519. 世界上第一座城市

在我们眼前，从一片广阔而杂乱的土丘中，耸立着三座巨大的土堆，这立刻显示出这些遗迹的重要性——我们，作为首批抵达此地的欧洲访客，正迅速接近它们。

Three massive piles rose prominent before our view from an extensive and confused series of mounds at once showing the importance of the ruins which we, their first European visitors, now rapidly approached.

这个坑洞被高大而坚固的土墙环绕，遮蔽了视线，只露出主要的物体。

The hole was surrounded by a lofty and strong line of earthen ramparts concealing from view all but the principal objects.

墙外还有几座圆锥形的土堆，其中一座的高度与围区内最高的建筑相当。

Beyond the walls were several conical mounds, one of which equaled in altitude the highest structure within the circumscribed area.

每跨过一道墙，我们迈出的一步都让我确信，瓦尔克的重要性远超以往的想象，其庞大的土堆中遍布极具价值的文物，值得进行彻底的考察。

Each step that we took after crossing the walls convinced me that Warker was a much more important place than had been hitherto supposed, and that its vast mounds, abounding in objects of the highest interest, deserved a thorough exploration.

因此，我决定尽一切努力在胡卡展开研究，因为在迦勒底的所有遗迹中，唯有胡卡能与巴比伦和尼尼微的遗址相提并论。

I determined, therefore, on using every effort to make researches at Huaca, which of all the ruins in Chaldea is alone worthy to rank with those of Babylon and Nineveh.

所以，汤姆，刚才那位是威廉·洛夫图斯爵士，他正在撰写《迦勒底或迦勒底与苏西安的旅行与研究》，出版于1857年。

So, Tom, that was sir William Loftus, and he's writing in travels and researches in Chaldea or Chaldea and the Susiana, which is in 1857.

他是一位英国地质学家，对吧？

He's a British geologist, isn't he?

是的。

Yep.

他当时正参与一个国际委员会，负责划定奥斯曼帝国与波斯帝国之间的边界。

And he's been working as part of an international commission drawing up the border between the empires of the Ottomans and the Persians.

所以告诉我们他在这里提到的地方是哪里吧，因为我们喜欢谜题故事，而且

So tell us what he's the place he's talking about here because this is one of we love a mystery story, and

这是历史上最伟大的谜团之一。

this is one of history's greatest mysteries.

这是一个非常神秘的地方。

So it's a very mysterious place.

正如他在书中所说，这个地方叫瓦卡，位于美索不达米亚南部。

As he said in his book, it's called Waka, and it's in Southern Mesopotamia.

在穆罕默德时代，它曾是波斯帝国的一个边境哨所。

It had been a frontier post of the Persian Empire back in the age of Mohammed.

但当阿拉伯人征服了波斯帝国后，这个地方实际上就被遗弃了。

But when the Arabs had conquered the Persian Empire, it had effectively been abandoned.

它就像奥兹曼迪亚斯一样，周围再无其他遗迹留存。

And it's a site like Ozymandias, nothing beside remains.

你知道，眼前是孤寂而平坦的沙丘，延伸至远方。

You know, you have the lone and level sands stretching far away.

洛弗斯甚至说，这是他所到过最荒凉的地方。

And Lofters actually says that it's the most desolate spot that he had ever visited.

但他感受到这里有些重要的东西，有些奇怪之处，确实如此。

But he does sense that there's something important about it, something strange about it, and there absolutely is.

观看这段视频的观众会意识到，我们并不是在家里录制的。

And people who are watching this on YouTube will realize that we're not recording this at home.

我们实际上是在曼哈顿。

And we are in fact in Manhattan.

我们在纽约市。

We're in New York City.

我想，在很多方面，它都是现代国际大都市的典范。

I guess, in lots of ways, the archetype of a great modern international metropolis.

纽约、伦敦、东京、北京——世界上所有伟大的城市，都与这个荒凉之地有着某种联系。

And there is a link joining New York, London, Tokyo, Beijing, all the great cities of the world to this desolate spot.

但这个地方的重要性并不立即显而易见。

But it's not immediately obvious just how significant a place this is.

要理解它的意义，需要一个一直延续到今天的考古过程。

And it it takes a process of archeology stretching right the way up to the present day.

所以洛夫特斯本人确实回来了。

So Loftus himself, he does come back.

他进行了一些零散的发掘，然后就离开了瓦克。

He does some kind of desultory excavations, and then he leaves Wacker.

接着德国人来了。

And then Germans come in.

他们在第一次世界大战前在这里进行发掘。

They're excavating here just before the First World War.

战争结束后他们继续了这项工作。

They continue after that.

显然，近年来由于多次伊拉克战争，考古工作曾多次中断，但考古发现证实了洛夫特斯最初对这个地方重要性的直觉完全正确。

Obviously, there've been kind of interruptions for the various Iraq wars over recent years, but the process of archaeology has revealed that Loftus' initial sense that this was a really key spot was absolutely true.

正如你所说，这是一个充满神秘的地方，你甚至可以说，这是人类历史整个故事中最伟大的谜团之一。

And as you say, it is a place so full of mystery that you might say that this is one of the great mysteries in the entire story of human history.

那么，汤姆，说我们今天要讲述的这个故事，可能是我们迄今为止讲述过的最具重大意义的故事之一，这难道不公平吗？

Well, Tom, is it not fair to say that this story that we're going to be telling today is arguably one of the most consequential significant stories we've ever told on the rest of history?

