流的刺激就越多……

31:23 …and you say, “Legs.” Well, shut up, I’m concentrating.

……你说，“腿”。好吧，闭嘴，我集中注意力。

“Legs, legs.” And then I suddenly think, “Oh, I get it.

“腿，腿。”然后我突然想：“哦，我明白了。

You are legs.” Right?

你是腿。”正确的？

You only have to do that once, then you know who I am.

你只需要这样做一次，然后你就知道我是谁。

So I know that I’m me and that you are you.

所以我知道我是我，你是你。

So people who say that they couldn’t distinguish ego and all that, it’s absolutely stupid.

所以那些说他们无法区分自我和其他一切的人，这绝对是愚蠢的。

If you cut your hand with a knife, you sure as hell experience…

如果你用刀割伤你的手，你肯定会经历……

You sure as hell do.

你肯定会这么做。

It hurts.

好痛。

It hurts a lot.

很疼。

You might even bleed to death.

你甚至可能会失血过多而死。

But it’s not somebody else’s hand, and it’s your hand and it’s your existence and your life that’s threatened.

但这不是别人的手，而是你的手，是你的存在和你的生命受到了威胁。

You think people weren’t conscious that they were an entity?

你认为人们没有意识到他们是一个实体吗？

I don’t believe it.

我不相信。

And they probably had a way to express that with sounds.

他们可能有办法用声音来表达这一点。

Well, eventually, yes.

好吧，最终，是的。

32:10 Names.

名字。

I mean…

我的意思是……

Names

名称

…names the things, and then you have the idea that a label fixes to something.

……给事物命名，然后你就会想到标签可以固定在某些事物上。

32:13 Then the light bulb has gone on, and next minute you have rhino and you have skin and you have babies.

然后灯泡亮了，下一分钟你就有了犀牛，你有了皮肤，你就有了婴儿。

Because I think you have an idea, and the idea then drives the brain, and the brain has another idea.

因为我认为你有一个想法，这个想法就会驱动大脑，然后大脑就会产生另一个想法。

It works like fertility.

它的作用就像生育一样。

So what do you think is the motivation, the primary driver of developing written language?

那么您认为发展书面语言的动机、主要驱动力是什么？

32:31 Does it go hand-in-hand with civilization?

它与文明齐头并进吗？

I think that the media in which it appears is when there’s a lot of people living in an urban environment.

我认为它出现的媒体是当有很多人生活在城市环境中时。

32:40 And with rival institutions or the king or the government or all those sorts of…

与竞争对手的机构或国王或政府或所有这些......

…Things.

……事情。

And that’s why I think Gobekle Tepe must have been the same thing.

这就是为什么我认为哥贝克力石阵一定是同一件事。

I read somewhere that they’re all nomads and they only came to Gobekle Tepe three months a year.

我在哪里读到过，他们都是游牧民族，每年只来哥贝克力石阵三个月。

I mean, that cannot be true that they were nomads.

我的意思是，他们不可能是游牧民族。

Cannot be true.

不可能是真的。

To get the stone and someone has to draw on the ground the plan of the building, they have to work out how thick it’s going to be, how high it’s going to be.

为了拿到石头，有人必须在地上画出建筑物的平面图，他们必须计算出它的厚度、高度。

I mean, you can’t just like that, like gorillas.

我的意思是，你不能像大猩猩一样那样。

All right.

好的。

33:25 So deciphering, the process of deciphering.

所以破译，破译的过程。

So when I started, there were grammars and scientists and dictionaries.

所以当我开始的时候，有语法、科学家和词典。

33:28 Everything was marvelous.

一切都很棒。

It was all basically deciphered, all you had to do was get on with learning it.

基本上所有内容都已被破译，您所要做的就是继续学习。

But at the beginning, when the first tablets and bricks in cuneiform and stone inscriptions came to light, no one could read them.

但一开始，当第一批楔形文字和石刻的碑文和砖石问世时，没有人能读懂它们。

But they knew they were writing, but they didn’t know how to read them.

但他们知道自己在写，但不知道如何阅读。

And what happened was, like you said before, with the Rosetta Stone, it was something directly comparable, because there was an inscription of one of the Persian kings halfway up a mountain in a place called Bisutun, where this King Darius had written an account of his successful career in Elamite and in Babylonian and in Old Persian, a trilingual version.

正如你之前所说，罗塞塔石碑是可以直接比较的，因为在一个叫比苏屯的地方的半山腰上有一位波斯国王的铭文，这位国王大流士在那里用埃兰语、巴比伦语和古波斯语（三语版本）写下了他成功事业的记述。

34:18 And Old Persian, although it isn’t obviously an archaic form of the language, Persian is still alive, it was still alive in the 19th century.

还有古波斯语，虽然它显然不是该语言的古老形式，但波斯语仍然存在，它在 19 世纪仍然存在。

So since the Old Persian was written in a very simple style of cuneiform, they deciphered it, they twigged it was Old Persian, they read it in Persian, and they read the names Darayawush in Old Persian.

因此，由于古波斯语是用一种非常简单的楔形文字风格写成的，他们破译了它，他们认为它是古波斯语，他们用波斯语读它，他们用古波斯语读到达拉亚乌什这个名字。

And then suddenly, somebody realized that the other two columns were about the same length.

然后突然，有人意识到另外两根柱子的长度大致相同。

Brilliant.

杰出的。

What do you know?

你知道什么？

34:44 And the thing is, it said, “I am Darius the great king, king of the world, king of the…

事情是这样的，它说：“我是伟大的国王大流士，世界之王，......

son of…

…的儿子

diddly, diddly, diddly, diddly…

滴滴滴，滴滴滴，滴滴滴，滴滴滴……

grandson of…

…的孙子

diddly, diddly, diddly…” So there’s a whole paragraph with repeated things in the Persian which they could understand.

滴滴滴，滴滴滴，滴滴滴……”所以有一整段波斯语里重复的东西他们都能听懂。

So what do you know?

那么你知道什么？

They’re reiterated passages in the other two languages.

它们是用其他两种语言重复的段落。

So that was the key, that kind of…

所以这就是关键，那种……

the chisel that opened up cuneiform writing proper.

开启楔形文字的凿子。

And the thing was, they soon twigged that the language of the Babylonian was a Semitic tongue.

事实是，他们很快就发现巴比伦的语言是闪族语言。

And this was so important.

这非常重要。

I think the first word they discovered was the word for river, which is Ɔaru in Akkadian and نحر in Arabic and Aramaic.

我认为他们发现的第一个词是河流这个词，在阿卡德语中是 Ɔaru，在阿拉伯语和阿拉姆语中是 ׭р。

35:27 And when they realized that the word that corresponded to the Persian had this form, this was a gift, a gift of gold, because everybody immediately seized their Arabic and Hebrew dictionaries and started leafing through looking for words that would fit in the context.

当他们意识到对应于波斯语的单词有这种形式时，这是一份礼物，一份黄金礼物，因为每个人都立即拿起他们的阿拉伯语和希伯来语词典，开始翻阅寻找适合上下文的单词。

And they basically deciphered this inscription in that sort of way.

他们基本上就是以这种方式破译了这个铭文。

And of course, all the other inscriptions came in order, and there were lots and lots of difficulties which had to be resolved, but that’s the basic thing.

当然，其他的铭文都按顺序来了，还有很多很多的困难需要解决，但这是基本的事情。

And without that trilingual, I don’t know what would have happened.

如果没有三种语言，我不知道会发生什么。

I mean, I suppose it’s conceivable that in the very modern world, something might have happened.

我的意思是，我认为在现代世界中可能会发生一些事情。

But as it was, it was done by sheer brainpower, by very, very clever persons just doing it.

但事实上，这完全是靠脑力完成的，是由非常非常聪明的人完成的。

And they cracked it.

他们破解了它。

36:14 The Elamite language is much more difficult, but they got a lot of it too.

埃兰语要困难得多，但他们也掌握了很多。

So it was a very romantic thing because the inscription was carved on a mountain face far above the plain, and Henry Rawlinson, who was an upstanding young British officer who claimed to decipher cuneiform quite unjustifiably, climbed up there with some miserable kid and made squeezes of the whole thing overlooking the plain, thousands of feet up in the air, and brought those back, and they were used in the decipherment.

所以这是一件非常浪漫的事情，因为铭文刻在远高于平原的山面上，亨利·罗林森是一位正直的年轻英国军官，他声称自己毫无道理地破译了楔形文字，他和一些可怜的孩子爬到那里，在数千英尺高的空中挤压整个东西，俯瞰平原，然后把它们带回来，并用于破译。

So it’s very romantic.

所以这是非常浪漫的。

Wait a minute.

等一下。

36:46 More controversial statement from today.

从今天起更具争议性的声明。

Henry Rawlinson doesn’t deserve the credit for that?

亨利·罗林森不值得为此受到赞扬吗？

No, I don’t think he does.

不，我认为他不会。

36:52 He’s called the Father of Assyriology, but I think he’s the Stepfather of Assyriology because when he first got these inscriptions, he wrote a long book about it, which was almost entirely wrong.

他被称为亚述学之父，但我认为他是亚述学的继父，因为当他第一次得到这些铭文时，他写了一本关于它的长书，这几乎是完全错误的。

37:05 And there was a clergyman in Northern Ireland called Edward Hincks who lived in a place called Killyleagh and had five daughters and ran this church, who was possibly a card-carrying genius, if not jolly, jolly close.

北爱尔兰有一位名叫爱德华·辛克斯的牧师，他住在一个叫基利利的地方，有五个女儿，经营着这座教堂，他可能是一位名副其实的天才，即使不是快乐的天才。

And what happened with him was this: there was an ongoing competition, well, an ongoing challenge to decipher hieroglyphic writing, which Champollion usually gets the credit for, and Hincks was very interested in trying to decipher hieroglyphic ahead of the French.

他身上发生的事情是这样的：一场持续不断的竞争，嗯，破译象形文字的挑战持续不断，商博良通常会因此而获得赞誉，而辛克斯对试图在法国人之前破译象形文字非常感兴趣。

And he ran into a sort of dead end at one stage, and he thought he’d have a look at cuneiform to see if it was helpful.

他一度陷入了某种死胡同，他认为他应该看看楔形文字，看看是否有帮助。

37:46 And at the same time, he cracked it.

与此同时，他也破解了。

He worked out how it worked.

他弄清楚了它是如何工作的。

He realized that one sign can have more than one value of sound and of meaning because they are multivalent, the signs.

他意识到一个符号可以具有不止一种声音和意义的价值，因为符号是多价的。

I tried to shelter you from the horrible news…

我试图让你远离这个可怕的消息……

…But it’s not a walk in the park.

......但这不是在公园散步。

It takes about five years to…

大约需要五年时间才能……

you’d probably do it in about four, probably.

你可能会在大约四分钟内完成。

That is a compliment.

这是一种恭维。

38:11 I think you just complimented me.

我想你只是夸奖了我。

Thank you.

谢谢。

Thank you very much.

非常感谢。

So, you’re saying one sign that looks exactly the same might have different sounds given the context?

那么，你是说，一个看起来完全相同的标志在特定的上下文中可能有不同的声音？

Yeah, and you have to choose the right sound, and also different meaning as well.

是的，你必须选择正确的声音，以及不同的含义。

38:24 Because, for example, if you have a sign for the word hot, right?

因为，例如，如果你有一个表示“热”这个词的标志，对吧？

You can’t really have a picture sign for hot.

你不可能真的有一个图片标志来表示热。

It doesn’t make sense, but what they did is they did a drawing of a kind of complex thing with a brazier inside another sign, which meant hot.

这没有道理，但他们所做的是画了一种复杂的东西，在另一个标志内有一个火盆，这意味着热。

So that sign existed, but it also meant other things as well, and you had to choose the right one for the context.

所以这个标志是存在的，但它也意味着其他事情，你必须根据上下文选择正确的标志。

It’s…

这是……

all the context does matter.

所有的上下文都很重要。

I mean, it really is quite a matter for despair when you start cuneiform, because on top of everything else, they didn’t leave gaps between the words.

我的意思是，当你开始学习楔形文字时，这确实是一件令人绝望的事情，因为最重要的是，它们在单词之间没有留下间隙。

And that’s really…

那真的是……

So they’re all connected?

那么它们都是有联系的吗？

That’s really mean.

这真是太刻薄了。

39:05 Yeah.

是的。

So when you read, what you have to do is start with the first sign, and you think of the sign, this, and you go through the values in your mind, and there’s the next sign.

所以当你阅读时，你要做的就是从第一个标志开始，然后你想到这个标志，然后你在脑海中浏览一下价值观，然后就会出现下一个标志。

And if one is ‘ba’ and the next one is ‘ab’ among other readings, ba-ab sounds like a syllable structure for a word, and you go on like that.

如果一个是“ba”，下一个是“ab”，那么 ba-ab 听起来就像一个单词的音节结构，然后继续这样下去。

So there are two things about it.

所以有两件事。

One is that if you want to, you can master it.

一是只要你愿意，就能掌握。

The other thing is that the number of variables was restricted.

另一件事是变量的数量受到限制。

They controlled it so it wasn’t insane.

他们控制住了它，所以它并不疯狂。

So in other words, if you learn the corpus and you learn how the signs are composed and you learn their different values, then you’ve got it down.

换句话说，如果你学习了语料库，了解了符号的组成方式，了解了它们的不同值，那么你就已经掌握了它。

And off you go.

然后你就走吧。

And it’s very beautiful, I think.

我认为它非常漂亮。

It’s marvelous.

太棒了。

Can you, in all seriousness, take me back to the time when you were learning it?

你能认真地带我回到你学这门课的时候吗？

39:51 What’s the process of learning it?

学习它的过程是怎样的？

Well, I had a very abnormal upbringing because when I went to university, for about three years beforehand, I’d wanted to be an Egyptologist.

嗯，我的成长经历非常不正常，因为当我上大学时，大约三年前，我想成为一名埃及古物学家。

39:57 So I read the grammar by Gardiner and was looking forward very much to studying ancient Egyptian.

所以我读了加德纳的语法，非常期待学习古埃及语。

What happened was that I went up to the University of Birmingham, where I went to university, and there was a man called Rundle Clark, who was an Egyptologist.

发生的事情是，我去了伯明翰大学，在那里我上大学，那里有一个叫朗德尔克拉克的人，他是埃及古物学家。

Rundle Clark came in on the Monday and gave us one lesson about Egyptian sculpture or something like that, and the next minute, next day, he died.

伦德尔·克拉克星期一来了，给我们上了一堂关于埃及雕塑之类的课，然后下一分钟，第二天，他就死了。

Bang.

砰。

40:38 So the professor called me into his room and said, “Look, it’s going to take me a while to get an Egyptologist.

于是教授把我叫进他的房间，说道：“看，我需要一段时间才能找到一位埃及古物学家。

They don’t grow on trees, but there’s another person in this department who teaches another ancient language called Lambert, and he teaches cuneiform.

它们不是长在树上的，但是这个部门还有另一个人教授另一种古老的语言，叫做兰伯特，他教楔形文字。

So what I suggest is you go and do a bit of cuneiform with Professor Lambert, and then when I get an Egyptologist, you can convert back.” So I went and knocked on the door.

所以我建议你去和兰伯特教授学一点楔形文字，然后当我找到埃及古物学家时，你就可以转换回来。”于是我就去敲门。

“Yes?” So I went in and said, “I want to learn cuneiform.” And Professor Lambert, who was rather a Sherlock Holmes kind of figure—aesthetic, bony, sarcastic…

“是的？”所以我进去说：“我想学习楔形文字。”还有兰伯特教授，他有点像夏洛克·福尔摩斯那样的人物——审美、骨感、讽刺……

Cruel-

残酷——

Cruel.

残酷。

…cruel, absolutely terrifying.

……残酷，绝对可怕。

41:20 And I said I wanted to learn cuneiform, and he wasn’t at all pleased because this was a time in Britain when professors resented having students to teach because it cut into their research time.

我说我想学习楔形文字，他一点也不高兴，因为在英国，当时教授们讨厌让学生来教书，因为这会占用他们的研究时间。

It was that sort of arrangement.

就是这样的安排。

Anyway, I started it, and after about, I don’t know, maybe one or two lessons, I knew this was going to be my life’s work.

不管怎样，我开始了，大约之后，我不知道，也许一两节课，我知道这将是我一生的工作。

So that’s what happened to me.

这就是我身上发生的事情。

It was an amazing thing.

这是一件了不起的事情。

So he gave me a list of basic signs to learn.

所以他给了我一份需要学习的基本标志清单。

I did, and in the next couple of days, then we came in and we started reading.

我这样做了，在接下来的几天里，我们进来并开始阅读。

So given the complexity of the signs, why did cuneiform last 3,000 years?

那么，鉴于符号的复杂性，为什么楔形文字能够持续 3000 年呢？

42:02 The most successful writing system ever.

有史以来最成功的书写系统。

Fair question.

公平的问题。

42:12 There are several factors.

有几个因素。

One is the famous factor of inertia- The second thing is that people who could read and write and were in charge of archives, and were the clerks in the temple, and the writers for the king and everything, commanded a very great deal of power because most of the public couldn’t.

一是著名的惯性因素——第二件事是，那些会读写、负责档案、寺庙里的职员、国王和一切事物的撰稿人，掌握着很大的权力，因为大多数公众不能。

So they reserved to themselves knowledge, understanding, philosophical inquiry.

