纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 063伊费头像（6）

 

It's hard to exaggerate what a profound reversal of prejudice and hierarchy¹ this represented. Along with Greece and Rome, Florence and Paris, now stood Nigeria. If you want an example of how "things" can change thought, then the impact of the Ife heads in 1939 are, I think, as good as you'll find.

Current research suggests that the heads that we know were all made over quite a short stretch of time, possibly in the middle of the fifteenth century. At that point Ife had for centuries been a leading political, economic and spiritual centre. It was a world of forest farming, dominated by cities that developed in the lands west of the Niger River. And it was river systems that connected Ife to the regional trade networks of West Africa, and to the great routes that carried ivory and gold across the Sahara to the Mediterranean² coast. In return, came metals that would make the Ife heads. The world of the Mediterranean had provided not the artists, as Frobenius supposed, merely the raw materials.

The forest cities were presided over by their senior ruler, the Ooni of Ife. The ooni's role was not merely political, he also had a great range of spiritual and ritual duties. And the city of Ife has always been the leading religious centre of the Yoruba people. Still today there is an ooni who has high ceremonial status and moral authority, and whose headgear still echoes that of our sculpted³ head of about seven hundred years ago.

这篇文章表现出一种对传统历史偏见的彻底扭转。尼日利亚的艺术成就已经能与希腊、罗马、佛罗伦萨及巴黎比肩。如果你想看看物品如何改变人们的成见，一九三九年伊费头像带来的冲击就是最好的例子。

近期的研究表明，我们发现的伊费头像几乎铸造于同一段时间内，有可能是十五世纪中期。当时的伊费作为先进的政治、经济与文化中心已有数百年的历史。这个依靠林间耕作、以城市为主导的社会，沿着尼罗河西岸发展。河流使得伊费被纳入西非地区的贸易网络，当地人驱着驼队穿越撒哈拉沙漠，将象牙与黄金运至地中海沿岸，并交换到制头像用的金属。地中海地区并没有像弗洛贝纽斯猜想的那样为伊费头像提供艺术家，而是仅仅提供了原材料。

这些森林城市由其最高统治者、伊费的奥尼掌控。奥尼不仅享有政治上的权威，也干预人们的精神生活与宗教仪式，而伊费一直是约鲁巴民族的宗教中心。当今世界上仍有奥尼这一角色，他拥有极高的仪式性地位与道德权威，所佩戴的头饰也与拥有六百年历史的头像上的头饰遥相呼应。

1 hierarchy   

n.等级制度；统治集团，领导层

参考例句：

• There is a rigid hierarchy of power in that country.那个国家有一套严密的权力等级制度。
• She's high up in the management hierarchy.她在管理阶层中地位很高。

2 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

3 sculpted   

adj.经雕塑的

参考例句：

• a display of animals sculpted in ice 冰雕动物展
• The ladies had their hair sculpted by the leading coiffeur of the day. 女士们的发型都是当代有名的理发师做的。