因为这个神秘的废墟城市，你可以说，它是人类历史上最重要的地方。

Because this mysterious ruined city, you could argue, is the single most important place in the history of humankind.

是的。

Yeah.

因为它是人类文明史上最重要转折点之一的所在地，如果不是最重要的那个的话。

Because it's the site for one of the, if not the greatest turning points in the whole history of human civilization.

那么，是什么让瓦卡如此重要呢？

So what is it about Waqqa that makes it so significant?

它有两个方面。

There are two dimensions to it.

首先是它极其古老。

The first is it is incredibly old.

所以我提到，它是在穆罕默德时代被遗弃的，大约在阿拉伯征服后的几代人之后。

So I said that it gets abandoned in the age of Mohammed, so around few generations after the Arab conquest.

大约在公元700年。

So about 700.

公元700年。

700.

是的。

Yeah.

差不多就是那时候。

About that.

但我们现在知道，这个地方的起源可以追溯到公元前5000年。

But we now know that the origins of this place stretch all the way back to 5,000 BC.

因此，它几乎连续有人居住了近六千年。

So it's been continuously inhabited for almost six thousand years.

我们现在知道，这个地方最初叫乌鲁克，但你可以看到，瓦卡和乌鲁克显然是同一个地方。

And we now know that it was a place originally called Uruk, but you can see that, you know, Waka Uruk, it's clearly the same place there.

但关于它，另一点是，它不仅古老，而且按照公元前4000年或3000年其他任何聚居地的标准来看，它都极其庞大。

But the other thing about it, it's not just that it's old, but that it is by the standards of every other settlement, say around 4,000 or 3,000 BC, it is enormous.

所以想象一下，你在公元前3000年接近这个地方——乌鲁克。

So imagine you are approaching this place, Uruk, in 3,000 BC.

你会看到什么？

And what do you see?

当你接近时，你会被运河、灌溉系统和田野所包围。

As you approach it, you are surrounded by canals, by irrigation systems, by fields.

田野里长满了庄稼。

The fields are full of crops.

它们也遍布着牲畜。

They're also full of livestock.

当你进一步靠近时，你会看到在当时地球上任何其他地方都看不到的东西。

As you draw nearer to it, you then see something that you would see nowhere else on the face of the planet at this time.

那是一种令人惊叹的景象，后来来自乌鲁克的作家们正是用这样的语言来赞美它。

And it is a thing of wonder, and, you know, there are writers later from Uruk who will praise it in these terms.

这浩瀚的城池高耸于周围的碧蓝平原之上，这座城市从大地拔地而起直抵海洋，乌尔克这个名字闪耀如彩虹，一切关于它的描述都是夸张之词。

This vastness thrusting high above the azure plane around, this city sprouting tall from earth to sea, this Uruk whose very name gleams like the rainbow, everything about it is hyperbole.

它是世界奇观。

It is the wonder of the world.

这里有巨大的城市城墙。

There are vast city walls.

这些就是洛夫特斯所看到的城墙。

So these are the walls that Loftus sees.

是的。

Yep.

城墙大约高23到24英尺，周长六英里。

They're about 23, 24 feet tall, six miles in circumference.

当你靠近时，可以看到城墙内有两座高耸的神庙。

Within the walls, as you approach it, you can see that there are two towering temples.

其中第一座被称为埃安娜，意为‘天之屋’，它献给那位在乌尔克人眼中建立这座城市的女神。

The first of these is called the Aeana, which literally means the house of heaven, and it is sacred to the goddess who, in the opinion of the people of Uruk, founded the city.

这位女神名叫伊南娜，巴比伦人后来称她为伊什塔尔。

And this is a goddess called Inanna, who the Babylonians subsequently subsequently would would call call Ishtar.

伊什塔尔。

Ishtar.

这是一个伟大的强大文明所尊崇的女神。

Great powerful civilization bringing goddess.

另一座神庙是献给天空之神安努的，它的表面覆盖着闪亮的白色灰泥。

This The other temple is a temple to the great sky god Anu, and this is sheathed in gleaming white plaster.

它熠熠生辉。

It's radiant.

它能捕捉到阳光的光芒。

It catches the lights of the sun.

这就是‘如彩虹般闪耀’这句话的含义。

So that's what the meaning of the phrase gleaming like the rainbow.

再次强调，如果你从未见过这样的景象，那真是令人目眩神迷。

Again, you know, a stupefying sight if you've never seen anything like this.

然后你穿过城门，周围都是果园和菜园。

You then go in through the gates, you're surrounded by market gardens.

所以，你知道的，有椰枣和其他各种东西。

So, you know, dates and various things like that.

还有工业区。

There are industrial zones.

比如制砖厂、陶器作坊，所有这类设施。

So brick making factories, potteries, all this kind of stuff.

然后你就进入了城市本身。

And then you go into the actual city itself.

而且，再次强调，这种规模在任何地方都无可比拟。

And it is, again, I mean, this is a base that it has no comparison anywhere.

这里非常拥挤。

It's cramped.

道路错综复杂。

It's labyrinthine.

这些房子没有窗户，这样可以隔绝热量，即使在炎热的夏天也能保持凉爽。

The houses have no windows so that, you know, it keeps the heat out so it remains cool even in the heat of summer.

这些区域是经过精心规划的。

And these are carefully zoned district.

城市的规划投入了大量心思。

So a lot of thought has gone into the urban planning.

人口可能高达八万人。

The population may be as high as 80,000.

我的意思是，八万人集中在同一个空间里。

I mean, 80,000 people concentrated in a single space.

