纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 009玛雅玉米神像（2）

Across the world, people began to identify particular plants that would provide them with food. In the Middle East-as we saw in the last programme-it was wheat and barley¹; in China millet² and rice; in Papua New Guinea taro³; and in Africa sorghum⁴. And, as they did so, everywhere stories about gods emerged; gods of death and of rebirth, gods who would guarantee the cycle of the seasons and ensure the return of the crops, and gods-more importantly-that represent food itself. Today's object is myth-made material; a food god from Central America.

在世界各地，人类开始学会识别特定的植物，当成提供食物的农作物。在中东，我们在上期节目中已经看到的，出现的是小麦和大麦；在中国，小米和大米；在巴布亚新几内亚是芋头；在非洲是高粱。随着这些作物的降临，涌现出各种各样的神灵与相关他们的故事，死神、重生之神、掌管季节变换之神、保佐丰收之神，以及最最重要的，代表食物本身的神灵。今天要介绍的物品就是充满了神话色彩，一位来自中美洲的食物之神。

Here, in the heart of the British Museum, we have a god of maize⁵. He's a bust⁶, carved of limestone⁷ using a stone chisel⁸ and a basalt hammer, and the features are large, symmetrical, the eyes closed, the lips parted-as though this god is in communion with a different world, quietly meditating⁹.

在大英博物馆的中央，我们有一尊玉米之神。他是一件胸像，使用石凿和玄武岩锤在一块石灰石上雕刻出来的。五官宏大，左右对称，双眼紧闭，嘴唇分开，仿佛这位神灵正在与另一个世界进行沟通，沉浸在冥想中。

The arms are bent¹⁰, the palms of the hands face outwards-one raised, one lower-giving an impression of serene¹¹ power. The head of the god is covered with an enormous headdress in the shape of a stylised corn cob, and his hair is like the silky strands¹² that line the inside of a cob of corn, inside the wrapping leaves.

双臂弯曲，双掌手头向上，一只抬高，一只较低；让人感觉到一股安祥而强大的力量。神像头部覆盖着一个巨大的头饰，具有很强装饰色彩的玉米芯形状，他的头发就像是玉米须，丝绸般的，跟玉米芯一起被包裹在重重叠叠的玉米叶里。

Originally this statue would have sat with many other similar gods high up on a stepped pyramid-style temple in western Honduras. He was found in Copan, a major Mayan city and religious centre, whose monumental ruins you can still visit today. All of the temple's statues were commissioned by the Mayan ruler of the day, to adorn¹³ the magnificent temple that he built at Copan around AD 700. Between the head and the body you can very clearly see the join, and indeed the head looks rather too big for the body, because when the temple in Copan was destroyed, all the statues fell, and heads and bodies were pieced together, but whether this head and this body precisely¹⁴ belong together is actually not the key thing-because all these gods are about the central power, the central role, of maize to the local people.

本来这尊石像应该与许多其他类似的神像一起，被供奉在洪都拉斯西部那高高的玛雅阶梯式金字塔上的寺庙里。他出土于科潘，一个重要的玛雅城市与宗教中心；直到今天你仍然可以去探访宏伟壮观的遗址。当年玛雅王下命雕刻了这里所有的神像，来装饰这座大概公元700左右建造于科潘的雄伟庙宇。仔细观察一下这件胸像，你可以看出颈部那边有一条明显的拼接线，而且这头像放当在身体上颇显头重脚轻之感。其实这是因为当年出土这神像的科潘神庙曾经被摧毁过，所有的神像都倒蹋了。后来人类重新把散落一地的各个头像与身躯给拼凑起来，所以我们眼前这尊神像就拼成这样子了。不过这头与身是不是原本是一体，这倒是其次，重点是所有这位神灵都代表着玛雅文化中的中央集权、核心作用，也就是当地人民的命脉—玉米。

Our statue of the maize god is obviously a comparative new boy; he's made as late as AD 700. But he comes at the end of a very long tradition; Central Americans had been worshipping him and his predecessors¹⁵ for thousands of years, and his mythic story mirrors the annual planting and harvesting of the corn on which all Central American civilisation¹⁶ depended.