因此，他们为自己保留了知识、理解和哲学探究。

I mean, no doubt it went on in pubs and things, but they were in charge.

我的意思是，毫无疑问，这种情况在酒吧和其他地方发生，但他们负责。

They had everything under lock and key.

他们把所有东西都锁在钥匙里。

And I think the scribal schools were rather cliquey.

我认为抄写学校相当拉帮结派。

They were certainly cliquey in the sense of Oxford and Cambridge being rivals, that sort of thing.

从牛津和剑桥是竞争对手之类的意义上来说，他们当然是小集团。

43:02 They had that sort of idea.

他们有这样的想法。

And it was in no one’s interest whatsoever.

这根本不符合任何人的利益。

Nobody would ever concede any interest in the idea of literacy for all.

没有人会对全民识字的想法表示兴趣。

This would be—it would never be thought of, and it would be anathema.

这将是——这将是永远不会被想到的，这将是令人厌恶的。

And so if you got on a soapbox on a Saturday afternoon and said, “Oh, enough of this, we have to teach the children,” they’d be taken away, I think.

因此，如果你在周六下午在演讲台上说：“哦，够了，我们必须教孩子们，”我想他们会被带走。

So we’re getting, in these tablets, the output of the intellectual class, a very small fraction of-

因此，在这些平板电脑中，我们得到的是知识阶层的产出，其中的一小部分——

We are

我们是

…humans.

……人类。

We are.

我们是。

So we’re getting just the Oxford and the Cambridge.

所以我们只得到牛津和剑桥。

We are, except that when you went to scribal school, you had to learn Sumerian and Akkadian, the languages properly, and all the vocabulary and the grammar.

我们是，只不过当你去抄写学校时，你必须学习苏美尔语和阿卡德语，正确的语言，以及所有的词汇和语法。

43:45 So some boys probably had a lot of trouble doing this.

所以有些男孩可能在做这件事时遇到了很多困难。

And, you know, they were okay, but then there ain’t gonna be no geniuses.

而且，你知道，他们还不错，但那就不会有天才了。

And I think the situation in the school was that the teachers farmed out the kids who would actually rather have been outside playing football but could read and write, to earning their living doing low-level reading and writing.

我认为学校的情况是，老师们把那些实际上宁愿在外面踢足球但会读书写字的孩子们送出去，让他们靠低水平的读书和写作谋生。

That’s to say writing contracts, letters, everyday things for people.

也就是说，为人们写合同、信件、日常用品。

Because no one could read and write, so you had to get a scribe if you’re gonna marry your daughter off, and you get all the witnesses about the presence and all this, all that thing had to be done for four days.

因为没有人会读和写，所以如果你要把你的女儿嫁出去，你就必须找一名抄写员，并且你要得到所有关于在场的证人以及所有这一切，所有这些事情都必须在四天内完成。

So the writer would come and do…

所以作家会过来做……

So your medium-level writers would serve that requirement.

所以你的中等水平的作家就能满足这个要求。

44:35 And very talented or clever or intellectual students would be encouraged to go into one of the literary professions, which would be, so to speak, medicine, law, working for the king, working for the church, I mean, the priesthood.

非常有才华、聪明或知识分子的学生将被鼓励进入文学职业之一，可以说是医学、法律、为国王工作、为教会工作，我的意思是，神职人员。

All those things which were dependent upon archives and writing, they would find their niveau.

所有那些依赖于档案和文字的东西，他们都会找到它们的niveau。

And also architecture, because if a big building had to be built, then somebody had to know about load-bearing things and brick measurements.

还有建筑，因为如果必须建造一座大型建筑，那么就必须有人知道承重和砖块尺寸。

And so some of them went into that kind of work.

所以他们中的一些人从事了这类工作。

And also, probably some of them went into running the army.

而且，他们中的一些人可能还参与了军队的管理。

You had to move stores and animals and…

你必须移动商店和动物，然后……

45:17 So they found their niveau, and some of them were intellectually very able indeed, and they went into the disciplines of, on the one hand astrology, but more seriously into astronomy and theoretical grammar.

所以他们找到了自己的目标，其中一些人确实在智力上非常有能力，他们一方面进入占星学学科，但更认真地进入天文学和理论语法。

Because they had treatises about the relationship between the two languages and how they worked and different parts of speech, and they wrote learned commentaries as well, what words meant.

因为他们有关于两种语言之间的关系、它们如何工作以及不同词性的论文，而且他们还写了有学问的评论，了解单词的含义。

So there was an intellectual high-level top, and then there were lots of professional scribes, and then the kids who left school as soon as possible and did all that, like today.

所以有一个知识分子高层，然后有很多专业抄写员，然后是尽快离开学校并做了所有这些的孩子，就像今天一样。

I apologize to be philosophical, but Wittgenstein, the philosopher, said, “The limits of our language is the limits of our world.” To what degree did the languages that were encoded in cuneiform define human civilization, would you say?

很抱歉我的观点是哲学性的，但哲学家维特根斯坦说：“我们语言的限制就是我们世界的限制。”您认为用楔形文字编码的语言在多大程度上定义了人类文明？

45:57 What were the things that were complicated to express and therefore were not expressed often?

有哪些事情表达起来很复杂，因此不经常表达？

That’s a really an interesting question.

这真是一个有趣的问题。

46:21 So in terms of richness of vocabulary and richness of verbal subtlety, I think Babylonian rivals Arabic and of course English.

因此，就词汇的丰富性和言语微妙性而言，我认为巴比伦语可以与阿拉伯语相媲美，当然还有英语。

You know, in other words, you can say whatever you want in English- …however subtle it might be, even if people understand the subtlety.

你知道，换句话说，你可以用英语说任何你想说的话——……无论它多么微妙，即使人们理解其中的微妙之处。

You can, because the tools are fantastic.

你可以，因为这些工具非常棒。

And Arabic has lots of synonyms and lots of devices, and all the same.

阿拉伯语有很多同义词和很多手段，但都是一样的。

Same in Babylonian.

巴比伦语也一样。

It was a fully-fledged literary language.

这是一种成熟的文学语言。

The question about whether the language put a stop to further things, which is basically what you’re asking…

关于语言是否会阻止进一步的事情的问题，这基本上就是你要问的......

47:05 …is immensely complicated.

……非常复杂。

But the one thing that strikes me as relevant is that a very huge proportion of scholarly literature in Mesopotamia takes the form of omens, because they believed that events, accidental or deliberately stimulated, had implications for what was going to happen.

但令我印象深刻的一件事是，美索不达米亚的学术文献中有很大一部分采用预兆的形式，因为他们相信事件，无论是偶然的还是故意刺激的，都会对即将发生的事情产生影响。

47:29 And they took omens from things in the sky and things in the street, every single thing.

他们从天上、街上的每件事物中获取预兆。

If you were a well-qualified diviner, it would have this significance, right?

如果你是一个资质不错的占卜师，那就有这个意义吧？

Now, there are thousands of lines of omens of all different kinds.

现在，各种预兆有数千行。

And in Akkadian it says, for example, “If a lizard runs across the breakfast table, the queen will die.” So if you translate the Akkadian this way, the word “if,” verb and everything, “If that, then this.” So there are thousands upon thousands of lines translated into many books about omens where, “If this happens, that will happen.” So this is how it’s understood by my colleagues.

例如，在阿卡德语中，“如果蜥蜴跑过早餐桌，女王就会死。”因此，如果你这样翻译阿卡德语，“如果”这个词、动词和所有的东西，“如果那样，那么这个”。因此，有成千上万的行被翻译成许多关于预兆的书，其中“如果这发生了，那就会发生。”我的同事们是这么理解的。

48:15 Well, this is absolutely impossible, because if you’re the chief diviner for the king, and you open up a sheep to take a liver out and examine it according to the…

嗯，这是绝对不可能的，因为如果你是国王的首席占卜师，你把一只羊剖开，取出肝脏，按照……

And if the queen’s gonna die and the king’s there, you’re not gonna say, “The queen’s gonna die.” I mean, you’re gonna look a fucking idiot if she doesn’t die.

如果女王要死而国王在那里，你就不会说：“女王要死了。”我的意思是，如果她不死，你就会看起来像个白痴。

48:36 And if she does die, you’re gonna be responsible.

如果她真的死了，你就要负责。

So all you can ever do and ever, ever have been able to do is to say, “There’s a sign here that says that the queen could die,” meaning “could die,” not “will die.” And therefore, the requisite ritual or magic must immediately swing into action to defer the danger.

所以你能做的、永远能够做的就是说，“这里有一个标志说女王可能会死”，意思是“可能会死”，而不是“会死”。因此，必要的仪式或魔法必须立即采取行动以推迟危险。

So the point is that A equals B is never true.

所以重点是 A 等于 B 从来都不是真的。

It means that with A, B could be, might be, ought to be, should be, could be true, all those subtle things.

这意味着对于 A，B 可能是、可能是、应该是、应该是、可能是真的，所有这些微妙的事情。

So that the diviner who works for the king must have been a philosopher who looks at the king, and he knows what the king wants him to say.

所以为国王工作的占卜师一定是一位看着国王的哲学家，他知道国王要他说什么。

So he has to tell the king what he wants to hear.

所以他必须告诉国王他想听的话。

He has to tell the king if it’s bad news in such a way that he doesn’t mind it or he won’t worry.

如果这是坏消息，他必须以他不介意或不担心的方式告诉国王。

49:32 It’s the most beautiful thing.

这是最美丽的事情。

It’s so subtle.

太微妙了。

It’s like a violin concerto.

这就像一首小提琴协奏曲。

It can never have been A equals B for a minute.

A 不可能在一分钟内等于 B。

So the medical texts say, “If you do…

所以医学文献上说：“如果你这样做……

If a man has this,” doo-dee-dee-doo, you know?

如果一个男人有这个，”doo-dee-dee-doo，你知道吗？

“You do this, your drink’s…” He’ll get better, right?

“你这样做，你的饮料……”他会好起来的，对吧？

He says, “You’ll get better.” So have you ever met a doctor who will say, “You do this, you’ll get better”?

他说：“你会好起来的。”那么你是否遇到过医生会说：“你这样做，你就会好起来”？

No.

不。

They say, “All being well, you’ll be back on your feet.” Or, “I’ve seen this kind of condition many times, everything should go fine.

他们说：“一切顺利，你就会重新站起来。”或者，“这种情况我已经见过很多次了，一切都应该很顺利。

You should get better, you should be better soon.” But never, “You will get better,” because what happens if you die?

你应该好起来，你应该很快就会好起来。”但永远不要说“你会好起来”，因为如果你死了会发生什么？

Where are you?

你在哪里？

Th- the lawyers will show up.

律师会出现的。

Absolutely.

绝对地。

50:12 So this means that not expressible in Akkadian grammar are these modal verbs…

所以这意味着这些情态动词在阿卡德语语法中无法表达......

…Could, might, should, ought.

……可以、可能、应该、应该。

They can’t be expressed grammatically, but it is impossible that it was such a magnificent literary language where they didn’t have these subtleties.

它们无法用语法来表达，但如此宏伟的文学语言不可能没有这些微妙之处。

It’s utterly impossible.

这是完全不可能的。

And if you translate, “He will,” in a literary text, “He might,” then the whole text is different.

如果你把文学文本中的“He will”翻译成“He might”，那么整个文本就会不同。

The whole text is different.

整个文本是不同的。

Yeah, absolutely.

是的，绝对是。

And, and they don’t…

而且，他们不……

50:46 My colleagues translate…

我的同事翻译...

It says in the grammar books, ne-ne-ne-ne-ne, like that, automatically.

语法书上会自动地说，ne-ne-ne-ne-ne，就像那样。

There’s no self-appraisal of the folly of it.

没有人自我评价它的愚蠢。

You have said the translation is part archeology, part detective work, part poetry.

你说过翻译部分是考古学，部分是侦探作品，部分是诗歌。

50:57 Can we just speak about translation and the art of it a bit more?

我们可以多谈谈翻译及其艺术吗？

Yes.

是的。

I mean, it’s such a, such an incredible discipline.

我的意思是，这是一门非常非常令人难以置信的学科。

51:06 Just like you said, hinted at, just a subtle variation in a single word can change everything.

就像你所说的，暗示的，仅仅一个词的细微变化就可以改变一切。

Well, you know, the truth about translation is that you never really have a word in one language which precisely equates another.

嗯，你知道，关于翻译的事实是，一种语言中永远不会有一个单词与另一种语言完全等同。

51:16 You never do.

你永远不会。

They’re always a kind…

他们总是一种……

The best you can do.

你能做的最好的。

And sometimes it makes no difference, and sometimes it’s really quite misleading.

有时它没有什么区别，有时它确实很容易产生误导。

And so what people do when they learn Akkadian, is they learn the Akkadian word and they learn the English translation, right?

那么人们在学习阿卡德语时所做的就是学习阿卡德语单词并学习英语翻译，对吧？

You have, “To divide.” So whenever you have the verb, it’s some form of divide or division.

你有“划分”。所以每当你有动词时，它都是某种形式的划分或划分。

But actually, it’s not, because divide is like the primary root, but there’s maybe 10 nuances of what that can mean in English, where the one at the bottom and the one at the top, you’d hardly know they were connected.

但实际上并非如此，因为“divide”就像主词根，但它在英语中的含义可能有 10 个细微差别，其中底部的一个和顶部的一个，你几乎不知道它们是相互关联的。

52:02 And the Chicago Dictionary, which is such a magnificent thing, when you come to the museum and see me- …I’ll show you this.

还有《芝加哥词典》，这是一件了不起的事情，当你来到博物馆看到我时——……我会给你看这个。

It’s the most salient and important thing that came out of America in all its history, is the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, which is this long.

美国历史上最突出、最重要的东西就是这么长的《芝加哥亚述词典》。

There’s only one rival to it for cultural importance, which is the electric guitar, of course.

在文化重要性方面，只有一种可以与它相媲美，当然就是电吉他。

But the two of them, I think, are your countrymen’s greatest achievement.

但我认为，他们两人是你们同胞最伟大的成就。

It’s the pride of our nation-

这是我们民族的骄傲——

I think so

我想是的

…

……

52:31 those two things.

这两件事。

The very thing.

正是这件事。

Chicago Dictionary…

芝加哥词典...

52:33 Can you…

你能……

I’m sorry to take the attention.

很抱歉引起大家的注意。

What is the Chicago Dictionary?

什么是《芝加哥词典》？

It started in the ’20s, and they made a dictionary of the Babylonian language.

从二十世纪二十年代开始，他们制作了一本巴比伦语词典。

Ah.

啊。

A, A to Z, so to speak.

A，A到Z，可以这么说。

52:42 And it’s as long as this table.

而且和这张桌子一样长。

It’s magnificent thing, and this big.

这是一件了不起的事情，而且这么大。

And the people who worked on it were real translators, so they knew that it wasn’t lexically A means B, but they had…

从事这项工作的人都是真正的翻译者，所以他们知道这在词汇上并不是 A 意味着 B，但他们……

So if you have something in a proverb, the meaning is going to be a little bit different from in their letter.

因此，如果谚语中有某些内容，其含义将与他们的信中的含义有所不同。

And, you know, so people really, really understand Akkadian, they really do.

而且，你知道，人们真的非常了解阿卡德语，他们真的了解。

But this thing about the modal verbs is an interesting conundrum to me, because there’s no way it’s reflected in the writing.

但关于情态动词的问题对我来说是一个有趣的难题，因为它无法在写作中反映出来。

So I can only assume that there was some kind of drawing out of the vowel in a verb, meaning could…

所以我只能假设动词中的元音有某种形式的抽出，意思是可以……

Now, like you were saying, it might do it, you know, something like that.

现在，就像你说的，它可能会做到，你知道，类似的事情。

Anyway, so nowadays we…

无论如何，所以现在我们...

It’s not the decipherment that’s the job, it’s just reading.

工作不是破译，只是阅读。

53:31 And if you have lots of tablets to work on, like on a dig, it’s very exciting if they come out of the ground and no one’s looked for them before you, you know, it’s your job.

如果你有很多平板电脑需要处理，比如挖掘，如果它们从地下钻出来，而且在你之前没有人找到它们，那就非常令人兴奋了，你知道，这是你的工作。

And if you’re a competent assyriologist, you should be able to sight-read more or less.

如果你是一位有能力的亚述学家，你应该能够或多或少地视奏。

Except most…

除了大多数…

Say, a letter or something like that, but most documents have some damage, so you have to learn how to interpret stuff.

比如说一封信或类似的东西，但大多数文件都有一些损坏，所以你必须学习如何解释这些东西。

And also, some literature is very difficult because of technical vocabulary, and then they had technical vocabulary and unusual words.

而且，有些文献因为技术词汇而变得非常困难，然后他们就有了技术词汇和不常见的单词。

So you can do all of that.

所以你可以做到这一切。

54:03 You can kind of figure out the technical complexities.

您可以弄清楚技术的复杂性。

Sure.

当然。

You can figure out the noise, meaning missing pieces.

您可以找出噪音，这意味着缺少碎片。

Yeah.

是的。

54:14 Sometimes you can calculate what it ought to be, make a reasonable suggestion.

有时你可以计算一下它应该是什么，提出合理的建议。

And this dictionary, which I was talking to you about, is such a fantastic tool because a lot of people worked on it.