城墙内的城市总面积约为三平方英里。

And the total area of the city within the city walls is about three square miles.

作为对比，罗马帝国鼎盛时期，城墙内面积约8200平方公里，也只比这里大两倍左右。

And just for a point of comparison, the walls of Imperial Rome in its heyday, so around 8,200, contained an area only twice that size.

对。

Right.

所以我们有一个巨大的地方，有寺庙，数以万计的人。

So we've got a huge place, temples, tens of thousands of people.

我们有工厂。

We have the factories.

我们有运河。

We have the canals.

我们有所有这些东西。

We have all that kind of stuff.

我想这是两者的结合，对吧？

And I guess it's the combination of the two things, isn't it?

它如此广阔，而且如此古老，这意味着历史学家和考古学家将其视为世界上第一座城市。

The fact that it's so vast and the fact that it's so old, that means that historians, archeologists have seen this as the world's first city.

是的。

Yeah.

它是人类首次聚居在一起的地方，堪称如今纽约、芝加哥、伦敦或任何大城市的祖先。

As the first place where human beings live together in what we would now call the ancestor of New York or Chicago or London or wherever.

是的。

Yeah.

城市文明就是从这里开始的。

This is where urbanism begins.

这就是那个最终演变成我们现在所处的城市——纽约——的故事的起点。

This is where the story that culminates in the city we're in now, New York.

这一切都是从这里开始的。

This is where it starts.

在公元前第四千年，正如格温多琳·莱克在《美索不达米亚》一书中所言，这本书的副标题耐人寻味：城市的发明。

And in the fourth millennium, to quote Gwendolyn Lyke, who wrote a book called Mesopotamia, tellingly, the subtitle is the invention of the city.

我的意思是，她将它描述为公元前第四千年唯一真正庞大的城市中心。

I mean, she describes it as being the only really large urban center in the fourth millennium.

那么问题来了，乌鲁克是如何兴起的？为什么是乌鲁克？

And so the question then is, how did Uruk begin, and why was it Uruk?

为什么偏偏是这个地方？

Why was it this particular place?

围绕它的争论以及这种谜题带来的吸引力，实际上让我想起了人们关于工业革命为何始于英国的争论。

And the arguments around it and the fascination of this kind of puzzle actually remind me of the arguments that people have about why industrialization began in Britain.

嗯。

Mhmm.

有很多地方你可能会认为工业革命本该在那里发生，但事实上并没有。

There are lots of places that you might think of where industrialization could have happened and they don't.

那么，为什么工业革命偏偏发生在英国呢？

So why does it specifically happen in Britain?

同样地，为什么城市化会发生在纽约？

And likewise, why does urbanization happen in New York?

还有一个更进一步的问题，一个更深的谜团：这种城市化过程如何改变了人类？

And then there is a further question, a further mystery, which is how does this process of urbanization change humanity?

因为如果这是人类历史上第一次有人共同生活在城市中，是的。

Because if this is the first experience in history of people living together in a city Yep.

这会改变人类的本质吗？

Does it change what it is to be human?

这会不会重新连接大脑？

Does it kinda rewire the brain?

当乌鲁克建成时，它是否建立了前所未有的行为模式和社会交往方式，而我们现在却视之为理所当然？

Does it set up patterns of behavior and social intercourse that have no precedent when Uruk is built, but which we now take for granted?

所以我认为，这是一个非常了不起的故事。

So it's just such an amazing story, I think.

好吧，汤姆，我们试着把这个放在更大的背景下来看。

Well, let's try to put this in a bigger context, Tom.

人类历史上的重大转折点，第一次重大转变——农业革命，发生在末次冰期结束时，距今约一万两千年前，那时狩猎采集者开始驯化作物。显然，美索不达米亚，也就是我们现在所说的伊拉克，这一区域因为是新月沃土，成为农业最自然的发源地。

So the great sort of shift in human history, the first great shift or the agricultural revolution that happens at the end of the last ice age, which is almost twelve And thousand years that's the point at which hunter gatherers start domesticating crops And obviously, Mesopotamia, Iraq, as we would now call it, that kind of zone because it's the fertile crescent and it's the most obvious place for agriculture to start.

所以给我们讲讲这方面的情况，让我们对这个背景有些了解。

So tell us something about that to give us a bit of context for this.

是的。

Yeah.

美索不达米亚是新月沃土的一部分，但新月沃土并不仅限于美索不达米亚。

So Mesopotamia is part of the Fertile Crescent, but the Fertile Crescent consists of more than Mesopotamia.

你还得考虑安纳托利亚的高地，也就是现在的土耳其。

So you've also got the uplands of Anatolia, what's now Turkey.

从叙利亚一直延伸到以色列和巴勒斯坦地区。

You've got Syria going down into Israel Palestine.

肥沃新月地带的特别之处在于，它拥有极其多样的土壤类型、气候差异和海拔变化。

And the thing about the Fertile Crescent is that it has an incredible array of, you know, soil types, of variations of climate, of altitude.

这意味着这里有多种不同的作物和植物在生长。

So that means that there are lots of different crops, lots of different plants growing.

这里是多种小麦品种的发源地。

And this is the home of lots of different varieties of wheat.

这里有大麦、扁豆、豌豆，还有亚麻——当然，亚麻对制作衣物非常有用。

You get barley, you get lentils, peas, you get flax, which of course, quite useful for making clothing.

但除了植物，这里还有丰富的动物资源。

But also, as well as plant life, you also have fauna.

