Ere Babylon was dust
A fascinating exhibition exploring the history, legends and art of Babylon is now in Paris and will be moving on to Berlin and London.
一场引人入胜的展览正在巴黎举行，这是一次对巴比伦历史，传说和艺术的探索之旅，展览的另外两站将是柏林和伦敦。
THE city has been all things to all men. To Jews, whose ancestors had been taken in captivity from Jerusalem in 586BC by King Nebuchadnezzar II, the rivers of Babylon were where they sat down and wept. Genesis claims that these Jews went on to build the Tower of Babel, although there is no physical evidence of its existence (or of the Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world).
不同的人对巴比伦有着不同的解读。对于犹太人来说，他们的祖先在公元前586年被尼布甲尼撒二世从耶路撒冷掳掠至此，囚禁在巴比伦的河边，暗自伤怀。《创世记》中宣称正是这些犹太人建造了巴别塔，虽然并没有物证证明它的存在（同样不能证明的还有古代“世界七大奇迹”之一的“空中花园”）。
Reformation Christians depicted Babylon as a whore, dedicated to orgies and feasting; Martin Luther compared the Rome of his day with ancient Babylon.
基督教革新派则将巴比伦描绘成一个堕落的城市，有如沉缅于纵酒狂欢的娼妓。马丁•路德还拿当时的罗马与古巴比伦作比较。
Archaeologists tell a different story. They show that Babylon was a centre of innovation, regarding itself as “the cosmic city”, with a history stretching back to the third millennium BC and lasting until the death of Alexander the Great in Babylon in 323BC. It was a great innovator in medicine, astronomy, astrology, mathematics and banking; the Babylonians may even have believed that the world was round.
考古学家则持另一种看法。他们证明巴比伦是当时改革的中心，号称“宇宙之城”，它的历史可追溯到公元前3000年，并一直延续到公元前323年亚历山大大帝在巴比伦去世时。它在医药，天文学，占星术，数学和银行业方面都堪称一个伟大的改革者。甚至，古巴比伦人可能已经相信地球是圆的。
Because information was stored on durable clay tablets, baked hard in the sun, these accomplishments are no secret. Appreciating them fully, however, usually means travelling to the Louvre in Paris, the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and the British Museum in London, the three places where the major discoveries from Babylonian civilisation are housed. For a while, this is no longer necessary. A formidable exhibition designed to reconcile Babylonian history and legend is on show in Paris until June 2nd. It moves to Berlin from June 26th to October 5th and will then be in London from November 13th until March 15th 2009. The organisers claim there has never been an exhibition like it. Judged by the crowds filling the galleries at the Louvre, it is already a popular success.
这些成就因为记录在经过太阳炙烤，经久耐用的陶板上而得以保存，已不再是秘密。然而，要想对它们有一个全面的了解，就意味着要访遍巴黎的卢浮宫，柏林的贝加蒙博物馆和伦敦的大英博物馆，关于巴比伦文明的重要考古发现都收藏在这三大博物馆里。不过，现在暂时不需要这么劳累了。巴黎正在举办一个旨在印证巴比伦历史与传说的大型展览，展期至6月2日结束。第二站柏林的展出时间是6月26日至10月15日，第三站伦敦由11月13日开始至明年3月15日截止。展览的组织者表示之前从未进行过类似的展出。从卢浮宫展厅里拥挤的人潮，我们就可以判断这场展出受欢迎的程度.
The three exhibitions are not uniformly the same. Berlin will have the most exhibits (about 800) and London the fewest (104); Paris has 466. The British Museum does not currently have space for a big travelling show (it had to seek special permission from English Heritage to use the old Reading Room for the recent exhibition from China). Irving Finkel, assistant keeper in the museum\'s Near East Department, says the London show is designed to convince the audience that Babylon was a real place, a “most lavish and grandiose affair”.
三站展出的内容并不完全相同。柏林站的展品最多（约800件），伦敦站则最少（104件）；巴黎站有466件。主要是因为大英博物馆暂时无法为大型巡回展览提供足够的展出空间（最近，来自中国的展览都是通过“英国遗产”组织的特批才获准使用古老的“阅览室”）。Irving Finkel，博物馆古代近东部门助理总监表示，伦敦站展览目的在于告诉参观者巴比伦是一个真实的地方，将是三站中“展品最奢华、气势最恢宏的一场展览盛宴”
Some objects are too fragile to be moved between the museums. The tall basalt column on which is written the Code of Hammurabi, will not only stay in Paris but Béatrice André-Salvini, the exhibition\'s chief curator, even had qualms about moving it from its permanent place in the Louvre to the exhibition space a stone\'s throw away. She was persuaded otherwise, and the code is perhaps the most remarkable object on show. Written between 1792BC and 1750BC, it lays down a detailed legal framework, some of which remains familiar: “If a man destroys the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye.” It also dictates the rate of interest: “If a merchant puts out money on interest, for one shekel of silver he shall receive one-sixth of a shekel.”
某些展品因为极易破碎而无法在各大博物馆间流动展出。例如，刻有“汉谟拉比法典”的玄武岩石柱只会在巴黎展出，对于是否将它从卢浮宫的永久展出点移到仅一步之遥的展室这个问题，也让展览的主要负责人Béatrice André-Salvini考虑良久。她最终被说服了，而这部法典很可能会成为最引人注目的展品。法典写于公元前1792-1750年，它制定了详细的法律框架，有些至今还为人熟知：如，“倘人毁他人之目,则毁其目”。它还对利率做出了规定：“如果一个商人通过放贷赚钱，借出1谢克尔银子的利息是1/6谢克尔。”
Both London and Paris will have the pleasure of seeing the lions, cows and dragons (including the dragon shown above) that decorated the Ishtar Gate during Nebuchadnezzar II\'s reign (605-562BC). The blue enamel gate, which was discovered by Robert Koldewey, a renowned German archaeologist, is the only Babylonian monument from this time to have survived, albeit in thousands of small pieces. The elegant animal statues were painstakingly pieced together in Berlin and placed in the reconstructed gate. The animals travel; the great gate stays in Germany.
伦敦和巴黎的观众将有幸看到尼布甲尼撒二世统治时期（公元前605-562年），用来装饰伊什塔门的狮子、牛和龙（包括上图中出现的龙）。这座蓝色的珐琅门，由德国著名考古学家Robert Koldewey发现，也是现今保存下来的唯一的一座巴比伦纪念碑，尽管被发现时，它已经支离破碎。那些精致的动物雕像在柏林经过辛苦地拼接修复后被安放在一座重新修建的伊什塔门上。这些动物雕像将会参加巡回展览，而那座大门则会留在德国。
posted @ 2008-04-27 18:55
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