我和你们谈论的这本词典是一个非常棒的工具，因为很多人都在研究它。

It was the National Endowment for the Humanities, and it was for decades and decades of work.

这是国家人文基金会的成果，也是数十年的工作成果。

And most of the world’s best Assyriologists collaborated on it, so the quality of translation and understanding is really extraordinary.

而且世界上大多数最优秀的亚述学家都参与了这本书的合作，因此翻译和理解的质量确实非常出色。

What are some things you’ve read from that time?

您当时读过哪些内容？

54:41 Are there some jokes?

有没有一些笑话？

Are there some love letters?

有一些情书吗？

There are one or two letters about that from a chap to a woman about, you know, “You are very beautiful and your lips are like radishes and your ears are like walruses,” and things.

有那么一两封信是一个小伙子写给一个女人的，你知道，“你很漂亮，你的嘴唇像萝卜，你的耳朵像海象”之类的。

54:48 But I mean, there are some things like that.

但我的意思是，有一些类似的事情。

And then there’s a kind of street drama in Babylon, in 4th century BC, something like that, when there must have been actors who did this in the street.

然后在公元前 4 世纪的巴比伦有一种街头戏剧，类似的东西，当时一定有演员在街上表演这种戏剧。

And it’s Marduk and Sarpanitum, his wife, and another woman.

这是马杜克和萨帕尼图姆、他的妻子和另一个女人。

Marduk’s having an affair with this other…

马杜克和另一个人有染……

Oh, no

哦，不

…goddess.

……女神。

55:21 And Sarpanitum is jealous, and these women fight in the street and hurl insults at one another, and, you know, “slop bucket” and all this kind of stuff.

Sarpanitum 很嫉妒，这些女人在街上打架，互相辱骂，还有，你知道的，“污水桶”之类的东西。

It’s hilarious, and it must have been a bit like a sort of Verdi opera without the music, I suppose.

这很搞笑，我想它一定有点像没有音乐的威尔第歌剧。

I don’t know.

我不知道。

But anyway, it starts off when Sarpanitum is in the room and Marduk’s in bed with this other goddess on the roof, and she can hear.

但无论如何，当萨帕尼图姆在房间里、马杜克和屋顶上的另一位女神在床上时，一切就开始了，她能听到。

You could say it was an eternal human issue.

可以说这是人类永恒的问题。

Yeah, love, heartbreak, jealousy, all of that.

是的，爱、心碎、嫉妒，所有这些。

And between deities also.

又诸神之间也。

55:53 Because deities are only modeled on human beings, after all, so…

因为神毕竟只是以人为原型，所以……

Yeah, deities are a grandiose way of expressing human affairs, human behaviors, human ways, yeah.

是的，神灵是表达人类事务、人类行为、人类方式的一种宏伟方式，是的。

Indeed.

的确。

In the writing, what was their relationship to the divine?

在写作中，他们与神的关系是什么？

Relationship with the divine, well, the first thing to say is that they had a large pantheon of gods.

与神的关系，首先要说的是他们有一个庞大的万神殿。

56:10 So there were three gods at the top, sometimes called Anu, Enlil, and Ea.

因此，最高层有三位神，有时称为阿努（Anu）、恩利尔（Enlil）和埃亚（Ea）。

There were three gods at the top and hundreds of other gods and goddesses.

顶部有三位神，还有数百位其他神和女神。

And you have the situation that I think lots of small villages and towns had their old, ancient gods, and eventually they were all worked into a kind of theological system like a phone book.

我认为很多小村庄和城镇都有他们古老的神，最终他们都被纳入了一种神学系统，就像电话簿一样。

And the lesser, minor gods were amalgamated and then they were given jobs in the households of the big gods.

而较小的、较小的神则被合并，然后他们在大神的家庭中担任职务。

So there was a sort of structure.

所以有一种结构。

So you have this in the background, a big, sweeping theology, like you have in the world today in some parts of the world, and this was the main system.

所以你有这个背景，一个庞大的、全面的神学，就像当今世界某些地方的神学一样，这是主要的系统。

56:59 And the main gods were concerned with the ruler and the fate of the country.

而主神则关心统治者和国家的命运。

Another god was concerned with illness and the dead, and what happens to the dead, and they had other specialties, and they all had their own temples.

另一位神关心的是疾病和死者，以及死者的遭遇，他们有其他的专长，他们都有自己的寺庙。

And when a baby came into the world, probably this was universally true, the baby was put under the tutelage of one or other of the gods.

当一个婴儿来到这个世界时，这可能是普遍的事实，婴儿被置于一位或另一位神的监护之下。

Sometimes, you know, the royal family, they were the big shots, but sometimes not, or the ones that were in the family or something like that.

有时，你知道，王室成员是大人物，但有时不是，或者是家庭成员或类似的人。

So people had, grew up with the idea that among all of them, there were special ones for the family and they had a special one who was supposed to look after them.

所以人们在成长过程中一直有这样一种观念，即在他们所有人中，有一个特别的人适合这个家庭，他们有一个特别的人应该照顾他们。

That’s the sort of basic idea.

这就是基本的想法。

57:46 But the trouble is, since gods are, as you say, human beings on a larger scale, they can be forgetful or uninterested or on holiday, and there are lots of ways that you have to prompt them.

但问题是，正如你所说，神是更大范围内的人类，他们可能会健忘、不感兴趣或在度假，你必须有很多方法来提示他们。

Make little sacrifices and little bribes so they do their job and keep an eye on you.

做出一点牺牲和一点贿赂，这样他们就会做好自己的工作并关注你。

So they had that kind of slightly practical view of gods, that they were a bit unpredictable, “great when they were there but not always there” sort of idea.

所以他们对神有一种有点实际的看法，他们有点不可预测，“当他们在那里时很棒，但并不总是在那里”之类的想法。

And I also believe this, that a lot of people in the world today who did not have the disadvantage of growing up in a stifling religion, but are just normal people, get a lot more interested when they’re really ill or when they have a big disaster.

我也相信，当今世界上有很多人没有在令人窒息的宗教中长大的缺点，而只是普通人，当他们真的生病或遇到大灾难时，他们会变得更加感兴趣。

58:36 All of a sudden, God or gods seem a lot more important than they do normally.

突然之间，上帝似乎比平时重要得多。

So few people walk about in a state of religious awe, and a good proportion of clergymen I’ve ever met don’t do that either.

很少有人带着宗教敬畏的心情行走，而且我见过的很大一部分神职人员也没有这样做。

It’s a kind of conception that’s not actually based on reality, that the individual’s response to religious stimuli fluctuates and is varied and is often a response to need.

这是一种实际上并不基于现实的观念，即个人对宗教刺激的反应是波动的、多种多样的，而且通常是对需求的反应。

It doesn’t come from nothing.

它并非无中生有。

I mean, people don’t suddenly feel, “I got to thank the Lord for the rainbow,” or something like that.

我的意思是，人们不会突然感觉到，“我必须感谢上帝赐予彩虹”，或者类似的感觉。

I think it’s probably true today, I mean, when you read the investigations they make of religion today, Christianity in this country is on the decline because people who are supposed to be Christian say they aren’t anymore, they’re atheists.

我认为今天这可能是真的，我的意思是，当你读到他们今天对宗教所做的调查时，你会发现这个国家的基督教正在衰落，因为那些应该是基督徒的人说他们不再是基督徒了，他们是无神论者。

59:27 And people who say, “I go to church and I believe in everything,” it is a relatively small number of people saying now this is the situation, which is quite remarkable if you think about it.

那些说“我去教堂，我什么都相信”的人，相对少数的人说现在就是这样的情况，如果你仔细想想，这是相当了不起的。

Lord knows what the consequence will be for the human race, whether religion will balance out, whether it will die off.

天知道这会给人类带来什么后果，宗教是否会平衡，是否会消亡。

Who knows?

谁知道？

I think it’s an ancient technology that has proven across millennia to give a set of tools to humans to contend, as you said, with suffering.

我认为这是一项古老的技术，几千年来已经被证明可以为人类提供一套工具来对抗痛苦，就像你所说的那样。

59:45 That’s a part of life.

这是生活的一部分。

So when those rare moments come when you have to deal with deep pain, loss, suffering, heartbreak, all those things…

因此，当那些罕见的时刻到来时，你必须应对深深的痛苦、失落、折磨、心碎，所有这些事情……

…Looking up to the sky and asking questions and trying to figure out the answers in your conversation with the divine.

……仰望天空，提出问题，并试图在与神的对话中找出答案。

I think that’s true, but I think in Mesopotamia it was different in terms of its potency and immediacy because there are no skyscrapers in Iraq.

我认为这是事实，但我认为在美索不达米亚，它的效力和即时性有所不同，因为伊拉克没有摩天大楼。

1:00:15 You know, if you live in Southern Iraq and you sleep on the roof, there are no lights at night.

你知道，如果你住在伊拉克南部，睡在屋顶上，晚上就没有灯。

You know, you’re under the stars, you can see everything because of no smog and everything like that.

你知道，你在星空下，你可以看到一切，因为没有烟雾之类的一切。

And the idea that the gods are there watching, it’s not like a big artifice like it is here.

诸神在那里注视的想法，并不像这里那样是一个大诡计。

It just doesn’t ring true here.

这在这里听起来并不正确。

You can’t come to it and really believe in it, whereas these people didn’t have to really believe in it because it was it.

你无法真正相信它，而这些人不必真正相信它，因为它就是它。

It’s the obvious practical part of life.

这是生活中显而易见的实际部分。

1:00:53 They’re right there.

他们就在那里。

Yeah.

是的。

1:00:57 But they didn’t believe in ghosts, they took them for granted.

但他们不相信有鬼，认为鬼是理所当然的。

And they didn’t believe in the gods, they took them for granted.

他们不相信神灵，认为神灵是理所当然的。

This is a different mechanism, because nobody here in the world today takes those things for granted, just the opposite.

这是一种不同的机制，因为当今世界上没有人认为这些事情是理所当然的，恰恰相反。

But I think that’s how it worked.

但我认为这就是它的运作方式。

So you didn’t have people wrestling with the idea of whether the gods really exist or whether they really care about me.

所以你没有让人们思考诸神是否真的存在或者他们是否真的关心我。

They gave them a nudge when it was necessary, and they might offer this, they might offer that, but it was the system, it was the prevailing system.

当有必要时，他们会给他们一个推动，他们可能会提供这个，他们可能会提供那个，但这是制度，这是现行制度。

And I think it’s an important difference.

我认为这是一个重要的区别。

1:01:32 And also that thing about ghosts is that it’s clear from the inscriptions, all of them that I managed to find, that nobody ever asked themselves, “Do these things exist or not?” Or, “Did I really see them or not?” They didn’t.

而且关于鬼魂的事情是，从我设法找到的所有铭文中可以清楚地看出，没有人问过自己，“这些东西存在还是不存在？”或者，“我真的看到他们了吗？”他们没有。

They just took it all for granted.

他们只是认为这一切都是理所当然的。

What are ghosts?

什么是鬼？

1:01:50 Is it usually ancestors?

一般都是祖宗吗？

Well, everybody, everybody who died in bed naturally or peacefully, what we call their ghost, went down to the netherworld, and there they were.

好吧，每个人，每个在床上自然或平静地死去的人，我们称之为他们的鬼魂，都去了阴间，他们就在那里。

1:01:54 So they buried people jolly quick for obvious reasons, and like they do in Islam and Judaism today, it’s the same kind of idea.

因此，出于显而易见的原因，他们很快就埋葬了人们，就像他们今天在伊斯兰教和犹太教中所做的那样，这是同样的想法。

And the spirit of the person went down through the gates of the netherworld and stayed there.

那人的灵魂就从幽冥之门下去，停留在那里。

So that’s the basic situation.

这就是基本情况。

And people in their houses had actual burials under the courtyard, and they had a thing where you pour stuff down a hole, fluid and food, kind of symbolic offerings to them.

人们在他们的房子里有真正的墓地在庭院下，他们有一种东西，你可以把东西倒进洞里，液体和食物，这是对他们的象征性祭品。

So isn’t that a way to lessen the impact of mortality?

那么这不是减轻死亡率影响的一种方法吗？

I don’t know, because you know that everyone’s going to die.

我不知道，因为你知道每个人都会死。

1:02:44 I think the real tragedy would be, is if we’re not supposed to.

我认为真正的悲剧是，如果我们不应该这样做。

That would be the tragedy.

那将是悲剧。

But every single person is going to die.

但每个人都会死去。

So all relationships have this finite clause in them.

所以所有关系中都包含这个有限子句。

So if you’re very fond of somebody or you love somebody and they die, it’s kind of infantile to whine about it ever after.

因此，如果你非常喜欢某人，或者你爱某人而他们死了，那么从此之后抱怨这件事就有点幼稚了。

Because what did you think was gonna happen?

因为你认为会发生什么？

Either you or them.

要么是你，要么是他们。

You know, I always see it like that.

你知道，我总是这样看。

I don’t feel grief when people die.

当人们去世时，我不会感到悲伤。

It is infantile, but I gotta tell you something about human beings.

这还很幼稚，但我必须告诉你一些关于人类的事情。

1:03:24 We’re all kind of infantile all the way through from, you know, we don’t stop being infantile after we’re infants.

从始至终，我们都有点幼稚，你知道，当我们成为婴儿后，我们并没有停止幼稚。

It’s one thing to know it, you know, theoretically, and it’s another thing to know it know it.

从理论上讲，了解它是一回事，了解它又是另一回事。

Like this thing ends, this ride ends.

就像这件事结束一样，这趟旅程也结束了。

But that’s the pain, it’s the fact that the- the whole thing ends.

但这就是痛苦，事实是——整个事情结束了。

1:03:45 And when people fall off the edge, they fall off the edge.

当人们从边缘跌落时，他们就会从边缘跌落。

So yeah, the knowledge that it ends is the painful thing, not the actual moment of the ending.

所以，是的，知道结局是痛苦的事情，而不是结束的实际时刻。

1:03:54 Yeah.

是的。

Many times what makes moments really precious is that they’re going to be gone.

很多时候，真正珍贵的时刻是因为它们即将消失。

I think that’s not a trivial thing for us humans to really contend with.

我认为这对我们人类来说并不是一件小事。

I think religion, religious thought, the divine, I think help with that.

我认为宗教、宗教思想、神性，我认为对此有所帮助。

I think the big mistake for mankind was the creation of monotheistic religions, because they brought evil into the world.

我认为人类最大的错误是创造一神论宗教，因为它们给世界带来了邪恶。

1:04:12 Because if you believe in a monotheistic religion, that means I’m right and you’re wrong if you don’t.

因为如果你信仰一神教，那就意味着我是对的，如果你不信仰，那就是错的。

So it’s already on that footing.

所以它已经立足于此。

It’s very dogmatic.

这是非常教条的。

1:04:31 Yeah.

是的。

Dogmatic, and it’s led to everything, there’s inquisitions and this, you know, all this kind of stuff.

教条主义，它导致了一切，有调查，你知道，所有这些东西。

1:04:32 It’s all a result of it, that one religion is superior and the others should be stamped out and all that.

这都是其结果，一种宗教是优越的，其他宗教应该被消灭等等。

And in my opinion, monotheistic religion has generated the most fantastic amount of non-religious feeling.

在我看来，一神论宗教产生了最奇妙的非宗教情感。

Whereas when you have all the different gods and they have different specialties, and the ones you like and the ones that everybody likes, and they have their temples and their offerings.

而当你拥有所有不同的神，他们有不同的专长，你喜欢的神和每个人都喜欢的神，他们有他们的寺庙和他们的祭品。

It was very interesting to me to go into a temple in Kolkata when I went there with my wife, Joanna, we went into the temples and saw how they were, and I think they must be very much like the ones in Mesopotamia.

我和妻子乔安娜一起去加尔各答的一座寺庙对我来说非常有趣，我们走进寺庙，看看它们是什么样子，我想它们一定很像美索不达米亚的寺庙。

1:05:13 So there was never anything about them which affronted people’s individuality, or I mean, there’s no religious prejudice or even racial prejudice in antiquity.

所以他们从来没有任何冒犯人的个性的东西，或者说，古代不存在宗教偏见，甚至种族偏见。

All these things are modern disadvantageous matters.

这些都是现代的弊端。

If you think what’s done in the name of religion, it is absolutely staggering.

如果你想想以宗教名义所做的事情，那绝对是令人震惊的。

So let’s talk…

那么我们来谈谈...

1:05:33 go to literature, ’cause we didn’t really mention literature much, except you did briefly mention Epic of Gilgamesh.

去文学吧，因为我们并没有真正太多地提到文学，除了你简单地提到了《吉尔伽美什史诗》。

So that was written in cuneiform.

所以这是用楔形文字写的。

It’s one of the earliest works of literature.

这是最早的文学作品之一。

That’s right.

这是正确的。

Can you tell me about this work?

你能告诉我关于这项工作吗？

Yeah.

是的。

1:05:47 Well, we know it best from this Assyrian library set of tablets.

嗯，我们从这套亚述图书馆的泥板中最了解它。

There are 12 of them, it’s a 12-tablet work, so it’s quite long.

有12个，是12片的作品，所以相当长。

And Gilgamesh is the hero of it.

而吉尔伽美什就是其中的英雄。

But the literature, we know it from earlier texts, and we know that Gilgamesh lived.