你还记得，我们之前在讨论阿兹特克人时提到过，为什么美洲没有像欧亚大陆那样发展。

And you remember, we talked about this in the context of the Aztecs as why the Americas do not develop in the way that Eurasia does.

他们没有用于拉犁的家畜。

They don't have draft animals.

而且他们也没有可以驯化的动物。

And also they don't have animals that they can domesticate.

所以今天人类农业中所用的羊、山羊、牛、猪的祖先，当时都不存在。

So the ancestors of sheep, of goats, of cows, of pigs, all of which are part of human agriculture today.

我的意思是，这一切正是从这里开始的。

I mean, this, again, this is where it begins.

如果你是一个狩猎采集者，四处游荡时突然发现一个地方，那里长着野生小麦，还有成群的动物，那你为什么还要继续漂泊呢？

And if you're a hunter gatherer, if you're kind of roaming around and then you find a spot where, you know, there's wild wheat growing and also you have herds of animals, then why would you continue roaming?

你不如干脆安定下来，享受大自然的馈赠。

You might as well kind of settle down and enjoy the fruits of nature.

人们正是从很早很早以前就开始这样做了。

And that is what people do start to do very, very early on.

这些营地随后逐渐演变为定居的社区。

And these camps then start to become kind of settled communities.

因此，这些由狩猎采集者营地演变为永久定居点中最古老、也最著名的例子，就是位于如今约旦河西岸的杰里科。

So probably the oldest, certainly the most famous of these kind of hunter gatherer camps that become a permanent settlement is Jericho in what's now on the West Bank.

人们总说杰里科是地球上最古老的持续有人居住的地方，对吧？

People always say Jericho is the oldest inhabited place on the planet, don't they?

它大约有11000年的历史。

So it's about 11,000 years old.

它是持续有人居住的最古老城市，因为直到今天它仍然是一个城市。

It's the oldest continuously inhabited because it's a city to this day.

但它最初并不是我们所称的‘城市’。

It's not initially what we would call a city.

它显示出一些后来成为城市化特征的发展迹象。

It shows, you know, there are kind of developments that will become features of urbanism.

所以，杰里科的人们大约在一万一千年前首次定居于此。

So Jericho, people first settled there about eleven thousand years ago.

到了公元前9000年左右，那里已经有了稳定的冬季降雨、丰收的收成和丰富的野生动物。

And by about 9,000 BC, you've got reliable winter rains, you've got productive harvests, and abundant wild game.

这些是斯蒂芬·米辛在《冰之后》一书中的原话。

So these are the words of Stephen Mythin in his book After the Ice.

他说，杰里科人没有离开的必要。

And he says the Jericho people had no need to leave.

他们开始修建围墙，甚至建造了一座塔。

And they start to build walls, and they even build a tower.

米辛认为，这种建筑在人类历史上是前所未有的。

And Mythin says that such architecture was completely unprecedented in human history.

因此，那里已经出现了城市化的某些前兆，但它还不是一个城市。

So there are kind of foreshadowings of urbanism there, but it doesn't become a city.

还没有出现城市化的飞跃。

There's no urban liftoff.

它只是一个大型村落。

It's just a large village.

我的意思是，最终它会变成一座城市，但那要等到数千年之后了。

I mean, in due course, it will become a city, but not for many, many thousands of years in the future.

在肥沃新月地带的其他定居点也是如此，它们正以类似杰里科的方式逐渐出现。

And this is true of other settlements as well across the Fertile Crescent that are kind of starting to sprout up in a similar way to Jericho.

土耳其有一个非常著名的遗址叫加泰土丘，大约有五千名居民。

There's a very famous one called Catalhoyuk in Turkey, maybe about 5,000 inhabitants there.

这发生在公元前七千年。

So this is in the seventh millennium.

那里似乎是一个相当压抑的地方。

It seems to be quite an oppressive place.

他们特别喜欢头骨。

They love a skull.

确实如此。

They do.

我觉得你能感受到，生活在那里的人们时刻被一种超自然的氛围所威胁。

I think you get the sense that the people living there, I mean, they're menaced all the time by a sense of the supernatural around them.

所以，我认为那不是一个特别宜居的地方。

So not, I think a particularly pleasant place to live.

是的。

Yeah.

就像纽约一样。

Like New York.

对。

Yeah.

但那并没有兴起。

But that doesn't take off.

在美索不达米亚南部，你也开始看到这些原始城市、大型村落的出现，它们在美索不达米亚的北部和南部都在发展。

And there is also down in Mesopotamia, you're also starting to get these kind of proto cities, large villages developing both in the North and the South of Mesopotamia.

北部的一个城市例子是位于现在叙利亚的泰尔·布拉克，它与加泰土丘大致在同一时期兴起，即公元前第七千年。

So an example of a city in the North is a place called Tel Brak in what's now Syria, merges about the same time as Chateau Hayek, so the seventh millennium.

到了公元前第四千年，它似乎已经准备好腾飞了，就像你可能会说十七世纪的荷兰准备工业化一样，但它本质上仍是一个大型村落。

And by the fourth millennium, it seems to be ready for lift off rather like you might say The Netherlands is ready to industrialize in the seventeenth century, but it It remains basically a large village.

到了第四千年末，它又进入了衰退期。

And then by the end of the fourth millennium, it goes into remission.

它正在收缩、瓦解、崩溃。

It's kind of contracting, it's disintegrating, it's collapsing.

