纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 060基尔瓦陶器碎片（5）

 

"We used to see these things, these bit of pottery¹, we used to see them on the beaches. And sometimes older people would say to us, ?That's Chinese pottery', and we'd think, ?Yeah, yeah' - we'd heard lots of stories of this kind of thing - you know, flying carpets, princes lost etc. So we took it as just another one of those stories. It was only later on, when you begin to go into museums or hear these persistent² stories of great Chinese armadas that visited East Africa, that the object then becomes something valuable, something that is a signifier of something important - a connection. And then you see the object itself, and you see its completeness, and its weight, and its beauty, and it makes this inescapable - this presence over centuries of a culture as far away as China."

As well as the Chinese porcelain³, there are other bits of pot here that have clearly travelled a long way to get to Kilwa. I'm looking at the moment at a blue piece with black geometric patterning on it, that obviously comes from the Arab world and, when you look at this fragment under the microscope, you can see that the composition of the clay means that it was made in Iraq or Syria. And there are other pieces here that come from Oman or different parts of the Gulf⁴. These fragments alone would be enough to demonstrate the strength and the extent of Kilwa's links with the Islamic Middle East.

我们常常在海滩上捡到这类瓷片。有时会有老人告诉我们，“这些是中国瓷器”。我们都不以为然，类似飞毯、迷路的王子之类的故事听得太多了，以为这也是编造的。直到后来在博物馆看到或听到这些曾经到访东非的强大中国船队的故事时，我才意识到这些东西的价值，了解到它们曾是国家间具有重大意义的联系的代表。回头再看这些物品，你便能看到它们的完整，它们的重量与美丽。数百年来，它们所代表的万里之遥的中国文化，让人无从忽视。

除了中国瓷器，还有一些碎片也来自遥远的异国。那些蓝底上有黑色几何图案的明显来自阿拉伯世界。在显微镜下仔细观察瓷片的质地后，我们得出结论：它们制作于伊拉克或叙利亚。剩下的碎片则来自阿曼或波斯湾的其他地区。单是这些碎片便足以表明基尔瓦与中东伊斯兰国家有过多么深入而广泛的交流。

 

1 pottery   

n.陶器，陶器场

参考例句：

• My sister likes to learn art pottery in her spare time.我妹妹喜欢在空余时间学习陶艺。
• The pottery was left to bake in the hot sun.陶器放在外面让炎热的太阳烘晒焙干。

2 persistent   

adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的

参考例句：

• Albert had a persistent headache that lasted for three days.艾伯特连续头痛了三天。
• She felt embarrassed by his persistent attentions.他不时地向她大献殷勤，使她很难为情。

3 porcelain   

n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的

参考例句：

• These porcelain plates have rather original designs on them.这些瓷盘的花纹很别致。
• The porcelain vase is enveloped in cotton.瓷花瓶用棉花裹着。

4 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。