但在文学上，我们从早期的文献中得知，我们知道吉尔伽美什还活着。

He was a real person, he was a king in Uruk, and he was one of those people who lived after their death in the world, like Alexander, for example.

他是一个真实的人，他是乌鲁克的国王，他是那些死后还活着的人之一，例如亚历山大。

So there were stories about Gilgamesh when he was alive, there were stories about him afterwards.

所以有关于吉尔伽美什生前的故事，也有关于他之后的故事。

And firstly, they were oral literature, not written down at all, and then around the 1800s, people started to write them down in Sumerian or Babylonian.

首先，它们是口头文学，根本没有写下来，然后在 1800 年代左右，人们开始用苏美尔语或巴比伦语写下来。

So there was a corpus, and eventually they were woven into this long 12 Homeric-type thing about the adventures of Gilgamesh.

于是就有了一个语料库，最终它们被编织成这部关于吉尔伽美什冒险的12部荷马史诗式的长篇小说。

1:06:38 So it is certainly literature, and it’s to do with humanity and immortality and man in the hands of the gods, and incorporates lots of interesting and exciting stories.

所以它当然是文学，它与人性、不朽和众神手中的人有关，并包含许多有趣和令人兴奋的故事。

It’s very Hollywoody kind of thing.

这是非常好莱坞式的事情。

And you can see within it, even in the sophisticated Nineveh version, its roots are in oral literature.

你可以在其中看到，即使是在复杂的尼尼微版本中，它的根源也在于口头文学。

Because when somebody speaks, it says, “Gilgamesh opened his mouth to speak and addressed his friend Enkidu,” and then there’s a speech.

因为当有人说话时，它会说，“吉尔伽美什张开嘴说话并向他的朋友恩基杜讲话”，然后就有了演讲。

“And then Enkidu opened his mouth and addressed his friend Gilgamesh.” Well, when you’re reading a story, you don’t need that, and that must be because of when there was an enacting of an oral thing, a narrator would say and it suddenly got frozen into the text.

“然后恩基杜张开嘴，对他的朋友吉尔伽美什讲话。”好吧，当你读一个故事时，你不需要这个，那一定是因为当叙述者会说一个口头的事情发生时，它突然被冻结在文本中。

1:07:28 So it’s a very strange thing, because if you’re reading it, it’s obvious that one person speaks and the other person speaks, and they always have this complicated thing stuck in the text.

所以这是一件非常奇怪的事情，因为如果你在读它，很明显一个人在说话，另一个人也在说话，而且他们总是把这种复杂的东西卡在文本中。

So it must be an echo of presumably you have your protagonists enacting their timeless matter with a and the person who’s writing it down says, “And then Gilgamesh said…” you know, like in a script.

所以这一定是一种回声，假设你让你的主角用 a 表演他们永恒的事情，而写下它的人说，“然后吉尔伽美什说……”你知道，就像在剧本中一样。

I mean, what can you say about the telling of stories in written form during that time?

我的意思是，您对当时以书面形式讲述故事有什么看法？

1:07:55 Do you think that, too, stretched back in time?

你认为这也可以追溯到过去吗？

I do.

我愿意。

1:08:06 I think the fireside narrative matters.

我认为炉边叙事很重要。

You know, when we were kids it would be twerps with a guitar sitting around a fire on holiday.

你知道，当我们还是孩子的时候，假期里就会有拿着吉他坐在火边的傻瓜。

But that mechanism, when people gather after dark when there is a fire and talk, is the sort of environment where narrative accounts flourish naturally among human beings.

但是，当人们在天黑后聚集在一起，生火交谈时，这种机制就是叙事叙述在人类中自然繁荣的环境。

Stories, telling of stories.

故事，讲故事。

1:08:30 It doesn’t have to be pragmatic, it could be…

它不一定是务实的，它可以是......

…Literary in a way.

……某种程度上是文学性的。

Yeah.

是的。

1:08:35 Either a human person like Gilgamesh or stories about the gods, and someone sees the Milky Way and they think, “There’s a god riding a chariot up it,” and then they have a story about…

要么是像吉尔伽美什这样的人类，要么是关于神的故事，有人看到银河系，他们会想，“有一个神骑着战车在上面，”然后他们就有了一个关于……的故事。

you know, and all those sorts of things.

你知道，还有诸如此类的事情。

Or whatever it would be.

或者无论它是什么。

But I think probably you have to allow for a strong creative principle surfacing in Homo sapiens at a quite early age, because of the paintings on cave walls…

但我认为你可能必须考虑到智人在很小的时候就出现了强大的创造性原则，因为洞穴墙壁上的绘画......

1:09:04 You try drawing a running antelope in color on a wall.

你尝试在墙上画一只奔跑的彩色羚羊。

I mean, the quality of the workmanship, of the artistic ability, is unsurpassable.

我的意思是，工艺质量和艺术能力是无与伦比的。

It’s not just good.

这不仅仅是好的。

So how is that an explicable thing at this very early date?

那么这么早的事情怎么能解释呢？

It means that among all the population, you have imbeciles and Einsteins, and somewhere along the line you have Rembrandts.

这意味着在所有人口中，有白痴和爱因斯坦，也有伦勃朗。

And I imagine that half the cave paintings in Europe were done by one person.

我想欧洲一半的洞穴壁画是一个人完成的。

I mean, you get the impression every family had a genius painter.

我的意思是，你会觉得每个家庭都有一位天才画家。

It’s impossible.

这是不可能的。

Probably there was a person who went from place to place doing these paintings because they could draw straight away accurately like that.

可能有人从一个地方到另一个地方画这些画，因为他们可以像这样直接画出来。

But they are a distillation of creative artistic ability plus skill.

但它们是创造性艺术能力和技巧的升华。

1:09:57 So this, this is right at a pretty early stage, is it not, the cave painting material?

那么这个这个呢,这个是比较早期的,是不是那个洞穴壁画的材料呢?

So if you consider the human stock which encapsulates such ideas ever after, then you have to reckon with that.

因此，如果你考虑到人类的存量永远包含着这些想法，那么你就必须考虑到这一点。

You have to reckon with that.

你必须考虑到这一点。

Very creative, very creative people.

非常有创造力，非常有创造力的人。

So the function of stories to tell the young and about what happened and about famous battles or when the flood came, or how people learned to make fire, or how we invented the wheel.

因此，故事的作用是向年轻人讲述发生的事情、著名的战役、洪水何时到来、人们如何学会生火，或者我们如何发明轮子。

All those sorts of things everybody puts down, but that’s presumably what absolutely happened.

每个人都放下了所有这些事情，但这大概就是绝对发生的事情。

And you have the capacity for people to adore and to respect among their own kind people of astounding ability.

你有能力让人们崇拜和尊重那些能力惊人的善良人们。

1:10:47 There must have been hunters who were ferociously quick and, you know, wrestle with polar bears and all that kind of…

一定有一些猎人速度非常快，你知道，与北极熊和诸如此类的东西摔跤。

And all this stuff would be grist to the narrator’s thing.

所有这些东西都会成为叙述者的素材。

And as things got more complicated and more sophisticated, so lessons might be incorporated or lessons might come out of them unintentionally.

随着事情变得越来越复杂和复杂，教训可能会被纳入其中，或者可能会无意中从中得出教训。

Because if you tell a story without a moral, there is usually a moral if you think about it.

因为如果你讲的故事没有寓意，但你仔细想想，通常还是有寓意的。

And many of those stories are sadly lost to time or not yet found.

遗憾的是，其中许多故事已经随着时间的流逝而消失，或者尚未被发现。

1:11:13 You mentioned floods, and speaking of stories that have been lost and found, you’re well-known for a lot of things.

你提到了洪水，谈到失而复得的故事，你因很多事情而闻名。

One of them is decoding the so-called Ark Tablet.

其中之一是解码所谓的方舟平板电脑。

Yeah.

是的。

1:11:29 That was a challenge, because it’s really hard to read.

这是一个挑战，因为它真的很难读。

You gotta tell me the story.

你得告诉我这个故事。

1:11:32 This ancient Babylonian clay tablet dating 1700 BC which contains a flood narrative that predates the biblical story of Noah by a thousand years.

这块古老的巴比伦泥板可追溯到公元前 1700 年，其中包含有关洪水的叙述，比圣经中诺亚的故事早了一千年。

At least.

至少。

At least.

至少。

1:11:46 Okay.

好的。

Well, you gotta tell me the full story.

好吧，你得告诉我完整的故事。

So the full story is like this.

所以完整的故事是这样的。

1:11:50 Visitors used to come to the museum to ask questions of the experts who worked there, and one would be on duty periodically, and sometimes people would bring objects, sometimes they’d ask questions.

过去参观者会到博物馆向在那里工作的专家提问，专家会定期值班，有时人们会带来物品，有时人们会提出问题。

And somebody once came in with a whole load of objects, including this tablet, which, to cut a long story short, I identified pretty much straight away as being part of the flood story.

有一次，有人带着一大堆东西进来，包括这块平板电脑，长话短说，我立刻就认出它是洪水故事的一部分。

It was a tablet about eight inches by three.

这是一块大约八英寸乘三英寸的平板电脑。

Not the whole flood story, which is a complex narrative which ended up in the Gilgamesh narrative much, much later, but this one was an early narrative in which the point was taken up where the gods in heaven had decided that the population of Mesopotamia needed to be wiped out because they were so noisy.

不是整个洪水故事，这是一个复杂的叙述，很久很久以后才出现在吉尔伽美什的叙述中，但这是一个早期的叙述，其中的要点是天上的诸神决定需要消灭美索不达米亚的人口，因为他们太吵闹了。

1:12:40 This was the expression.

这就是表情。

And the gods couldn’t sleep after lunch, sort of thing.

午饭后诸神无法入睡，之类的。

So they decided they would wipe them out and create something quieter that worked harder.

因此他们决定消灭它们并创造一些更安静、更有效的东西。

So this was the basic mechanism, and they had different ways of doing it.

这就是基本机制，他们有不同的实现方式。

And the most effective one was they were going to send a flood to wipe them all out.

最有效的办法就是发动一场洪水，将他们全部消灭。

And one of the gods, the number three in the triumvirate, thought this was a deplorable idea.

三巨头中的第三位神之一认为这是一个可悲的想法。

So he took it upon himself to warn this person called Atra-Hasis, who lived in Mesopotamia, to build a boat to rescue life when the waters came.

于是，他亲自警告居住在美索不达米亚的阿特拉哈西斯，让他造一艘船，在洪水来袭时救人。

And in it, he told him the shape of it and the materials he would need and how much he would need of the materials so he could do it safely.

在其中，他告诉他它的形状和他需要的材料以及他需要多少材料才能安全地完成它。

And in the 60 lines of the tablet, all this stuff was there.

在平板电脑的 60 行代码中，所有这些东西都在那里。

1:13:29 It was like a blueprint to build this boat.

这就像建造这艘船的蓝图。

And it was just extraordinary because the boat was round.

这很特别，因为船是圆的。

And everybody who knew their Bible, the ark’s a coffin-shape kind of affair.

每个了解圣经的人都知道，方舟是一个棺材形状的东西。

And nobody thought of it being a round boat.

没有人想到它是一艘圆船。

And the fact is that round boats were used in Mesopotamia on the rivers, coracles that’s to say, because for transporting things, and they would never sink.

事实是，在美索不达米亚的河流上使用圆船，也就是说，圆船，因为用于运输物品，而且它们永远不会沉没。

They were very appropriate.

他们非常合适。

And so in this story, it was decided it was going to be a giant coracle, a really, really big one that would never sink, and the male and female animals could go in and Atra-Hasis’ wife and his three sons and so forth, could go in and everything would be there and it would float on the water.

所以在这个故事中，我们决定建造一个巨大的小船，一个非常非常大的小船，永远不会沉没，雄性和雌性动物都可以进去，阿特拉-哈西斯的妻子和他的三个儿子等等都可以进去，所有的东西都在那里，它会漂浮在水面上。

1:14:23 And when it came down, they said, “We’ll start all over again.” So it’s got very many points in common with the description of the flood in Genesis.

当一切结束时，他们说：“我们会重新开始。”所以它与创世记中对洪水的描述有很多共同点。

And of course, so did the one in Gilgamesh.

当然，《吉尔伽美什》中的那个也是如此。

So in 1872, there was a Assyriologist in the British Museum called George Smith, and he was a very, very talented reader.

所以在1872年，大英博物馆里有一个亚述学家，叫乔治·史密斯，他是一个非常非常有才华的读者。

And in 1872, he discovered that one of the tablets from the Nineveh library we were talking about before had on it a passage which ran in parallel with Gilgamesh about the waters coming and the boat and everybody floating.

1872年，他发现我们之前讨论过的尼尼微图书馆的一块石碑上有一段与吉尔伽美什平行的文字，讲述了水流涌来、船只和漂浮的每个人。

1:15:02 And even to the point that when the rain stopped and the ark came to rest on a mountain, the hero of this thing in Gilgamesh, who was called Utnapishtim, released a bird three times to see whether the trees had come up, and the first one came back and the second one and the third one didn’t.

甚至当雨停了，方舟停在山上时，吉尔伽美什的英雄，名叫乌特纳皮什丁（Utnapishtim），三次放出一只鸟，看看树木是否已经长出来，第一只鸟回来了，第二只和第三只没有回来。

So he knew that…

所以他知道……

So this was not only in the Epic of Gilgamesh, but it was also in the Book of Genesis.

所以这不仅出现在《吉尔伽美什史诗》中，而且出现在《创世记》中。

So what it meant was that it wasn’t…

所以这句话的意思是，这不是……

You couldn’t have two stories…

你不能有两个故事……

It wasn’t two stories about the same thing.

这不是关于同一件事的两个故事。

It was literary dependence.

这是文学依赖。

1:15:40 It was literary dependence.

这是文学依赖。

The one was locked into the other.

一个被另一个锁住了。

The text of the Hebrew Bible, from whenever it was written down, of course, nobody knows quite when, but whenever it was, it was about the same time as the one from Nineveh, about the 7th century, 6th century, something like that.

希伯来圣经的文本，从什么时候写下来，当然，没有人知道确切的时间，但无论什么时候，它都与尼尼微的文本大致相同的时间，大约在七世纪，六世纪，类似的时间。

The time interval between the Gilgamesh version from Nineveh and the Hebrew Bible is not like a big expanse of time.

尼尼微的吉尔伽美什版本与希伯来圣经之间的时间间隔并不像一个漫长的时间间隔。

So there was an argument that one goes this way and one goes that way.

于是就有了一种说法，一个人走这条路，一个人走那条路。

But then when this tablet came in, a thousand years older, nobody believes the Bible was written in 1700 BC.

但当这块泥板问世时，已经有一千多年的历史了，没有人相信《圣经》是在公元前 1700 年写成的。

So the primacy of the Mesopotamian matter was established.

美索不达米亚问题的首要地位由此确立。

And it’s important because you never get floods in Jerusalem.

这很重要，因为耶路撒冷永远不会发生洪水。

You just don’t.

你只是不知道。

But in Mesopotamia, they had floods.

但在美索不达米亚，却发生了洪水。

1:16:31 The rivers, sometimes there wasn’t enough water, sometimes there was too much, sometimes there was far too much water.

河流，有时水不够，有时水太多，有时水太多。

So the mechanism that the waters could be used as a destructive force by the powers that be is a plausible Mesopotamian mechanism and is based, in a sort of sense, in my opinion, in reality.

因此，水可以被当权者用作破坏性力量的机制是一种看似合理的美索不达米亚机制，并且在某种意义上，在我看来，是基于现实的。

I think there must have been some tsunami once, most people were drowned, and those who survived were in boats, obviously.

我认为曾经发生过海啸，大多数人都被淹死了，而幸存者显然都在船上。

And then afterward, nobody ever forgot it.

之后，没有人忘记它。

It went on and on and on.

事情一直持续着。

So you mean there actually could have been a catastrophic event of a large scale?

所以你的意思是实际上可能发生了大规模的灾难性事件？

Yeah, not the whole world, ’cause people were…

是的，不是整个世界，因为人们……

But just enough to imagine.

但也仅仅够想象。

Yeah, sweeping down to the Persian Gulf, and, you know, the flat plains, everything would be destroyed, all the houses would be destroyed, animals would be drowned, and…

是的，横扫波斯湾，你知道，平坦的平原，一切都会被摧毁，所有的房屋都会被摧毁，动物会被淹死，而且……

This is an incredible discovery.

这是一个令人难以置信的发现。

1:17:16 Do you think it’s possible that this is the original?

你觉得这有可能是原作吗？

There are flood myths in many cultures.

许多文化中都有洪水神话。

I believe this.

我相信这一点。

1:17:24 The Mesopotamians had a deep-seated horror of dependency on water when they couldn’t control it.

美索不达米亚人对无法控制水的依赖有着根深蒂固的恐惧。

They were fearful of it.

他们对此感到害怕。

And they had a rainbow in Babylonia, like in the Bible, as a proof that the disastrous flood would never happen again.

他们在巴比伦尼亚出现了彩虹，就像圣经中那样，作为灾难性洪水永远不会再次发生的证据。

But I think there must have been one episode of this kind, maybe 5,000 years before the tablet, 10,000, it doesn’t matter.

但我想一定有过这样的一段插曲，也许在平板电脑出现之前5000年，10000年，这并不重要。

Because with the passage of time, nothing happens in that part of the world.