但正是在这个时候，位于南部美索不达米亚的乌鲁克开始起飞。

But this is the very time down in Southern Mesopotamia that Uruk is starting to enjoy takeoff.

所以，引用吉列尔莫·阿尔加齐的话，我希望我念对了他的名字。

So to quote Guillermo Alghazi, and I hope I've pronounced his name right.

可能是阿尔加兹，但我还是叫他阿尔加齐，他写了一本书，叫《文明黎明时期的古代美索不达米亚》。

It might be Algaze, but I'll call him Alghazi, who's written a book, ancient Mesopotamia at the dawn of civilization.

他这样表述：在第四千纪初期之前，整个古代东方一直存在的城市化、社会政治复杂性和经济分化之间的平衡，此时发生了决定性地向南部美索不达米亚的倾斜。

And he puts it in this way, a decisive shift in favor of Southern Mesopotamia of the balance of urbanization, sociopolitical complexity, and economic differentiation that had existed across the ancient East until the onset of the fourth millennium.

因此，在南部美索不达米亚——乌鲁克将崛起的地方——正在发生一些其他地方都没有发生的事情。

So something is happening in Southern Mesopotamia, the place where Uruk will emerge that is happening nowhere else.

在叙利亚没有发生，在巴勒斯坦没有发生，在安纳托利亚没有发生，在北部美索不达米亚也没有发生。

Hadn't happened in Syria, hadn't happened in Palestine, hadn't happened in Anatolia, hadn't happened in Northern Mesopotamia.

那么，为什么呢？

So why?

所以，我的意思是，这显然是一个非常迷人且迫切的问题。

So, I mean, is obviously a fascinating, very, very pressing question.

因此，关于这个问题已经出现了许多宽泛的理论。

And so there have been lots of very broad brush theories about it.

最早的理论认为，乌ruk的出现是外来者征服的结果。

And the earliest theories were that Uruk, where it emerges, that it's the result of conquest by outsiders.

这些外来者被称为苏美尔人。

And these outsiders have been called the Sumerians.

是的。

Yeah.

常被拿来类比的是我们今天所处的曼哈顿的兴起。

And the analogy that is often pursued is with the emergence of where we are today, Manhattan Yeah.

在17世纪到18世纪期间，这里原本没有任何城市化的迹象。

Over the course of the seventeenth into the eighteenth century, because there had to be no sign of urbanization here.

随着欧洲殖民者的到来，才逐渐形成了我们现在所处的这座城市。

And then with the coming of European colonists, you start to get the city that we're now sitting in.

那么，这是否证明了苏美尔人曾来到这里，并在荒无人烟之地建立了这座伟大的城市？

So is this proof that the Sumerians had come and they had founded, planted this great city in the middle of nowhere?

但这其实并不是一个真正的答案，因为它只是把问题推后了——苏美尔人又是从哪里获得城市化理念的呢？

But that's not really an answer because it's just kicking the problem down the can down the road because where did the Sumerians get the idea for urbanism from?

这并没有真正解答这个谜题。

Doesn't really answer the puzzle.

而且近年来的考古学研究表明，毫无疑问，根本没有外来者，我们称之为苏美尔人的那些人早在很久以前就深深扎根于此。

And also recent archeology, so over recent decades, has demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that there were no newcomers, that the people we call the Sumerians were very, very anciently rooted there.

乌鲁克文化的诸多特征，都能轻易追溯到乌鲁克出现之前存在的考古遗存。

The parallels of the culture of Uruk are easily traceable to the archeological remains that precede the emergence of Uruk.

因此，这一理论已不再被接受。

So that theory is no longer accepted.

那么，还有另一种理论，我认为在大众层面可能更流行。

Then there's another theory, which I think is probably on the popular level.

这种理论是很多人可能都会默认的解释。

It's one that lots of people, I think, would probably assume is the explanation.

这种观点认为，尽管美索不达米亚非常肥沃，但要利用这种肥沃性却相当困难。

And that is that although Mesopotamia is very fertile, it's also quite difficult to channel that fertility.

你知道，这里有两条大河，底格里斯河和幼发拉底河。

You know, you've got these two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates.

如果你想灌溉河岸之外的泥滩，就需要庞大的劳动力来挖掘灌溉渠道。

And if you're going to irrigate the mud flats beyond them, you need great workforces to dig the irrigation canals.

而要组织起这样的工程，唯一的办法是拥有一个强大的精英阶层，能够驱使大众为他们工作。

And the only way that this could have been organised would be by having a powerful elite who could organise the masses to do it for them.

一旦完成这项工程，就会产生剩余产品，这些剩余产品随后可以用于建造巨大的城墙和神庙。

And this in turn, once it's been done would generate surpluses and these surpluses could then start to be spent on massive walls and temples.

塔楼之类的东西。

Towers and stuff.

是的。

Yeah.

而且这些

And of

当然，还要让精英阶层保持他们已经习惯的舒适生活。

course also keeping the elites in the comfort to which they're becoming used.

没错。

Right.

因此，对于乌鲁克的精英阶层来说，这简直是完美之策。

And so for the elites of Uruk, this would be brilliant.

这形成了一种良性循环：他们变得越来越富有，而被压迫的大众则越来越被奴役，越来越被迫劳动，以维持他们习以为常的生活方式。

It would be a kind of virtuous circle because they get richer and richer and the oppressed masses get more and more enslaved to them, more and more obliged to labor, to keep them in the style that they're accustomed to.

然而，这一理论如今也已被弃置一旁。

Now this theory also has fallen by the wayside.

