Artifacts Reveal the Sophistication of a Nomadic Society
遊牧社會精緻 工藝為證
By John Noble Wilford
Ancient Greeks had a word for the people who lived on the wild, arid Eurasian steppes stretching from the Black Sea to the border of China. They were nomads, which meant “roaming about for pasture.” They were wanderers and, not infrequently, fierce mounted warriors. Essentially, they were “the other” to the agricultural and increasingly urban civilizations that emerged in the first millennium B.C.
古希臘時期，從黑海直至中國大陸邊界，盡是荒涼乾旱的歐亞大草原，有許多人在那兒生活，當時希臘人把他們統稱為遊牧民族，意指「逐水草而居」的民族。他們是流浪者，通常也是強悍的馬上戰士。而相對於公元前1000年出現的農業與日益城市化的文明而言，他們本質上乃屬「另類」。
As the nomads left no writing, no one knows what they called themselves. The nomads were looked down on as an intermediate or an arrested stage in cultural evolution. They had taken a step beyond hunter-gatherers but were well short of settling down to planting and reaping, or the more socially and economically complex life in town.
遊牧民族並未留下任何文字紀錄，沒人知道他們如何稱呼自己。他們被世人視為處於文化演化過程中的過渡或停滯狀態，因而受到輕視。他們的演化狀態比採獵民族進步些，但並未進入以農耕為主的定居狀態或社會、經濟結構更複雜精細的城鎮生活狀態。
But archaeologists in recent years have dispelled notions that nomadic societies were less developed. Grave goods from as early as the eighth century B.C. show that these people were prospering through a mobile pastoral strategy.
考古學家近年開始駁斥遊牧民族發展程度較低的觀念。從古墓出土，可上溯到公元前八世紀的陪葬品顯示，這些民族透過機動的遊牧策略而繁榮興盛。
Some of the most illuminating discoveries are coming from burial mounds, called kurgans, in the Altai Mountains of eastern Kazakhstan, near Russia and China. From the quality and workmanship of the artifacts and the number of sacrificed horses, archaeologists have concluded that these were burials of the society’s elite in the late fourth and early third centuries B.C.
部分最具啟發性的發現，來自鄰近俄羅斯與中國大陸的哈薩克東部阿爾泰山古墳。考古學家依出土手工藝品的品質、做工與陪葬馬匹的數量研判，它們是公元前四世紀末、三世紀初，所謂遊牧民族精英分子的長眠之地。
Almost half of the 250 objects in a new exhibition, “Nomads and Networks: The Ancient Art and Culture of Kazakhstan,” are from these burials of a people known as the Pazyryk culture. The material can be seen through June 3 at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, on loan from Kazakhstan’s four national museums.
一項名為「遊牧民族與網絡：哈薩克的古代藝術及文化」的展覽，共展示250件古物，近半數來自這個創造所謂巴澤雷克文化的遊牧民族的古墳。主辦單位紐約大學「古代世界研究所」向哈薩克四座國家博物館商借這些古物，預定展至六月三日。
Two spectacular examples are 13 gold pieces of personal adornment, known as the Zhalauli treasure of fanciful animal figures; and the Wusun diadem, a gold openwork piece with inlaid semiprecious stones from a burial in the Kargaly Valley in southern Kazakhstan. Artifacts from recent kurgan digs include gold pieces; carved wood and horn; a leather saddle; a leather pillow; and textiles, ceramics and bronzes. Archaeologists said the abundance of prestige goods in the burials showed the strong social differentiation of nomad society.
這其中有兩個令人矚目的實例，包括13件金質的個人裝飾品，又名極具想像力的沙勞里動物造型珍寶。另外一項是烏孫王冠。它來自哈薩克南部卡加里山谷的一座古墓，是嵌有次等寶石的金質網狀細工工藝品。最近出土的手工藝品還包括黃金物品、雕刻的木頭與獸角、一具皮革馬鞍、一個皮革枕頭、紡織品、瓷器與青銅製品。考古學家說，古墓出土大量精緻手工藝品顯示，遊牧民族社會分化非常明顯。（編按，所謂社會分化又稱分殊化或區分化，是指在一團體、組織或社會中發展出不同地位之過程）。
The Kazakh conservator of the artifacts, Altynbekov Krym, said that remains in several kurgans were a challenge. “Everything was jumbled together, getting moldy almost immediately,” he said, and that it “took six years experimenting to create a new methodology to clean and preserve the material.”
哈薩克負責管理這些古工藝品的柯里姆說，如何保存自數座古墳出土的古物是一大挑戰。他說：「古物全部雜亂放置，幾乎立即發霉。考古學家以六年的時間做實驗，才找出清理保存的方法。」
They moved with the seasons by horse and camel, tending the flocks of sheep and goats that gave them the meat, milk, wool and hides of their pastoral economy. To make the most out of grasslands that were only seasonally productive, they went in small groups into the highland meadows for summer grazing and returned to the lowlands in winter. They crossed plains to avoid overgrazing any one marginal pasture.
古代遊牧民族騎著馬匹與駱駝隨季節遷徙，照顧為其放牧經濟帶來肉、奶、羊毛與皮革的綿羊與山羊群。為充分利用豐瘠隨季節而異的草原，他們夏季分成小批趕羊群進入高地草原，入冬後重回低地。他們跨越曠野，以免羊群過度啃食處於邊緣地帶的牧草原。
As their networks widened, foreign influences, notably Persian, began to appear in nomadic artifacts from the sixth to the fourth centuries B.C. The griffin, for example, originated in the West by way of the Persian Empire, centered in what is now Iran.
隨著他們的網絡不斷擴大，外來影響，尤其是波斯文化，公元前六世紀至四世紀之間開始出現在遊牧民族的手工藝品之中。源自西方並借道波斯帝國傳播的半獅半鷲怪獸造型，就是個例子，波斯帝國的核心地帶就是現在的伊朗。
The nomads never failed to apply imaginative touches to the foreign artifacts they acquired. Jennifer Y. Chi, the Institute for the Study of the Ancient Worlds chief curator, said the nomads transformed others’ fantastic animals into more fantastic versions: boars curled in teardrop shapes and griffins that seemed to change their parts in a single image.
遊牧民族總能把想像力發揮在以任何手段取得的域外手工藝品上。「古代世界研究所」首席策展人珍妮芙‧齊指出，遊牧民族常把其他民族創造的奇特動物造型轉化為更奇特的造型：野豬綣成淚珠狀，單一造型的半獅半鷲怪獸看似全身各部位都會變化。
By these enigmatic symbols, a prewriting culture communicated its worldview from a vast and ungenerous land that it could never fully tame – any more than these people of the horse were ever ready to settle down.
古代遊牧民族馳騁於永遠不可能完全馴服的遼闊嚴酷大地，而且永不停下腳步。他們透過這些謎樣的象徵符號表達了自己的世界觀。
原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/science/from-their-graves-ancient-nomads-speak.html
2012-03-27聯合報/G5版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS 陳世欽譯 原文參見紐時週報十版
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