因为随着时间的流逝，世界的那个地方什么也没有发生。

So something will be alive, grandfather to grandson, before you go to sleep, “And remember, my boy, you know, you only have to be careful because otherwise…” and all that stuff.

所以，从祖父到孙子，在你睡觉之前，“记住，我的孩子，你知道，你只需要小心，因为否则……”以及所有这些东西。

For sure, bogeyman stuff.

当然，妖怪的东西。

It never quite died out in their conscious minds.

它在他们的意识中从未完全消失。

1:18:12 So I think that when the Judeans from Jerusalem, after the destruction of the temple by the Babylonians and the rout of the priesthood and everything, the king and the others went overland to Babylon as refugees, and they had to live there for three generations of time under Nebuchadnezzar’s reign.

所以我认为，当来自耶路撒冷的犹大人在巴比伦人摧毁圣殿、击溃祭司和一切之后，国王和其他人作为难民从陆路来到巴比伦，他们必须在尼布甲尼撒统治下在那里生活了三代人。

So I believe that the text of the Bible was written then, because if you read the Bible attentively, which I can’t say I do on a regular basis, but if you do read it dispassionately, you have the mechanism that the only books in the Bible explain to the reader how it is that these people are in such a mess, because they’re supposed to be the chosen people doing all that.

所以我相信《圣经》的文本是在那时写成的，因为如果你专心地阅读《圣经》（我不能说我经常这样做），但如果你确实冷静地阅读《圣经》，你就会拥有一种机制，即《圣经》中唯一的书向读者解释这些人是如何陷入如此混乱的，因为他们应该是做这一切的选民。

1:18:58 And, and look, they haven’t got a temple, they haven’t got a country, they’re washed up and everything like that.

而且，你看，他们没有寺庙，他们没有国家，他们被冲垮了，诸如此类。

So I think that what happened was it’s a complex thing, but the Judeans from Jerusalem, they spoke Hebrew, but they also spoke Aramaic, right?

所以我认为发生的事情是一件复杂的事情，但是来自耶路撒冷的犹太人，他们说希伯来语，但他们也说阿拉姆语，对吗？

The two languages, they’re sister languages.

这两种语言，它们是姐妹语言。

And the Babylonians spoke Babylonian, and they also spoke Aramaic.

巴比伦人说巴比伦语，也说亚拉姆语。

And they all wore the same kind of clothes, and they all had brown skin.

而且他们都穿着同样的衣服，而且都是棕色的皮肤。

And when all these refugees from Jerusalem were milling around in Babylonia, they would have intermarried and disappeared within no time at all.

当所有这些来自耶路撒冷的难民在巴比伦闲逛时，他们很快就会通婚并消失。

1:19:36 And the authorities who were there prevented this by drawing up a kind of charter of their history, explaining things from the beginning of time up until now, how it happened and what happened, and it was all intentional.

那里的当局通过制定一种他们的历史宪章来防止这种情况发生，解释从一开始到现在的事情，它是如何发生的以及发生了什么，而这一切都是故意的。

So that is, in my opinion, the driving force behind the Hebrew text.

在我看来，这就是希伯来文本背后的驱动力。

And the thing about it is that they didn’t have in Jewish philosophical tradition stuff about creation and the beginning of the world.

问题是他们在犹太哲学传统中没有关于创造和世界开始的东西。

And they took Babylonian ideas, which they learned when they were there, and they recycled them.

他们吸收了巴比伦的思想，这是他们在巴比伦学到的，并加以利用。

So whereas the Babylonians decided that the gods were going to wipe out the noisy persons, when the Jewish philosophers got this narrative to recycle about the vengeful Almighty who was in the Old Testament a very unpleasant and vengeful person, it was because of sin.

因此，尽管巴比伦人决定众神要消灭吵闹的人，但当犹太哲学家重复使用这个关于复仇的全能者的叙述时，他在旧约中是一个非常令人不快和复仇心强的人，这是因为罪。

1:20:34 It wasn’t because of racket and playing the radio, it was sin.

这不是因为喧闹和播放收音机，而是罪恶。

So they took one narrative and they recycled it for their own purposes.

因此，他们采用了一种叙述方式，并将其回收用于自己的目的。

The flood is a useful tool to, to punish people for whatever X is?

洪水是一个有用的工具，可以惩罚人们，无论 X 是什么？

That’s exactly right.

完全正确。

1:20:49 And something else is this, right?

还有别的东西，对吧？

You have five days to build the ark or whatever it is, or two weeks to build the ark, so the clock goes tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

你有五天的时间来建造方舟或其他什么东西，或者两周的时间来建造方舟，所以时钟滴答、滴答、滴答、滴答、滴答。

And about a third of the films that come out of Hollywood are the world’s going to be demolished by aliens and you’ve got 24 hours to think of a cure, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

好莱坞出品的电影中，大约有三分之一的内容是世界将被外星人摧毁，你有 24 小时的时间来思考治疗方法，滴答滴答。

So it’s that narrative is irresistible, that one man can save the world, if he’s lucky, in time from disaster.

因此，这种叙事是不可抗拒的，如果幸运的话，一个人可以及时拯救世界，避免灾难。

So it starts off with Utnapishtim, and then it goes on to Noah, and then it goes on to Hollywood.

所以它从乌特纳皮什蒂姆开始，然后是诺亚，然后是好莱坞。

Do you think this ark in the tablet actually was ever built?

你认为平板电脑中的方舟真的曾经建造过吗？

1:21:27 You did build a replica one third the size.

你确实建造了一个三分之一大小的复制品。

And you, people should check out, you tell the story of that wonderfully.

而你，人们应该看看，你讲述的故事非常精彩。

What did you learn from building this replica?

你从建造这个复制品中学到了什么？

And do you think the actual ark existed?

你认为真实的方舟存在吗？

No, I don’t think so.

不，我不这么认为。

1:21:46 I think it’s a literary construction out of the reality that people who did survive were on boats.

我认为这是一种基于现实的文学建构：幸存下来的人都在船上。

I mean, they had boats for sure, and you might wake up in the Persian Gulf and never know what happened, but, you know, it’s a literary moral principle teaching narrative.

我的意思是，他们肯定有船，你可能在波斯湾醒来，永远不知道发生了什么，但是，你知道，这是一种文学道德原则教学叙事。

And look, missionaries take it all around the world.

看，传教士把它带到了世界各地。

That’s the other thing.

那是另一回事。

See, this is the mystery of it, that you have flood stories everywhere, and some of them are from meddlesome missionaries who have all these innocent little kids sitting on benches, and, “I’m going to tell you a story,” like that.

看，这就是它的奥秘，到处都有洪水故事，其中一些来自爱管闲事的传教士，他们让所有这些无辜的小孩子坐在长凳上，然后“我要给你讲一个故事”，就像这样。

So it moves into this consciousness, then it gets recycled, and it gets recycled.

所以它进入了这种意识，然后它被回收，它被回收。

So this is one thing.

所以这是一回事。

1:22:29 And then also, there probably are spontaneous ideas, because it’s not so complicated or so amazing that independently people would have such a narrative.

而且，可能会有自发的想法，因为独立的人会有这样的叙述并不那么复杂或那么令人惊奇。

After all, you know, like the great river in China floods and everybody gets…

毕竟，你知道，就像中国的大河洪水一样，每个人都会……

so that’s not at all surprising.

所以这一点也不奇怪。

But what was so shocking for George Smith, who was such a clever person, is to read for the first time on this tablet from Nineveh, long before the one that I discovered came to light, about the three birds being released one after the other.

但令乔治·史密斯（George Smith）如此聪明的人如此震惊的是，早在我发现的那块石板被发现之前，他第一次在尼尼微的石板上读到三只鸟相继被释放的消息。

And that was the clincher that the two stories were locked together.

这就是这两个故事联系在一起的关键所在。

And lots of clergymen got very miserable about it and didn’t know what to make of it.

许多神职人员对此感到非常痛苦，不知道该怎么办。

So that’s, that’s a definitive proof that those are literary-

所以，这是一个明确的证据，证明这些都是文学的——

A literary, I think literary link.

文学，我认为是文学链接。

1:23:13 I think so.

我想是的。

And I mean, these puzzles are then connected, but the ark you discovered is 1,000 years older.

我的意思是，这些谜题是相互关联的，但你发现的方舟已有 1000 年的历史。

1:23:18 So that means that story of the flood has been told many, many times across that span to, you know…

所以这意味着洪水的故事在这段时间内已经被讲述了很多很多次，你知道……

…

……

“Do your homework or the flood is gonna come.”

“做好功课，不然洪水就要来了。”

That’s right.

这是正确的。

Do all that, can…

做到这一切，可以……

1:23:40 oh.

哦。

That’s right.

这是正确的。

1:23:42 And every time somebody built a coracle and they didn’t do the waterproofing right—

每当有人建造了小船却没有做好防水工作时——

1:23:49 …you know what will happen?

……你知道会发生什么吗？

You’ll be out on the river, and that will be your lot, you know?

你会在河上，那将是你的命运，你知道吗？

I, I think so.

我，我也这么认为。

I think it was a…

我认为这是一个……

I, I…

我，我……

there, there’s a certain amount of evidence that in Mesopotamian society, people talk about the time before the flood and after the flood.

在那里，有一定的证据表明，在美索不达米亚社会，人们谈论洪水之前和洪水之后的时间。

And it’s like when I was a boy, people used to talk about, “Before the war, we used to…” And now, we, we do this.

就像我小时候，人们常常谈论，“在战争之前，我们曾经……”而现在，我们，我们这样做。

It’s, it’s a kind of cataclysmic cut across history, which provides a, a, a ruler, so things are either before it or after it.

这是，这是一种跨越历史的灾难性的切割，它提供了一个，一个，一个统治者，所以事情要么在它之前，要么在它之后。

Because there’s a king list, for example, where they wrote down the names of all the kings, all the way back to the beginning, including kings before the flood.

因为有一个国王名单，例如，他们写下了所有国王的名字，一直追溯到最开始，包括洪水之前的国王。

They knew about that…

他们知道这件事……

they have their names and their great regnal years, or thousands of years.

他们有自己的名字和伟大的统治年限，或者说几千年。

Fascinating.

迷人。

So there’s a guy named Graham Hancock who talks about the Younger Dryas hypothesis, 10,000 BC, that there was an asteroid that hit Earth and melted the ice sheets, and that created a flood in North America.

有一个名叫格雷厄姆·汉考克的人谈论了新仙女木假说，公元前 10,000 年，有一颗小行星撞击地球并融化了冰盖，并在北美引发了洪水。

1:24:42 So that means an actual cataclysmic global event, that then as all the different civilizations sprung up, they all carried that knowledge, that memory.

因此，这意味着一场真正的灾难性全球事件，然后随着所有不同文明的兴起，它们都携带了那种知识、那种记忆。

That’s his idea.

这就是他的想法。

What probability would you assign to that?

您认为这种情况发生的概率是多少？

I would say negligible, because I regard it as a literary matter— …which is not predicated on the existence of flood in people’s minds.

我会说可以忽略不计，因为我认为这是一个文学问题——……这并不以人们头脑中洪水的存在为前提。

1:25:13 But I do believe that the story in Mesopotamia owes its inception to a disastrous flood, but nothing global.

但我确实相信，美索不达米亚的故事起源于一场灾难性的洪水，而不是全球性的。

Nothing that touched America or China or Birmingham.

没有任何事情触及美国、中国或伯明翰。

So I, I, I don’t have any sympathy with that.

所以我，我，我对此没有任何同情。

But people have made drilled cores and then they, and then they…

但人们已经钻了岩心，然后他们，然后他们……

I do that all the…

我这样做所有...

I’m not interested in all that stuff.

我对那些东西不感兴趣。

It’s, to my mind—

在我看来，这是——

It’s a literary device.

这是一种文学手段。

…it’s a literary top-off of great potency, of irresistible potency, because everybody identifies with the idea of being in bed and someone knocks on the door, says, “Get up, you’ve got to build a boat and this is what you’re going to need, and you’ve got to get on with it, sunshine, or we’re all sunk.” I mean, what are you going to do?

……这是一部具有巨大效力、不可抗拒效力的文学顶峰，因为每个人都认同躺在床上的想法，有人敲门说：“起来，你必须造一艘船，这就是你所需要的，你必须继续下去，阳光，否则我们都会沉没。”我的意思是，你要做什么？

1:25:43 The most interesting thing is this Atrahasis in the 1700 text, he wasn’t a king and he wasn’t a sailor or a boat builder.

最有趣的是1700年文本中的阿特拉哈西斯，他不是国王，也不是水手或造船师。

So how comes this clever god who wants to find someone to build…

那么这位聪明的神怎么会想找人来建造……

wouldn’t you go for a look in the Yellow Pages for a, a boat building company, say, “Listen, fellow, I’ve got a deal…” No.

你不会在黄页上查找一家造船公司，然后说：“听着，伙计，我有一笔交易……”不。

1:26:22 He had to tell him, “This is the blueprint, this is the shape, you need all this, you need all that, you’ve got to measure it and all that.” It’s a very interesting thing.

他必须告诉他，“这是蓝图，这是形状，你需要这一切，你需要这一切，你必须测量它等等。”这是一件非常有趣的事情。

I mean, yeah, that’s a great story.

我的意思是，是的，那是一个很棒的故事。

1:26:30 You don’t go to the great boat builder, you go—

你不去找伟大的造船商，你去——

Taxi driver or something like that.

出租车司机之类的。

…to the taxi, and then that’s that—that hero’s journey.

......到出租车，然后就是那个英雄的旅程。

1:26:36 That’s the stuff of great myths, yeah.

是的，这就是伟大神话的内容。

It is, it is a great myth.

是的，这是一个伟大的神话。

A little detail would be really cool about the replica, like, uh—

关于复制品的一些细节真的很酷，比如，呃——

Of the boat?

船上的？

What did you…

你做了什么……

1:26:49 Of the boat, yeah.

船上的，是的。

One-third replica, of course.

当然是三分之一的复制品。

That was something else.

那是另一回事。

1:26:51 There were three blokes who did it.

是三个人干的。

And they were specialists in reconstructing medieval Arab boats.

他们是重建中世纪阿拉伯船只的专家。

Because quite often, they’re found in the mud or bits, or they have information and they reconstruct them, so they were at home in it.

因为很多时候，他们是在泥土或碎片中被发现的，或者他们有信息并重建它们，所以他们在其中如鱼得水。

And we built it on a small lagoon in Kerala.

我们把它建在喀拉拉邦的一个小泻湖上。

It was just the most unbelievably wonderful thing, because they used the instructions as a blueprint.

这是最令人难以置信的美妙事情，因为他们使用了说明作为蓝图。

They made it about a third of the size of the original, a pretty huge thing.

他们把它做成了原来尺寸的三分之一，相当巨大。

But they made it because it had wooden ribs, you see?

但他们之所以这么做是因为它有木肋，你明白吗？

1:27:28 They could get wood ribs.

他们可以获得木肋骨。

They worked out by computer the maximum size they could do it when it would work.

他们通过计算机算出了可行时可以做到的最大尺寸。

Beyond it, it would be impossible, because once they built the curved ribs, and then they stuffed woven all around it, it had to be covered in bitumen, which is also very heavy, to make it waterproof.

除此之外，这是不可能的，因为一旦他们建造了弯曲的肋骨，然后他们在其周围填充编织物，就必须用沥青覆盖，沥青也很重，以使其防水。

So they calculated the size and it worked.

于是他们计算了尺寸并且成功了。

So they built this thing on rollers and it was pushed out into the…

所以他们在滚筒上建造了这个东西，然后将其推入……

It was just the most unbelievable…

这简直是最难以置信的……

I went out there with my dear wife for the last few days and was on the maiden voyage.

过去几天我和我亲爱的妻子一起去了那里，正在进行处女航。

And they had trouble with the bitumen because Indian bitumen is really not up to scratch, and they couldn’t get Iraqi bitumen because its cultural property is carcinogenic.

他们在沥青方面遇到了麻烦，因为印度沥青确实不合格，而他们无法获得伊拉克沥青，因为它的文化财产具有致癌性。

1:28:10 They wouldn’t export a tanker load of Iraqi, so we had to use the Indian stuff.

他们不会出口一整船的伊拉克油，所以我们不得不使用印度的东西。

But the thing is this, the bitumen which they coated it with was okay but it wasn’t perfect, so when it went out into the waters, there was a bit of a leak, water had to be bailed out.

但问题是，他们涂的沥青还可以，但并不完美，所以当它进入水中时，有一点泄漏，必须将水捞出。

So, they said, “Ah,” you see, and I said, I said, “Okay, listen, sunshine,” I said to this producer, “Have you ever been in a rowing boat without water in the bottom?

所以，他们说，“啊，”你看，我说，我说，“好吧，听着，阳光，”我对这位制片人说，“你曾经坐过底部没有水的划艇吗？

Excuse me?”

对不起？

Oh, you’re saying that’s- that’s a feature, not a bug.

哦，你是说这是一个功能，而不是一个错误。

That’s the feature of the thing, yeah.

这就是这个东西的特点，是的。

1:28:37 That’s the feature.

这就是特点。

That thing could have gone to ports.

那东西可能已经去港口了。

So it’s authentic.

所以它是正宗的。

Absolutely right.

完全正确。

1:28:43 We had such an adventure with that thing.

我们对那件事经历了一次冒险。

They made a documentary film.