这是因为如今人们普遍认识到，公元前四千年发生的事情——这一观点直到最近才被确凿证明——实际上是一个气候变化的过程。

And that's because today there is a recognition that what is happening in the fourth millennium BC, and it's only really recently been conclusively proved, is a process of climate change.

而且海平面正在上升。

And you have rising sea levels.

在第五千年向第四千年过渡时，波斯湾的水域比今天向内陆延伸了约200英里。

And the Persian Gulf back in the fifth millennium going into the fourth millennium, it reaches inland about 200 miles higher than it does today.

因此深入到如今伊拉克平原地区的更远地带。

So much higher up into the kind of the flatlands of what is now Iraq.

海水向北蔓延，带来了难以置信丰富的潜在食物资源。

And the spread northwards of seawater means that you have an unbelievably rich variety of potential foodstuffs.

你有海鱼。

You have sea fish.

你有软体动物，有沼泽地，其中还有各种水鸟。

You have mollusks, you have marshlands, and in them you have kind of waterfowl.

当然，你还有泛滥平原，可以在那里种植小麦。

You have the floodplain, of course, where you can grow wheat.

然后你还有更干旱、近乎半沙漠的地区，可以在那里饲养牲畜。

And then you have kind of more arid, almost kind of semi desert regions where you can keep livestock.

因此，这本质上可能是一个巨大的储藏室。

So essentially, it's potentially a massive great larder.

因此，随着海水向如今的伊拉克地区向北蔓延，人们开始聚集在海岸边，进入沼泽地，并在那里建立定居点。

And so it's understandable that as the seawaters spread northwards into what's now Iraq, so people start to congregate along its shores and to go out into the marshes and to kind of build settlements there.

而这一结果是，由于拥有如此多样的生态系统，到了公元前五千年乃至四千年，这一地区的人口密度似乎超过了地球上任何其他地方。

And the result of this, the fact that you have this whole range of ecosystems is it seems in the fifth and then into the fourth millennium, you are starting to get a greater concentration of people than anywhere else on the planet.

我记得几年前读过一本本·威尔逊写的《大都会》，里面提到过这个。

So I remember reading something about this in a book a few years ago by Ben Wilson called Metropolis.

这是一本非常出色的书。

It's a brilliant book.

是的。

Yeah.

他谈到人们在这些沼泽岛屿上建造聚落。

And he was talking about people building these sort of settlements on these marshy islands.

特别是有一个地方，他们建了一座神庙，他将此视为这种原始城市文化兴起的关键时刻。

And there's one in particular, isn't it, where they build a shrine, and he points to that as a sort of key moment in the emergence of this kind of proto urban culture, if you like.

所以，汤姆，跟我们讲讲这个吧。

So tell us a bit about that, Tom.

我来直接引用本·威尔逊的话。

I'll actually quote Ben Wilson.

我从他那本精彩的作品《大都会》中摘录了一段关于这个的内容。

I've got a lifted a passage from his wonderful book Metropolis on this.

这是一个建于五月的神龛，威尔逊说：在沙漠与美索不达米亚沼泽交界处的一个沙洲旁，人们最初可能认为这个地方神圣，因为这个潟湖是生命的源泉。

This is a shrine that's built around May, and Wilson says of it, on a sandbank beside a lagoon where the desert met the Mesopotamian Marshes, perhaps at first people saw this place as sacred because the lagoon was a life giving force.

在这片后来被称为埃利都的沙岛上，最早的人类活动痕迹是鱼骨、野生动物骨骼以及贻贝壳，表明这个神圣之地曾是举行仪式盛宴的场所。

The earliest signs of human life here in the sandy island that would be called Eridu were the bones of fish and wild animals as well as mussel shells, suggesting this holy spot was a place of ritual feasting.

随着时间推移，人们在这里建造了一座小型神龛，以供奉淡水之神。

In time, a small shrine was built to worship the god of fresh water.

随后，几个世纪过去，埃利都不断被重建、扩建，变得越来越大。

And then the centuries pass, and Eridu is built and rebuilt and rebuilt, and it becomes larger and larger and larger.

它逐渐被周围的人们视为世界上最神圣的地方，是世界本身诞生之处。

And it comes to be seen by the people who live around it as the holiest place in the world, the place where the world itself emerged into being.

干燥的土地从原始水域中被塑造出来，由伟大的神恩基用泥土塑形而成。

Dry land is fashioned out of the primordial waters, kind of shaped and molded out of mud by the great god Enki.

埃利都神庙被献给恩基，它不仅象征着秩序战胜混沌、永恒战胜虚无，更是创世神恩基本身居住的圣地。

And the Temple Of Eridu is raised to Enki, and it serves as a symbol not just of the victory of order over chaos, of eternity over oblivion, but it's the very place where the great god Enki, the creator god himself actually lives.

所以，如果那位确保秩序得以维持、防止陆地重新融化为混沌之水的神灵，

So if the god who ensures that order is preserved, that the lands around the sea don't just melt back into the chaos of the waters.

你就得让他继续支持你。

You need to keep him on board.

你得让他开心。

You need to keep him happy.

因此，这不可避免地催生了一种祭司阶层。

And so inevitably this results in the emergence of a kind of priesthood.

他们对那些向神庙贡献劳力和物资的人拥有权威，因为他们可以说：‘如果你不听我们的，世界就会崩溃、消融。’

And they have authority over the people who are contributing labor and goods to this temple because they can say, well, if you don't do what we say, then, know, the world will collapse and melt away.