我们这奠神像相对而言可谓是个比较晚辈的小弟弟了，大概制造于公元700年左右。不过他传承了一段相当长的传统；在过去几千年的岁月里，中美洲的人们一直在祭拜他与他的各位前任，而且有关他的神话故事栩栩如生地描绘了所有中美洲文明从古以来依赖的玉米种植与收成，年年如此，生生不息。

Like the maize plant, the maize god is decapitated at harvest time, and is then reborn-fresh, young, and beautiful at the beginning of each new growing season. John Staller, anthropologist¹⁷ and author of the book Histories of Maize explains why the maize god was a common choice for rich and powerful patrons.

就像玉米植株一样，收割季节时，玉米神的头颅就会被割下来，然后再重生，在每一轮新的生长季节都将青春焕发、活力充沛、健美茁壮。人类学家约翰?斯托勒著作了《玉米的历史》这本书，他向我们解释了为什么玉米神公认为富饶与权力的守护神。

1 barley   

n.大麦，大麦粒

参考例句：

• They looked out across the fields of waving barley.他们朝田里望去,只见大麦随风摇摆。
• He cropped several acres with barley.他种了几英亩大麦。

2 millet   

n.小米，谷子

参考例句：

• Millet is cultivated in the middle or lower reaches of the Yellow River.在黄河中下游地区，人们种植谷子。
• The high quality millet flour was obtained through wet milling.采用湿磨法获得了高品质的小米粉。

3 taro   

n.芋，芋头

参考例句：

• Main grain crop has taro,corn,banana to wait.主要粮食作物有芋头、玉米、芭蕉等。
• You celebrate your birthday with taro,red bean and butter.用红豆、芋头和黄油给自己过生日。

4 sorghum   

n.高粱属的植物，高粱糖浆，甜得发腻的东西

参考例句：

• We can grow sorghum or maize on this plot.这块地可以种高粱或玉米。
• They made sorghum into pig feed.他们把高粱做成了猪饲料。

5 maize   

n.玉米

参考例句：

• There's a field planted with maize behind the house.房子后面有一块玉米地。
• We can grow sorghum or maize on this plot.这块地可以种高粱或玉米。

6 bust   

vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部

参考例句：

• I dropped my camera on the pavement and bust it. 我把照相机掉在人行道上摔坏了。
• She has worked up a lump of clay into a bust.她把一块黏土精心制作成一个半身像。

7 limestone   

n.石灰石

参考例句：

• Limestone is often used in building construction.石灰岩常用于建筑。
• Cement is made from limestone.水泥是由石灰石制成的。

8 chisel   

n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿

参考例句：

• This chisel is useful for getting into awkward spaces.这凿子在要伸入到犄角儿里时十分有用。
• Camille used a hammer and chisel to carve out a figure from the marble.卡米尔用锤子和凿子将大理石雕刻出一个人像。

9 meditating   

a.沉思的，冥想的

参考例句：

• They were meditating revenge. 他们在谋划进行报复。
• The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics. 这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。

10 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

11 serene   

adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的

参考例句：

• He has entered the serene autumn of his life.他已进入了美好的中年时期。
• He didn't speak much,he just smiled with that serene smile of his.他话不多，只是脸上露出他招牌式的淡定的微笑。

12 strands   

n.（线、绳、金属线、毛发等的）股( strand的名词复数 )；缕；海洋、湖或河的)岸；（观点、计划、故事等的）部份v.使滞留，使搁浅( strand的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Twist a length of rope from strands of hemp. 用几股麻搓成了一段绳子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She laced strands into a braid. 她把几股线编织成一根穗带。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 adorn   

vt.使美化，装饰

参考例句：

• She loved to adorn herself with finery.她喜欢穿戴华丽的服饰。
• His watercolour designs adorn a wide range of books.他的水彩设计使许多图书大为生色。

14 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

15 predecessors   

n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身

参考例句：

• The new government set about dismantling their predecessors' legislation. 新政府正着手废除其前任所制定的法律。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Will new plan be any more acceptable than its predecessors? 新计划比原先的计划更能令人满意吗？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 civilisation   

n.文明，文化，开化，教化

参考例句：

• Energy and ideas are the twin bases of our civilisation.能源和思想是我们文明的两大基石。
• This opera is one of the cultural totems of Western civilisation.这部歌剧是西方文明的文化标志物之一。

17 anthropologist   

n.人类学家，人类学者

参考例句：

• The lecturer is an anthropologist.这位讲师是人类学家。
• The anthropologist unearthed the skull of an ancient human at the site.人类学家在这个遗址挖掘出那块古人类的颅骨。