他们制作了一部纪录片。

In various languages.

有多种语言版本。

And you know what they did?

你知道他们做了什么吗？

You know, I was in it a bit, and they had people saying, “Oh, I don’t think it was this, I don’t think it was that,” you know.

你知道，我也参与过一段时间，他们有人说，“哦，我不认为是这个，我不认为是那个，”你知道。

And they didn’t let me go back and say, “What the hell are you talking about?

他们不让我回去说：“你到底在说什么？

I did it.

我做到了。

I know what…

我知道什么……

I can read, you know, funkan you.” They didn’t have, they didn’t do it.

我可以阅读，你知道，Funkan 你。”他们没有，他们也没有这样做。

I couldn’t get my own back.

我无法拿回我自己。

I was really annoyed.

我真的很生气。

Really furious.

真的很愤怒。

So you’re- you’re saying that there’s some inaccurate things to it.

所以你——你说其中有一些不准确的事情。

I am saying there’s some inaccurate things.

我说的是有一些不准确的地方。

1:29:13 Yeah, somebody in Iraq said, “Oh, it couldn’t have been that.

是的，伊拉克有人说：“哦，不可能是这样。

They probably had lots of little coracles all tied together.” Did they f-?

他们可能有很多小圆船都绑在一起。”他们干了吗？

I mean, I, you know, he couldn’t read the stuff.

我的意思是，我，你知道，他看不懂这些东西。

I mean, it’s really, really, really annoying.

我的意思是，这真的、真的、真的很烦人。

I mean, you should have a chance, shouldn’t you?

我的意思是，你应该有机会，不是吗？

You know, if you’re gonna have a fencing match, you both have to have a rapier, wouldn’t you say?

你知道，如果你们要进行击剑比赛，你们俩都必须有剑，不是吗？

Yeah, and you’re the OG.

是的，你就是 OG。

1:29:32 You’re the person that decoded it.

你就是解码它的人。

Well, I can read.

嗯，我能读书。

1:29:37 Yeah.

是的。

But the thing is this, the proportions of the material were accurate.

但问题是，材料的比例是准确的。

This is the crucial thing, that, um- …what had happened was, they took the information about how you make a real coracle, which is usually enough, two people…

这是至关重要的事情，嗯……发生的事情是，他们获取了有关如何制作真正的小圆舟的信息，这通常就足够了，两个人……

…And a few sheep and goats…

……还有一些绵羊和山羊……

Got it.

明白了。

…and they bumped them up…

......他们把它们撞了......

1:29:56 …So that it worked.

……所以它起作用了。

And I know why that is, because it goes back to your question about oral literature, because there must’ve been times when people went to villages and told them about the flood, and when they got to the question of the boat, they’d say something like this, “And Enki said, ‘You got to build the biggest coracle you’ve ever seen.'” Like that, right?

我知道为什么会这样，因为这又回到了你关于口头文学的问题，因为肯定有很多次人们去村庄告诉他们关于洪水的事情，当他们谈到船的问题时，他们会说这样的话，“恩基说，‘你必须建造你所见过的最大的小圆舟。’”就像这样，对吧？

Well, I mean, if you do this in a cinema in Guildford, people will say, “Well, that’s fine,” but if you do it to a whole load of river people who use coracles and make them, they’re not going to take that, they’re not…

好吧，我的意思是，如果你在吉尔福德的一家电影院里这样做，人们会说，“好吧，那很好，”但如果你对一大群使用小船并制作它们的河流居民这样做，他们不会接受，他们不会……

“So how big was it then?

“那么当时有多大呢？

Come on, how big was it?” So what do they do?

来吧，它有多大？”那么他们做什么呢？

They go to a coracle place and they work out…

他们去一家小船店锻炼身体……

1:30:45 …the proportions of material and then they bump it up so that the actor who reads this, for the first few times, he has in his pocket how much it is.

……材料的比例，然后他们把它放大，这样演员在前几次读到这篇文章时，他的口袋里就有了它的数量。

But after a while, he knows it by heart so that none of these people get angry.

但过了一段时间，他就熟记在心了，这样这些人就不会生气了。

“You can’t expect us, big enough for all this.” So then he’d have all the stuff and he’d do it this way, “And you need all this and, and you need all this,” and they’d all be hypnotized by it.

“你不能指望我们足够大，可以承受这一切。”然后他就拥有了所有的东西，他会这样做，“你需要这一切，你需要这一切，”他们都会被它催眠。

That, I think, is, it’s actually, regarding your question, it’s on the cusp of purely oral literature to purely literary literature.

我认为，实际上，关于你的问题，它正处于纯口头文学到纯文学文学的风口浪尖。

It’s actually there because you can see that it was molded in the environment when people were still talking.

它实际上在那里，因为你可以看到它是在人们还在说话时的环境中塑造的。

Yeah, you’ve got to make it authentic to really connect with people.

是的，你必须让它变得真实才能真正与人们建立联系。

Well, you couldn’t pull it over their eyes.

好吧，你不能把它蒙在他们的眼睛上。

1:31:29 I mean, you know?

我的意思是，你知道吗？

Yeah, well, I wish many of the films in Hollywood today would have the same level of rigor.

是的，我希望今天好莱坞的许多电影也能有同样的严格程度。

Rigor is one of the things lacking in the world.

严谨是这个世界所缺乏的东西之一。

By the way, I forgot to ask, why was the flood myth focused on noisy people?

对了，我忘了问，为什么洪水神话集中在吵闹的人身上？

Well, it can’t really be noisy.

嗯，确实不能太吵。

1:31:45 I’ll tell you what the explanation is; it’s something quite different.

我会告诉你解释是什么；这是完全不同的事情。

Before the flood, the gods had not created death.

在洪水之前，众神并没有创造死亡。

So I think the noise was a reflex of the fact there were just too many animals, too many people, and they had to do something about it.

所以我认为噪音是动物太多、人太多这一事实的反映，他们必须对此采取一些措施。

So it’s a sort of euphemism, so to speak, because after the flood, at the end of the tablet…

所以可以这么说，这是一种委婉的说法，因为在洪水之后，在石碑的末尾……

not my tablet, but the other ones, where it’s still broken.

不是我的平板电脑，而是其他平板电脑，但它仍然坏了。

It says, there’s a tantalizing thing where they create barren women who can’t have children and men who can’t have children and princesses who don’t have children, and they institute in society some figures who will not reproduce the species.

它说，有一件很诱人的事情，他们创造了不能生育的不育妇女、不能生育的男人和没有孩子的公主，并在社会中创造了一些不会繁衍物种的人物。

So it’s actually a rather sophisticated Malthusian kind of philosophical position.

所以这实际上是一种相当复杂的马尔萨斯式的哲学立场。

1:32:41 It’s remarkable.

这很了不起。

So that the noise means there are so many of them, not that they’re actually so noisy that we can’t hear ourselves think.

因此，噪音意味着它们的数量太多，而不是它们实际上吵闹到我们听不到自己的想法。

You have to tell me about the world of ancient games.

你得给我讲讲古代游戏的世界。

1:32:50 Maybe we can start with the ancient Royal Game of Ur.

也许我们可以从古老的乌尔皇家游戏开始。

What is it and how were you somehow able to crack the rules of it?

它是什么？你是如何破解它的规则的？

Well, the Royal Game of Ur is a board of 20 squares in a rather idiosyncratic form.

乌尔皇家游戏是一个由 20 个方格组成的棋盘，其形式相当特殊。

1:33:05 And it was pretty much unknown until the 1920s when Sir Leonard Woolley was digging at the site of Ur, and in the graves of the royal family, Sumerian rulers, they found four or five boards of this pattern, together with dice and pieces, which showed that it was popular among them at this time, and also that wherever they were going in the world to come, they would want to be playing it.

直到1920年代伦纳德·伍利爵士在乌尔遗址挖掘时，人们才知道，在王室、苏美尔统治者的坟墓中，他们发现了四五块这种图案的木板，以及骰子和棋子，这表明它在当时在他们中间很流行，而且无论他们走到世界的哪个地方，他们都会想玩它。

And so that was one thing, and we had the number of pieces and some dice.

所以这是一回事，我们有棋子的数量和一些骰子。

So lots of people had ideas about how it might have been played, and that went on like that for a very long time.

所以很多人都对它的玩法有想法，这种情况持续了很长一段时间。

And thereafter, boards for this game turned up in most of the countries of the Middle East, sometimes quite a lot of them.

此后，这款游戏的棋盘出现在大多数中东国家，有时甚至是很多。

1:34:07 And the one from Ur dates to about 2600 BC, and from then down to the end of the first millennium, there are examples of boards from Mesopotamia itself and from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Crete, all over the place.

乌尔的木板可以追溯到公元前 2600 年左右，从那时起一直到第一个千年末，到处都有来自美索不达米亚本身以及埃及、叙利亚、黎巴嫩、约旦、土耳其、希腊、克里特岛的木板例子。

And when you put all the boards together, you realize that you’re dealing with a board game which was extremely widespread and extremely popular.

当你把所有的棋盘放在一起时，你会意识到你正在处理一种非常广泛且非常受欢迎的棋盘游戏。

Across space and time.

跨越空间和时间。

across space and time.

跨越空间和时间。

1:34:46 So, it lasted for nearly 3,000 years and it was played all over the place.

就这样，它持续了近3000年，各地都在演奏。

So, it’s one of those games that’s like chess or backgammon, which you can say are world conquerors.

所以，这是一种类似于国际象棋或双陆棋的游戏，你可以说它们是世界征服者。

Because the way I see the issue is that human beings for a very long time have been, shall we say, hungry for things to do.

因为我对这个问题的看法是，人类很长一段时间以来，容我们说，一直渴望有事可做。

Because all through the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, there was no television, you know?

因为整个青铜时代和铁器时代都没有电视，你知道吗？

There was nothing, and kids played with pull-along things and adults had board games, and they’re kind of embedded in culture from a very early time.

那里什么都没有，孩子们玩拖拉的东西，成年人玩棋盘游戏，它们从很早的时候就已经融入了文化中。

1:35:38 And this game was so widespread, you know, Tutankhamun, for example, in his tomb, there were two or three boards for it with the pieces.

这个游戏非常普遍，你知道，例如图坦卡蒙，在他的坟墓里，有两三个棋子和棋子。

So it arrived in the middle of the second millennium in Egypt and even the Pharaoh played it.

所以它在第二个千年中期到达了埃及，甚至法老也演奏过它。

So you have a game, which the interesting point about it is that it spread across the known world without written rules and without people necessarily knowing the same language.

所以你有一个游戏，它的有趣之处在于它在没有书面规则的情况下传播到已知的世界，并且人们不一定知道相同的语言。

So a merchant would go, end up in a bar, you know, come from India or, I don’t know, where, start seeing these guys playing, have a go himself, and it looks rather interesting.

所以一个商人会去，最后在一家酒吧，你知道，来自印度，或者，我不知道，在哪里，开始看到这些家伙玩，自己也尝试一下，看起来很有趣。

You go home and try and remember what it looked like and try and work out how to, you know, be transported this way and the other.

你回到家，试着记住它是什么样子，并尝试找出如何，你知道，以这种方式或另一种方式运输。

1:36:29 And so you can see that the board has 20 squares, so you have a block of four by three and then a bridge of two and then a second three by two thing at the end.

所以你可以看到棋盘有 20 个方格，所以你有一个 4 x 3 的块，然后是一个 2 的桥，最后是第二个 3 x 2 的东西。

So it’s difficult to describe the actual shape.

所以很难描述实际的形状。

But what happened was after about 2000 BC, the squares at the far end, which were two on one flank and two on the other, were all put at the end of the central avenue.

但发生的事情是在公元前2000年左右之后，远端的广场，一侧两个，另一侧两个，全部放在了中央大道的尽头。

So you end up with 12 squares down the middle.

所以你最终会在中间得到 12 个正方形。

All the boards after the period of Ur have 12 squares down the middle, and then four on each side at one end.

乌尔时期之后的所有棋盘中间都有 12 个方格，然后一端各有 4 个方格。

So it meant then that when you play the game, you have dice to move the pieces, you have pieces all the same, and you obviously put them on your first corner, and you turn the corner and you go up the middle and off the end.

所以这意味着当你玩游戏时，你有骰子来移动棋子，你的棋子都是一样的，你显然把它们放在你的第一个角落，然后你转过角落，你就从中间走到尽头。

1:37:22 And it was a race game of the kind that everybody knows from their own childhood.

这是一种每个人从小就知道的赛车游戏。

Some squares, which had rosettes on, were either safe squares or you had another throw, and you could maybe put two on one square, we don’t know.

有些带有玫瑰花结的方格要么是安全方格，要么你再扔一次，你也许可以在一个方格上放两个，我们不知道。

You could try and block people.

你可以尝试阻止人们。

But anyway, the crucial thing is that the widespread distribution of this idiosyncratic shape, and it’s a lasting thing, shows it must have been a very good game if people more or less played the same thing on it everywhere.

但无论如何，最重要的是，这种特殊形状的广泛分布，而且它是一种持久的东西，表明如果各地的人们或多或少都在玩同样的东西，那么它一定是一款非常好的游戏。

I mean, it may be that they were completely different games, but probably not.

我的意思是，它们可能是完全不同的游戏，但也可能不是。

So this is the thing, it makes you wonder what would be about it that would fit so well with a wide appetite from different persons, different types of person.

这就是问题所在，它让你想知道它有什么可以如此契合不同人、不同类型的人的广泛胃口。

1:38:08 And the thing is that although it’s a race game where you’re at the mercy of dice and lucky squares and unlucky squares, the process of getting your pieces on and off the board as a winner is primarily fortuitous.

问题是，虽然这是一款竞赛游戏，你受到骰子、幸运方块和不幸方块的摆布，但作为获胜者将你的棋子进出棋盘的过程主要是偶然的。

But it has built within it, is the way I understand the game plays, a measurable quota of strategy.

但它已经内置了，这是我理解游戏玩法的方式，是可衡量的策略配额。

It’s a mix of probability and strategy.

这是概率和策略的结合。

So most games are either just probability like Snakes and Ladders, like Chutes and Ladders is just a thing like that.

所以大多数游戏要么只是像《蛇与梯子》那样的概率游戏，要么像《滑梯与梯子》那样。

Or you have a game like chess, which is pure strategy.

或者你有像国际象棋这样的游戏，这是纯粹的策略游戏。

It’s a mix, and the grown-up game in the modern world where fortuity or chance and strategy have a good balance is backgammon, which is a sort of grown-up version of this sort of game.

这是一种混合体，而在现代世界中，偶然性或机会与策略具有良好平衡的成人游戏就是双陆棋，它是此类游戏的成人版本。

1:39:03 where, nevertheless, if you play according to the most rational interpretation, its strategy is a major factor.

然而，如果你按照最理性的解释来玩，它的策略是一个主要因素。

So what happened was that many people had ideas how it was played, and the route followed, and I did too.

所以发生的事情是，很多人都知道如何玩它，并且遵循路线，我也是如此。

And then I discovered this tablet in the British Museum, which was written at a very late period in the second century BC, so 2,300 years after this object existed, and it had on it the names of the pieces and what the pieces were like and various things about the throws.

然后我在大英博物馆发现了这块碑文，它写于公元前二世纪很晚的时期，距此物体存在2300年了，上面写着这些碎片的名称、碎片的样子以及有关投掷物的各种信息。

And it was obvious that it was, the rules were to do with a game which was derived from this simple early game.

很明显，规则与源自这个简单的早期游戏的游戏有关。

And that working backwards from it, you could reconstruct the game in accordance with its later incarnation that might be workable.

以此为基础逆向工作，您可以根据可能可行的后续版本来重建游戏。

1:39:54 And it jolly well turned out to be workable ’cause people play this all over the world now.

事实证明它是可行的，因为现在世界各地的人都在玩这个游戏。

And they even play in Iraq in cafes.

他们甚至在伊拉克的咖啡馆里表演。

“Wait, now?” They do.

“等等，现在？”他们确实这么做了。

“Oh, wow.” Because after it’s come back to life, it’s on the internet, people play, there are different rules.

“噢，哇。”因为它复活后，就在互联网上，人们玩，有不同的规则。

“That’s amazing.” The ones I invented are pretty much regular.

“太棒了。”我发明的那些几乎是常规的。

So if you have a good balance between chance and strategy, and it’s a fair game, and doesn’t take four days to play like modern board games.

因此，如果你在机会和策略之间取得了良好的平衡，并且这是一场公平的游戏，并且不像现代棋盘游戏那样需要四天的时间来玩。

So you could have a go and if you’re lucky, you win fast and then you have another go, maybe best of three or something like that.

所以你可以尝试一下，如果你幸运的话，你很快就会获胜，然后你可以再尝试一次，也许是三局两胜或类似的事情。

It works out rather well.

效果相当好。

1:40:32 And once I was in California, at the Getty, and I had to give a talk about this with all the information, because there’s lots of things to say about it.

有一次我在加利福尼亚州的盖蒂博物馆，我必须就这个问题发表演讲，提供所有信息，因为关于它有很多话要说。

And the lady who ran the Friends of the Getty had a brilliant idea.

盖蒂之友的经营者女士有一个绝妙的主意。

So what she brought in 20 or so commercial copies of this game, and they had small tables with chairs.