这让我想起了巨石阵，它虽然建造得更晚，但经历了类似的过程——一个不仅对当地人、而且对全英国远道而来的人而言都极为神圣的场所。

What it reminds me of is Stonehenge, which is built much later, but a similar process of a site that is clearly very holy, not just to locals, but to people from far across Britain.

人们会来到巨石阵遗址参加盛大的盛宴。

And you get people coming for great feasts at the site of Stonehenge.

神庙本身始终保持神圣不可侵犯，但你也确实看到了大型村庄和聚居地的迹象。

The temple itself remains kind of sacrosanct, but you do get signs of large villages, large settlements.

但再次强调，与巨石阵的比较只是让这个谜题更加突出。

But again, the comparison with Stonehenge only focuses the puzzle.

你怎么能从位于美索不达米亚南部岛屿上的这座神庙，过渡到第一座城市的出现，到

How do you get from this temple on an island in Southern Mesopotamia to the emergence of the first city, to the emergence

乌鲁克的出现？

of Uruk?

对。

Right.

因为埃利都并没有变成一座城市，而乌鲁克却变成了。

Because Eridu doesn't become a city, but Uruk does.

这其中一定有什么故事，对吧？

There's some story, isn't there?

有没有什么民间传说，讲他们从埃利都获得灵感，然后把这种模式带到乌鲁克？

Is there some sort of folktale about how they get the idea from Eridu and they take it to Uruk?

我这样记得对吗，汤姆？

Have I remembered that right, Tom?

是的。

Yes.

所以恩基在他的神庙里，基本上他很自私。

So Enki is in his temple, and basically he's being selfish.

他没有分享文明的礼物，没有分享他知识的成果。

He's not sharing the gifts of civilization, the fruits of his knowledge.

在希腊神话中，他有点像宙斯垄断了火种。

In Greek myth, he's a bit like Zeus hoarding fire.

对。

Yeah.

在希腊神话中，泰坦神普罗米修斯偷走了火种并赐予人类，人类文明由此开始。

And in the Greek myth, Prometheus, the Titan comes and steals fire and gives it to humanity and then human civilization can begin.

而在美索不达米亚神话中，这个角色由我们已经提到的女神伊南娜扮演，她后来在巴比伦被称为伊什塔尔。

And that role in Mesopotamian myth is played by the goddess we've already mentioned, Inanna, who will become Ishtar to the Babylonians.

她通过让恩基喝醉啤酒，偷走了文明的秘密。

And she steals the secrets of civilization from Enki by getting him drunk on beer.

所以她让他喝醉，然后偷走了他所知道的一切。

So she, you know, she gets him pissed and she steals everything that he knows.

我的意思是，这简直就像数据盗窃。

I mean, if you like, it's a kind of data theft.

没错。

Right.

她趁机行动，意识到知识就是权力，于是把这些秘密带到了我们之前提到的乌鲁克城的天之圣殿——埃安娜神庙。

She moves in and she recognizes knowledge is power and she takes these secrets and she takes it to the Aeana, the house of heaven that we mentioned as being this great temple in Uruk.

她在那里定居下来，为南美索不达米亚的人民建立了第二个中心。

And this is the place where she settles, and it establishes a second focal point for the peoples of Southern Mesopotamia.

而这个中心的神明并不像恩基那样把知识据为己有，而是慷慨地与全人类分享。

Only this is one in which the god is not kind of hugging knowledge to himself, but is generous with it, wants to share it with the whole of humanity.

汤姆，这个故事与乌鲁克神庙的考古证据有多吻合？

How does that story match the archeological evidence of the temples in Uruk, Tom?

非常吻合。

Beautifully.

我的意思是，这正是它如此美妙的原因。

I mean, this is this is why it's so wonderful.

我之前提到过这两座伟大的神庙，它们建于大约公元前5000年，分别是达亚娜神庙和邻近的安努神庙——卡拉巴神庙。

So I mentioned these two great temples that get founded about 5,000 BC, Dayana and the neighboring temple, the temple to Anu, the sky god, the Calaba.

它们就像埃利都的恩基神庙一样，不断被重建、再重建、再再重建。

And they are like the temple to Enki on Eridu, that they are constantly being built and rebuilt and rebuilt.

每次重建时，现有的结构都会被部分融入新的建筑中。

And each time they are rebuilt, the existing structure is kind of incorporated within it.

是的。

Right.

因此，格温多林·莱克在她的书中说，过去与记忆被封存，新的地基被直接建在被平整的废墟之上。

So Gwendolyn Lyke in her book says the past and the memory are sealed and a new foundation laid quite literally upon the leveled remains.

随着时间的推移，乃至数千年过去，最终形成了前所未有的宏伟建筑规模。

And the result, as the centuries and then the millennia pass, is architecture on an absolutely unprecedentedly monumental scale.

这些是当时人类建造的远超其他任何建筑的巨型结构。

These are by miles the largest structures that any humans have built at that time.

一个显而易见的问题是，他们是怎么建造这些的？谁在做这件事？

And an obvious question, how are they building this and who's doing it?

我的意思是，他们是靠自愿的劳动力来完成的吗？

I mean, are they doing it with a willing workforce?

他们是靠奴隶来完成的吗？

Are they doing it with slaves?

这到底是怎么发生的？

How's that happening?

有趣的是，这似乎比那些对城市化兴起持更悲观看法的人所设想的要更具有自愿性。

Well, the thing that's fascinating is that it does seem to be more voluntary than perhaps the kind of more pessimistic takes on the emergence of urbanism would have it.