所以她带来了大约20个这个游戏的商业副本，他们有小桌子和椅子。

And after the lecture, I was supposed to say to everybody, “Okay, this is what you have to do, this is how you play.” Because you can get the rules down in like three minutes.

讲座结束后，我应该对每个人说：“好吧，这就是你们必须做的，这就是你们打球的方式。”因为你可以在三分钟内记下规则。

So I said, “Okay, first you have to do this, first you have to do that, so off you go.” So there was silence, and then after a while, someone said, “I hate you!

所以我说：“好吧，首先你必须这样做，首先你必须这样做，所以走吧。”于是一阵沉默，过了一会儿，有人说：“我恨你！

1:41:13 I’m never playing this game with you again.” When they’d never played it before, when somebody had escaped at the last minute, cleaned up just when they thought they were going to get it.

我再也不会和你玩这种游戏了。”当他们以前从未玩过它时，当有人在最后一刻逃脱时，当他们认为自己会得到它时就清理干净了。

And it provokes that salutary, benevolent fury and rage in the players, which all good board games do.

它会激起玩家有益的、仁慈的愤怒和愤怒，所有优秀的棋盘游戏都会这样做。

And they were happily married couples who were, at the end of the afternoon, phoning their respective lawyers to discuss the future, that kind of thing.

他们是幸福的夫妻，下午结束时，他们打电话给各自的律师讨论未来之类的事情。

Beautiful.

美丽的。

Do you think games, our desire to play games, a mix of chance, a mix of strategy, is a part of human nature?

你认为游戏，我们玩游戏的欲望，机会的混合，策略的混合，是人性的一部分吗？

Do you think that’s always been there?

你认为那一直存在吗？

I do.

我愿意。

I do, yes.

我愿意，是的。

I think…

我认为……

1:41:59 I mean, you can say that in communities you have rivalry, hostility, and who’s the best, who’s the fastest, who’s the strongest and things.

我的意思是，你可以说在社区中存在竞争、敌意，以及谁是最好的、谁是最快的、谁是最强的等等。

And if you play a board game like that, all the reality of it is sublimated into a safe terrain, yes, the safety of it, where you can nevertheless get angry, but it’s not like that.

如果你玩这样的棋盘游戏，它的所有现实都会升华到一个安全的领域，是的，它的安全，在那里你仍然可以生气，但事实不是那样的。

That’s one thing.

这是一回事。

But more significantly, I believe is the question of what in India people call “time pass.” Which is not quite the same as “past time.” Time pass is the question of what you do when it’s too hot to do anything, which is true a good part of the day and a good part of the year.

但更重要的是，我认为这是印度人所说的“时间流逝”的问题。这与“过去的时间”不太一样。时间的流逝是指当天气太热而无法做任何事情时你做什么的问题，这确实是一天中的大部分时间和一年中的大部分时间。

And grandmothers sit under trees with their grandchildren and they tell stories and they do this and they do that.

祖母们和孙子们坐在树下，讲故事，做这做那。

1:42:47 And “time pass” is a very useful catch-all phrase for the existence of board games.

对于棋盘游戏的存在来说，“时间流逝”是一个非常有用的包罗万象的短语。

And in India, there are many board games.

在印度，有很多棋盘游戏。

Chess, of course, is the famous one, but there are quite a lot of three-in-a-row type games or fox-against-geese games, and wolves against sheep and all those sorts of things which come out of the landscape in miniature and were played for pleasure.

当然，最著名的是国际象棋，但也有很多三连胜类型的游戏，或者狐狸对鹅，狼对羊，以及所有这些从景观的缩影中出来的游戏，供人们娱乐。

And also in a kind of way, it doesn’t really matter who wins, because you might play and it goes round and round and round, eventually somebody wins and then they have another game.

而且在某种程度上，谁赢了并不重要，因为你可能会玩，它会一圈又一圈地进行，最终有人获胜，然后他们会进行另一场比赛。

So it’s a sort of that kind of rather graceful, valid function for not wasting time, doing something which is stimulating and beneficial without it being overpowering in either way.

所以这是一种相当优雅、有效的功能，不浪费时间，做一些刺激和有益的事情，但不会以任何方式压倒性的。

So I think it is a human matter.

所以我认为这是一个人的问题。

Of course, we humans also sometimes mix in gambling into the whole thing, to add some money on top of it, which I’m sure sometimes was- …

当然，我们人类有时也会将赌博混入整个事情中，在上面添加一些钱，我确信有时是-......

1:43:42 involved here.

涉及到这里。

I think so, but probably only late on, because money as such…

我想是的，但可能只是晚了，因为金钱本身......

1:43:52 …

……

Of course that doesn’t appear until quite late.

当然，这种情况直到很晚才出现。

But there are…

但有……

We know in Mesopotamia, it’s a rather interesting thing, there’s a school tablet with three or four lines quoted from one literary thing and three or four from another literary thing.

我们知道在美索不达米亚，这是一件相当有趣的事情，有一块学校的碑文，上面有三四行引用自一种文学事物，还有三四行引用自另一种文学事物。

And one of them, it has this, “Oh my astragal, oh my astragal, woe is me, woe is me.” And that’s all we have.

其中之一是这样的：“哦，我的星云，哦，我的星云，我有祸了，我有祸了。”这就是我们所拥有的一切。

And I think this is an example of a genre of literature called “the gambler’s lament.” Because they used knucklebones or astragals as dice.

我认为这是一种叫做“赌徒哀叹”的文学流派的一个例子。因为他们用指节骨或者黄芪作为骰子。

And I’m sure there were people who bet a sack of this or a roomful of that on the throw of the knucklebones.

我确信有人会把一袋这个或一屋子的东西押在指节骨的投掷上。

1:44:48 And this extract in the school text is probably from a literary tablet in which somebody lost everything, even though there weren’t coins, because I think you’re right that it’s a natural thing for it to accrue.

学校课本中的这段摘录可能来自一块文学平板电脑，其中有人失去了一切，即使没有硬币，因为我认为你是对的，它的积累是很自然的事情。

And also maybe men and women played differently, because there are some games which were played in harems among girls, you know, woman on a hot afternoon where nobody was going to win anything.

也许男人和女人玩的方式也不同，因为有些游戏是在女孩们的后宫里玩的，你知道，女人在炎热的下午玩，没有人会赢得任何东西。

But the rules tablet, which gives this kind of backhanded information about it, is couched in such a way that it talks about people in a bar.

但规则平板电脑提供了这种间接的信息，其表达方式就像是在谈论酒吧里的人们。

Because the movement of the pieces is calculated in terms of food and drink and women, what you win.

因为棋子的移动是根据食物、饮料和女人来计算的，你会赢得什么。

So the landscape in which the rules are couched for credibility are for just exactly that setup.

因此，为了可信度而制定的规则正是针对这种设置的。

As you mentioned, you are the curator at the, possibly the greatest place on Earth, the British Museum.

正如您提到的，您是大英博物馆（可能是地球上最伟大的地方）的馆长。

Oh, yes.

哦是的。

Can you tell me what are some of the incredible, magical aspects of the British Museum?

您能告诉我大英博物馆有哪些令人难以置信、神奇的地方吗？

Well, the British Museum is a magical place and it’s a special case because there’s a lot of flurry and dispute now about what museums are and what they’re for and why they exist and whether they should ever have existed, and all these sorts of issues which people go on about.

嗯，大英博物馆是一个神奇的地方，它是一个特例，因为现在对于博物馆是什么、它们的用途、它们为什么存在、它们是否应该存在以及人们不断讨论的所有这些问题存在很多争论。

1:46:04 But the British Museum is unlike almost all museums in the world because it’s to do with the achievements of mankind from the beginning onwards.

但大英博物馆与世界上几乎所有博物馆不同，因为它与人类自古以来的成就有关。

So it’s a kind of celebration of art and more, but it’s not an art museum.

所以这是一种艺术庆典等等，但它不是一个艺术博物馆。

It’s to do with the struggle of the human race against all the things that beset it and how it has triumphed, and how marvelous it is and the things that have happened.

这是关于人类与所有困扰它的事物的斗争以及人类如何取得胜利，以及它是多么奇妙以及已经发生的事情。

1:46:50 And not turning a blind eye to all the contrasting horrible things that have happened, but it’s the narrative of the human race, as I see it, as discernible in objects.

我并没有对所发生的所有对比鲜明的可怕事情视而不见，但在我看来，这是人类的叙述，可以通过物体来辨别。

So it means that we serve two very important horizons.

因此，这意味着我们服务于两个非常重要的领域。

One is that we represent, as far as we can, the whole world with no injudicious attention paid to any one or other culture, that they’re all to us one.

一是我们尽可能代表整个世界，不对任何一种或其他文化给予不明智的关注，它们对我们来说都是同一文化。

So there’s no favoring any religious group, any country group, anything of the kind.

因此，不会偏袒任何宗教团体、任何国家团体或任何此类团体。

It’s the human species.

这是人类。

We try to tell the narrative of, in its own right, and how it overlaps with its neighbors and what it’s learned from what came before.

我们试图讲述它本身的叙述，以及它如何与它的邻居重叠，以及它从之前的事情中学到了什么。

All those features together is really what the concern of the museum is.

所有这些特征加在一起确实是博物馆所关心的。

And of course, to collect everything we…

当然，为了收集我们的一切……

1:47:53 Or has been, to collect everything we can to tell those narratives, and also to look after them according to scientific principle.

或者一直是，收集我们所能收集的一切来讲述这些叙述，并根据科学原理来处理它们。

So, all those things at once are the task for the British Museum.

因此，所有这些事情同时是大英博物馆的任务。

And the second horizon it serves is the unborn.

它服务的第二个视野是未出生的。

So babies yet to be born, and their children, and their children, and their children.

因此，尚未出生的婴儿，还有他们的孩子，他们的孩子，他们的孩子。

And it seems to me that the task of the museum is of such cultural significance and such, so to speak, sacred validity, that it shouldn’t have to put up with people carping about this or that or saying, “Museums are sinful and wicked and should be demolished,” because the people who say these things don’t really have any idea of actually what it really does stand for.

在我看来，博物馆的任务具有如此的文化意义，可以说是神圣的有效性，它不应该忍受人们吹毛求疵，或者说“博物馆是有罪的、邪恶的，应该被拆除”，因为说这些话的人并不真正知道它真正代表什么。

1:48:44 And it’s a kind of lighthouse in a universe where we are surrounded by darkness, ignorance, stupidity, uninterest, disinterest, skepticism, ignorance, and so forth about the very issues that we’re interested in.

它就像宇宙中的一座灯塔，在这个宇宙中，我们被黑暗、无知、愚蠢、不感兴趣、不感兴趣、怀疑、无知等等围绕着我们感兴趣的问题。

And it’s one of the places in the world where you can talk about truth and beauty and elegance and intelligence without it being an affront to people who have none of those qualities, and without it being the kind of speech that people shudder or they think you’re being naive about it, because those are the crucial things.

这是世界上你可以谈论真理、美丽、优雅和智慧的地方之一，而不会冒犯那些没有这些品质的人，也不会成为人们不寒而栗的演讲，或者他们认为你对此很天真，因为这些都是至关重要的事情。

And also about religion, that we don’t favor a religion and we don’t sponsor a religion.

还有关于宗教，我们不支持宗教，也不赞助宗教。

We try to look at them for what they are and to assess their relationships and what they offer.

我们试图了解他们的本质，评估他们的关系以及他们提供的东西。

1:49:40 Perhaps less, with a less acerbity and less criticism than I would if I was the director.

也许比我作为导演时更少、更少尖刻和更少批评。

I would try to put them down the wrong end of a microscope and look at them for what they are and what they have done and what’s been done in the name of religion.

我会尝试把他们放在显微镜的错误一端，看看他们是什么，他们做了什么，以及以宗教的名义做了什么。

You probably would never get away with that, but maybe one day that will be an important part because it’s a major contributive factor to what’s happened to the human race, which has never really articulated sharply about what religion has done to us and where we might have been without it.

你可能永远无法摆脱这一点，但也许有一天这将成为一个重要的部分，因为它是人类所发生的事情的一个主要贡献因素，而人类从来没有真正清晰地阐明宗教对我们做了什么，以及如果没有宗教，我们可能会变成什么样子。

Because not having religion does not mean not having law or morality or sensitivity or consideration or love or any of those things.

因为没有宗教并不意味着没有法律或道德或敏感性或考虑或爱或任何这些东西。

None of those things depends on religion, and those are the things which are important.

这些事情都不取决于宗教，而这些才是重要的。

1:50:28 So I think it’s people say, “Oh, you say this ’cause you work there and you, you know, you’re a curator, you wouldn’t say that the British Museum is a special place.” It’s nothing to do with that.

所以我认为人们会说，“哦，你这么说是因为你在那里工作，你知道，你是一名策展人，你不会说大英博物馆是一个特别的地方。”与此无关。

It is actually a special place because you cannot point to another museum in the world with the same task.

它实际上是一个特殊的地方，因为你无法指出世界上另一个博物馆承担同样的任务。

For example, the Louvre is basically a museum of art, basically a museum of art, not a museum of ideas.

例如，卢浮宫基本上是一个艺术博物馆，基本上是一个艺术博物馆，而不是一个思想博物馆。

And the Met is definitely a museum of art.

大都会博物馆绝对是一座艺术博物馆。

It’s called the Museum of Art and that’s their priority.

它被称为艺术博物馆，这是他们的首要任务。

Design and color and shape, to my mind, it’s the British Museum.

设计、颜色和形状，在我看来，这就是大英博物馆。

This is one factor among many others.

这是众多因素之一。

And we’re not an art museum and we’re not a local museum, we’re not a museum of the history of the bicycle, we’re not a celebration of evil.

我们不是艺术博物馆，我们不是当地博物馆，我们不是自行车历史博物馆，我们不是庆祝邪恶的博物馆。

1:51:16 We are, as it were, doing, as I see it, the best we could do if, for example, a whole load of Martians arrived in the Great Court and burst through the front door and said to us, “Tell us all about this place.

在我看来，我们正在做我们能做的最好的事情，例如，如果一整群火星人到达大法庭，冲破前门，对我们说：“告诉我们关于这个地方的一切。

Tell us about the world.

告诉我们关于世界的事。

Can you do it fast ’cause we got to leave?” And if you took them around and said, “Look at this, look at this, look at this, look at this,” they’d get some picture which wasn’t insane.

你能快点做吗，因为我们得走了？”如果你带着他们四处走动并说：“看看这个，看看这个，看看这个，看看这个，”他们会得到一些并不疯狂的图片。

The only thing they wouldn’t get is a recording of “Johnny B.

他们唯一得不到的是“Johnny B.

Goode” by Chuck Berry, but apparently one’s been put into space.

查克·贝里（Chuck Berry）的《古德》（Goode），但显然其中一个已经被送入太空。

Yeah.

是的。

I’ve heard about it.

我听说过。

So this is a very comforting thing.

所以这是一件非常令人欣慰的事情。

But that’s kind of what…

但这就是……

1:51:58 The task of the British Museum is to do that, but for the entirety of human history.

大英博物馆的任务就是做到这一点，而且是为了整个人类历史。

Yeah.

是的。

1:52:02 It can be done.

这是可以做到的。

It would be a store of artifacts…

这将是一个文物商店……

Yes

是的

…that are the raindrops from which you can reconstruct the waterfall.

……这些雨滴可以用来重建瀑布。

Precisely so.

正是如此。

1:52:09 And it’s not a valid criticism to say to us that most of the stuff is not on exhibition, which is what everybody says.

每个人都这么说，对我们说大多数东西都没有展出，这并不是一个有效的批评。

“It should go here, it should go there ’cause it’s not on exhibition.” But we’re not doing it for any other reason than stockpiling for future examination.

“它应该放在这里，应该放在那里，因为它没有展出。”但我们这样做不是为了任何其他原因，只是为了将来的检查而储存。

See, this is the important perspective that nobody considers.

看，这是没有人考虑的重要观点。

Because the thing is, when you have something which is contemporary, if you’re a clever journalist or a clever thinker, you can write essays about it, you can talk about it and you can see it, but you can only see it from the perspective from which you operate.

因为事实是，当你有一些当代的东西时，如果你是一个聪明的记者或聪明的思想家，你可以写关于它的文章，你可以谈论它，你可以看到它，但你只能从你操作的角度来看它。

And with the passage of time, the significance of objects, what they stand for, what they meant, and what they can still mean shifts.

随着时间的推移，物体的意义、它们代表什么、意味着什么以及它们仍然意味着什么都会发生变化。

1:52:57 And the further back you go, the sharper you can understand things, especially in terms of their own precedent and their own contemporary parallels.

你走得越远，你对事物的理解就越敏锐，尤其是在他们自己的先例和当代的相似之处方面。

So the benefit of distance, storage, and contemplation is inestimable.

所以距离、存储和沉思的好处是不可估量的。

There are so many questions I want to ask you.

我有很多问题想问你。

1:53:13 What wisdom do you think the people from whom these artifacts came had that we, the modern-day humans, may have lost or lost in part or in whole?

您认为创造这些文物的人们有哪些智慧是我们现代人类可能已经部分或全部丢失或丢失的？

It’s often, as you’ve spoken about, we see the ancient peoples as lesser, dumber, more primitive.

正如你所说，我们常常认为古代民族更卑微、更愚蠢、更原始。

And you’ve spoken about how they are basically the same.

您已经谈到了它们的基本相同之处。

I think if you put them on a bus all wearing the same clothes, you wouldn’t know.

我想如果你让他们都穿着同样的衣服上公共汽车，你就不会知道。

1:53:46 That’s my feeling.

这就是我的感觉。

But there is some…

但有一些……

1:53:51 I’m sure there’s some greater wisdom they had about certain things, as we have greater wisdom about others.

我确信他们在某些事情上有更大的智慧，就像我们在其他事情上有更大的智慧一样。

Thanks to Einstein, we’ve figured out the curvature of space-time.

多亏了爱因斯坦，我们才算出了时空曲率。

Yeah.

是的。

Which they didn’t know about.

他们不知道这一点。

1:54:05 But…

但是……

They knew quite a lot about astronomy, though.

不过，他们对天文学了解很多。

1:54:07 Quite a lot about astronomy.

关于天文学的很多。

They stared at the stars.

他们凝视着星星。

Yeah, and they measured them and they made calculations.

是的，他们测量了它们并进行了计算。

1:54:12 And when the Greeks went to Babylon, they thought, “Hey man, this is really cool.” And they wrote it all down and went home.

当希腊人前往巴比伦时，他们想：“嘿，伙计，这真的很酷。”他们把这一切都写下来然后回家了。

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

是的，绝对，绝对。

Well, I think it’s a hard question to answer.

嗯，我认为这是一个很难回答的问题。

But one of the things is that they were spared things which have cluttered up the essence of humanity.

但其中一件事是，他们没有受到那些扰乱人类本质的事情的影响。

Because I think that the modern adherence to the electronic universe is disastrous for humans, and because it reduces the vitality of the human component.

因为我认为现代对电子宇宙的坚持对人类来说是灾难性的，因为它降低了人类成分的活力。

I think it’s restrictive in a way that people don’t realize until it’s too late.

我认为这是一种限制性的方式，人们直到为时已晚才意识到。

Like drugs, if you take drugs now and again, you think, “Oh, it’s fine, it’s fine.” Then suddenly you realize you’re addicted to heroin.

就像毒品一样，如果你时不时地吸食毒品，你会想：“哦，没关系，没关系。”然后你突然意识到自己对海洛因上瘾了。

It’s a bit like that.

有点像那样。

1:55:06 People use the electronic world like an addictive drug and they can’t get through without it.

人们使用电子世界就像使用一种令人上瘾的药物，没有它他们就无法度过。

And I think this is a very recent thing, but I suppose I’m not a Luddite and say we shouldn’t have railway engines and we shouldn’t have kettles.

我认为这是最近发生的事情，但我想我不是勒德分子，并说我们不应该有铁路发动机，我们不应该有水壶。

But I think one of the things about the ancient world was that people never went anywhere unless they were merchants or soldiers.

但我认为古代世界的一件事是，人们永远不会去任何地方，除非他们是商人或士兵。

They never went anywhere.

他们哪儿也没去。

Probably people born and died in a village and then their children born and died in the village, and they never knew anything about the outside world.

大概人们出生在一个村庄里，死在一个村庄里，他们的孩子也出生在这个村庄里，死在这个村庄里，他们对外面的世界一无所知。

Maybe a very little.

也许很少。

Sometimes there’d be a message, but in principle, they had no idea about other countries, other languages, or how big they were or any…

有时会有一条消息，但原则上，他们不知道其他国家、其他语言，也不知道它们有多大或任何……

1:55:50 So I don’t think they had wisdom in a way that you could type out following precepts will make life better.

所以我不认为他们有智慧，你可以写出以下戒律来让生活变得更好。

Because they told lies and they esteemed the truth, and they fell in love and they committed adultery and they did murder, and they did all the things.

因为他们说谎，他们尊重真理，他们坠入爱河，他们通奸，他们杀人，他们做了所有这些事。

I think in a way, the ancient world allowed human beings to behave more naturally than the world in which we live now.

我认为在某种程度上，古代世界允许人类的行为比我们现在生活的世界更加自然。

I mean, if you live in a rustic environment or by the sea, or you’re a fisherman, or you…

我的意思是，如果你生活在乡村环境或海边，或者你是渔民，或者你......

I mean all those normal, real kind of things, then it’s probably all right.

我的意思是所有那些正常的、真实的事情，那么可能就没事了。

But most people who live crammed in the cities live a very, very artificial life where the principles which they regard as ineluctably crucial are not ineluctably crucial.

但大多数挤在城市里的人都过着非常非常人为的生活，他们认为不可避免的重要原则并不是不可避免的重要。

They’re not in…

他们不在……

1:56:43 You know, one example is this ghastly thing on mobiles where you get a short clip from a real program.

你知道，一个例子是手机上的这种可怕的事情，你可以从真实的节目中获得一个短片。

Yeah, yeah.

是啊是啊。

I think it’s utterly, utterly wicked.

我认为这完全是邪恶的。

1:56:50 So you have children all over the world who cannot articulate, spell, or make meaning clear using the best, most literary, and most beneficial language that’s ever been created, which is English.

因此，世界各地的孩子都无法使用有史以来最好的、最具文学性和最有益的语言（英语）来表达、拼写或阐明含义。

They have to save their lives, and they use a word…

他们必须拯救自己的生命，他们用了一个词……

I’ll give you an example.

我给你举个例子。

Yeah.

是的。

Right?

正确的？

1:57:14 Like I went.

就像我去过一样。

Like I went.

就像我去过一样。

Like I went.

就像我去过一样。

Yeah.

是的。

So difficult to define that grammatically.

很难从语法上定义它。

1:57:18 Difficult.

难的。

Like, I should have gone.

就像，我应该走了。

Where “I went” or “I should have gone” means “to speak.” Now, how would it be if when we see the verb “to go” in Sumerian it actually meant “to speak”?

“我去了”或“我应该去”的意思是“说话”。现在，如果我们在苏美尔语中看到动词“to go”，它实际上意味着“说话”，那会怎么样呢？

Where would we be?

我们会在哪里？

Where would we be?

我们会在哪里？

I mean, we should probably say that even in that time there was probably slang, right?

我的意思是，我们也许应该说，即使在那个时候也可能有俚语，对吧？

1:57:39 It just wouldn’t end up written.

只是最终不会被写下来。

Yes, there were dialects.

是的，有方言。

1:57:45 There were words that sailors used.

有水手们使用过的词语。

For sure, all those things.

当然，所有这些事情。

But they wouldn’t end up in writing.

但他们最终不会以书面形式结束。

Sometimes they do.

有时他们会这样做。

We have to remember that Cambridge and Oxford speak in a certain way that’s proper and formal and very smart, but most of the people in bars, sailors, have a different way of speaking.

我们必须记住，剑桥和牛津的说话方式是正确、正式、非常聪明的，但大多数酒吧里的人、水手都有不同的说话方式。

They do.

他们确实这么做了。

So they would probably say “like I went” and have emojis and…

所以他们可能会说“就像我去了一样”并且有表情符号......

But the thing is, you have to moderate your vocabulary.

但问题是，你必须控制你的词汇量。

1:58:13 If you talk to people of a certain age, because they don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about if you use language.

如果你和某个年龄段的人说话，因为如果你使用语言，他们根本不知道你在说什么。

And the thing that was just so exquisite about English is like with a barrister, you can make a case which is absolutely wonderful because it says exactly what it means and there’s no wiggle room.

英语的精妙之处就像与律师在一起，你可以提出一个绝对精彩的案例，因为它准确地表达了它的意思，而且没有回旋余地。

The conversation should be like that, with no wiggle room.

谈话就应该这样，没有回旋的余地。

It’s not just a matter of spelling, but the basic vocabulary.

这不仅仅是拼写的问题，还有基本词汇的问题。

You know something very interesting, people say they know English or they speak English.

你知道一些非常有趣的事情，人们说他们懂英语或者他们说英语。

Have you ever in your life opened a full-size volume of the Oxford English Dictionary?

您一生中打开过一本全尺寸的《牛津英语词典》吗？

It’s about that thick, this fat.

大约有那么厚，那么脂肪。

I have a whole set.

我有一整套。

I love them.

我爱他们。

So this is it.

所以就是这样。

1:58:58 You take a volume off the shelf and you open the book, and you run your forefinger down the various columns of writing.

你从书架上取下一本书，打开书，然后用食指在各个栏目上划过。

You might have to turn several pages before you find a single word you’ve ever heard before, because English is unimaginably rich.

您可能需要翻几页才能找到以前听过的单词，因为英语的丰富程度难以想象。

I grew up in a house where everybody read literature all the time, and I had three sisters and then a brother, and we all read literature.

我在一个每个人都一直阅读文学的房子里长大，我有三个姐妹，然后是一个兄弟，我们都读文学。

Went to the library every week, read lots and lots and lots of books, so we all had really good vocabulary, and that’s how you get vocabulary.

每周都去图书馆，读很多很多很多书，所以我们都有很好的词汇量，这就是你获得词汇量的方式。

Otherwise, you don’t, because in conversation, “Do you want more tea?” All this sort of stuff, you don’t learn new vocabulary, you have to get it from reading and listening to proper stuff.

否则，你不会，因为在谈话中，“你想要更多的茶吗？”所有这些东西，你不需要学习新的词汇，你必须通过阅读和聆听正确的东西来获得它。

Which is a very important aspect of vocabulary, why it’s important to know a lot of words and to speak clearly, because those words also define the quality of your thoughts.

这是词汇的一个非常重要的方面，为什么了解很多单词并说清楚很重要，因为这些单词也定义了你的想法的质量。

Sure

当然可以

…

……

1:59:56 at the end of the day.

归根结底。

That’s exactly right.

完全正确。

1:59:57 I must say, I think it is a pity if having produced such wonderful languages in the world that their use is so inhibited.

我必须说，如果世界上产生了如此美妙的语言，但它们的使用却受到如此限制，我认为这是一种遗憾。

I think the right way to think about it is the way the British Museum thinks about it.

我认为正确的思考方式就是大英博物馆的思考方式。

2:00:08 So you’re commenting on the ephemeral, on the thing that is in the moment right now is happening.

所以你是在评论短暂的、正在发生的事情。

The reality is only a few select things will last a hundred, 200 years from now about this moment in time.

现实情况是，只有少数选定的事物能够在大约此时此刻持续一百年、两百年。

And so we have to sort of think with the big picture perspective and the slowness of time.

因此，我们必须从大局角度和时间缓慢的角度来思考。

Yes, in the moment there are these catastrophes, there are changing ways of speaking, the technology tearing apart the fabric of society, but when you zoom out…You will think about the grand ideas of Einstein, the battle of ideologies with communism and Nazism of the 20th centuries.

是的，在发生这些灾难的当下，说话方式正在发生变化，技术正在撕裂社会结构，但当你把镜头拉远时……你会想到爱因斯坦的宏伟思想，20世纪与共产主义和纳粹主义的意识形态之战。

The bad, the triumphant, the rockets.

坏的，胜利的，火箭。

Humans started launching rockets, going to the moon, maybe to Mars.

人类开始发射火箭，前往月球，也许还去火星。

2:01:05 Those things.

那些东西。

And we won’t be thinking about emojis and any of that.

我们不会考虑表情符号之类的。

And in some sense, that’s the stuff you’re looking at with cuneiforms, is the things that stand the test of time, that are there.

从某种意义上说，这就是你用楔形文字看到的东西，是经得起时间考验的东西，就在那里。

That’s true.

这是真的。

2:01:23 But I think that language, properly used, is a crucial human tool for communication.

但我认为，如果使用得当，语言是人类交流的重要工具。

Absolutely, yes.

绝对是的。

2:01:32 Speaking of which, I have to ask some more about the cuneiform tablets at the British Museum, when you’re surrounded by so many…

说到这里，我不得不再问一些关于大英博物馆的楔形文字板的事情，当你周围有这么多……

And by the way, how many cuneiforms?

顺便问一下，有多少种楔形文字？

About 130,000.

约13万。

That is so cool.

那太酷了。

It is.

这是。

2:01:48 It’s pretty cool.

非常酷。

What are some of the most beautiful cuneiforms to you?

对您来说最美丽的楔形文字是什么？

2:01:49 Maybe ones we don’t know about, that make you smile?

也许那些我们不知道的事情会让你微笑？

Well, there are not many jokes.

还好，笑话不多。

2:01:59 You asked about jokes.

你问的是笑话。

Yeah, they lost their sense of humor in cuneiform.

是的，他们失去了楔形文字的幽默感。

Yeah, I think there are.

是的，我想有。

2:02:04 There’s one that I can remember.

有一个我还记得。

A fly or a mosquito lands on the back of an elephant and says, “Am I too heavy for you?” Or something like that.

苍蝇或蚊子落在大象背上并说：“我对你来说太重了吗？”或者类似的东西。

That’s sort of a Babylonian joke.

这有点像巴比伦的笑话。

You wouldn’t use it in the pub or anything like that.

你不会在酒吧或类似的地方使用它。

Yeah, yeah.

是啊是啊。

2:02:21 You had to be there.

你必须在那里。

But then also, do you like Tom Lehrer?

但话又说回来，你喜欢汤姆·莱勒吗？

Of course.

当然。

Okay, that’s good.

好吧，那很好。

2:02:27 That’s good.

那挺好的。

I once went to America on a lecture tour and I ended up in the town where Dr. Wernher von Braun ended up running the American rocket…

我有一次去美国进行巡回演讲，最终来到了沃纳·冯·布劳恩博士最终运行美国火箭的小镇……

…

……

Industry.

工业。

It doesn’t matter?

没关系？

Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?

一旦火箭升空，谁在乎它们坠落到哪里呢？

Where they come down, yeah.

他们从哪里下来，是的。

“That’s not my department,” says Wernher von Braun.

“那不是我的部门，”沃纳·冯·布劳恩说。

That guy, I mean, I could tell where your wit comes from, the fact that you know Tom Lehrer.

我的意思是，那个家伙，我可以看出你的智慧从何而来，事实上你认识汤姆·莱勒。

But he’s such a…

但他就是这样一个……

2:03:00 The way he plays the piano is fantastic.

他弹钢琴的方式非常棒。

I think my dad recorded them off the radio on a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and I learned them all by heart because they were so fantastic.

我想我父亲用卷盘式录音机从收音机里录下了它们，我把它们都背下来了，因为它们太棒了。

But I knew a Harvard professor who I stayed with once who was a Sumerologist.

但我认识一位曾经和我住过的哈佛大学教授，他是一位苏美尔学家。

And his wife said that she knew Tom Lehrer when he was in the math department…

他的妻子说，当汤姆·莱勒在数学系时，她就认识他了……

…And they used to have parties and he always played the piano in the corner of the room.

……他们曾经举办派对，他总是在房间的角落里弹钢琴。

He’s just amazing, that man.

他真是太棒了，那个男人。

Yeah, I mean, he had a real…

是的，我的意思是，他有一个真正的……

2:03:25 You have that.

你有那个。

You know, I’ve watched a lot of your stuff.

你知道，我看过你的很多东西。

Your whole way of being, the wit.

你的整个存在方式，智慧。

There’s something about that biting wit.

这种尖刻的智慧是有道理的。

It’s a bit of humor, bit of sadness in it.

这其中有一点幽默，也有一点悲伤。

It just kind of feels like it really quickly gets to the complexity of what it means to be human.

感觉就像它很快就了解了人类的复杂性。

I think so.

我想是的。

2:03:49 But the paradoxical thing about Tom Lehrer is that when he’s talking about the bomb and all that, and devices, and international trouble, it’s so unchanged.

但汤姆·莱勒的矛盾之处在于，当他谈论炸弹和所有这些、装置和国际麻烦时，一切都没有改变。

And same with Dr. Strangelove.

奇爱博士也一样。

It’s just, it’s very remarkable.

只是，这非常了不起。

Anyway, next time you’re here or when you’re here, you should come and see me in the museum.

不管怎样，下次你来这里或者当你在这里的时候，你应该来博物馆看看我。

I will

我会

And I’ll show you…

我会告诉你……

I will

我会

…some of these confounded things for yourself, and show you the Chicago Dictionary and give you a grammar book to learn.

……其中一些你自己感到困惑的事情，并向你展示《芝加哥词典》并给你一本语法书来学习。

Irving, you’re a remarkable human being.

欧文，你是一个了不起的人。

2:04:26 It’s-

这是——

Well, I’m very glad we met.

嗯，我很高兴我们见面了。

It’s truly an honor to meet you, to talk to you.

很荣幸见到您、与您交谈。

Me- me too.

我——我也是。

2:04:31 It’s been very interesting.

这非常有趣。

Irving, thank you so much for talking to me.

欧文，非常感谢你接受我的采访。

It’s been a big pleasure for me, Lex.

这对我来说是一个很大的乐趣，莱克斯。

2:04:34 Be well.

祝你一切顺利。

Thanks for listening to this conversation with Irving Finkel.

感谢您收听欧文·芬克尔的对话。

2:04:38 To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description where you can also find links to contact me, ask questions, give feedback and so on.

为了支持这个播客，请在描述中查看我们的赞助商，您还可以在其中找到联系我、提出问题、提供反馈等的链接。

And now, let me leave you with some words from Ludwig Wittgenstein, “The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” Thank you for listening.

现在，让我用路德维希·维特根斯坦的话来说几句话：“我的语言的限制意味着我的世界的限制。”感谢您的聆听。

I hope to see you next time.

我希望下次能见到你。