有一位研究这一全过程的杰出学者，名叫皮埃特罗·斯坦凯勒。

So there's a brilliant scholar of this whole process called Pietro Steinkeller.

他描述了这些圆筒印章，它们像管子一样，可以在黏土上滚动。

He describes these kind of these cylinder seals, which are kind of tubes and you roll them in clay.

它们能呈现出一种连环画的效果。

They give you a kind of strip cartoon.

所以它们并不是真正的文字，但这些图像承载着特定的含义。

So they're not exactly writing, but they are images encoded with meaning.

他提到一组圆筒印章，并描述它们是晚期史前时代唯一留存下来的可能具有历史价值的证据。

And he refers to an assembly of cylinder seals and he describes them as being the only evidence of a potentially historical nature that survives from late prehistoric times.

这太惊人了。

So that's amazing.

我的意思是，在文字发明之前，就已经存在图像表达，我们可以从中推断出那个时期人们的生活状况。

I mean, before the invention of writing, there are pictorial representations that you can extrapolate information about what the people who lived in that period were doing.

是的。

Yeah.

这些印章表明，在后来成为乌鲁克的地方建造这些宏伟神庙是一项集体活动。

And what these seals suggest is that the construction of these great temples at what will become Uruk is a collective activity.

它们记录了向乌鲁克女神伊南娜奉献的物资，甚至包括劳动力。

It records gifts of commodities and in fact labor as well to Inanna, the deity of Uruk.

这暗示了一种联盟形式。

And this implies a kind of, I guess, a confederacy.

因为人们在赠送礼物。

Because people are giving the gifts.

是的。

Yeah.

来自不同的聚居地。

From different settlements.

对。

Yeah.

一定存在某种更广泛的联盟或类似结构。

There must be some wider federation or something.

但这同时也意味着，受益者不仅仅是伊南娜，还有乌鲁克本身。

But what this also implies is that it's not just Inanna who is the beneficiary of this, but Uruk itself.

因此，正如斯坦克勒所言，现在可以清楚地看到，乌鲁克并非仅仅是参与的聚居地之一，而是这一系统的中心与受益者。

So to quote Steinkeller, it now becomes clear that Uruk rather than being merely one of the participating settlements was the focus and beneficiary of the system.

所以我非常喜爱这一点，因为它表明，城市化的起源，多米尼克，根植于神圣性这一维度。

So I absolutely love this because it turns out that the origins of urbanism, Dominic, lies in the dimension of the sacral.

我想是的。

I guess so.

或者说这是一种殖民形式，一个城市从其邻近地区掠夺资源。

Or you could say a form of colonialism that one city is extracting resources from its neighbors.

你不能这么说吗？

Could you not?

是的。

Yes.

但这是一种对神明的虔诚展示。

But this is a display of devotion to the gods.

而神圣性只是掩盖历史核心的借口，

And the sacrality is merely a pretext for what's at the heart of history,

那就是权力。

which is power.

嗯，你可以说神圣性与当下权力的体现如此交织在一起，以至于几乎无法将它们区分开来。

Well, you could say that the sacral and the manifestations of power in the here and now are so interfused that it becomes almost impossible to distinguish them.

但在我们休息之前，汤姆。

But just before we get to the break, Tom.

是的。

Yeah.

他们不只是在建造大型神庙之类的东西，对吧？

They're not just building big temples and stuff like that, are they?

不对。

No.

他们确实没有。

They're not.

我想，他们还在对周围的地形进行某种工程改造。

They're also doing kind of engineering to reshaping the landscape around them, I guess.

到了公元前第四千年，气候正在重塑地貌，因为海水又开始退去。

Well, into the fourth millennium, the landscape is being reshaped by the climate because the sea is starting to retreat again.

所以海水已经退到了伊拉克境内。

So it's gone right the way up into Iraq.

而现在在第四千年，海水正逐渐退回到如今波斯湾的起点位置。

And now in the fourth millennium, it is starting to retreat back to where the Persian Gulf begins now.

因此，沼泽地正在干涸。

And as a consequence of this, the marshes are drying up.

那些曾经依赖沼泽中的野生禽鸟、海洋中的鱼类和软体动物为生的人们，现在不得不寻找其他方式维持生计。

And so people who had been dependent for their food on the wild fowl in the marshes or the fish and the mollusks in the sea are now having to look for other ways to sustain themselves.

于是，你知道，这对他们来说显然是场巨大的危机，但他们拥有这两座宏伟的神庙，而这些神庙如今已有数千年历史。

And so what they do, you know, it's obviously a terrible crisis for them, but they have these two great temples, which by now are millennia old.

它们作为一种慰藉和象征，表明众神会庇佑他们，会维护自创世之初恩基确立的秩序。

And they serve as reassurances, symbols that the gods will look after them, that they will uphold the order that emerged back in the beginning with Enki.

因此，人们纷纷前往乌鲁克，因为那里似乎是 safest 的避难所。

So they flock to Uruk because it seems the safest place to go.

它是一种庇护之地。

It's the kind of refuge.

而前来的人们都非常熟悉灌溉技术，懂得利用水源维持生活，很可能还具备工程技能，能够通过修建水渠、用灌溉水肥沃田地等方式，保障乌鲁克的持续发展。

And the people who are coming are people who are very, very familiar with irrigation, with using water to sustain themselves, and probably have the engineering skills that will enable Uruk to be sustained by building canals, by starting to fertilize the fields with water and so on.