纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 003奥杜威手斧（5）（在线收听）

Of course today I am actually standing on a beach, but the coast 500,000-600,000 years ago would've been several miles further out. And if you'd walked along that ancient coastline, you would have arrived in what nowadays we call The Netherlands, in the heart of central Europe.

当然如今这里已经成为海滩，然后远在很多很多以前，海岸线还要向前延伸出几英里远。假如你沿着这此古老的海岸线走下去，你将会最终抵达如今我们称之为荷兰的地区，欧洲中部的心脏地位。

At this time there was a major land bridge connecting Britain to mainland Europe. We don't really know why humans colonised Britain at this time, but perhaps it was due to the effectiveness of this new technology that we call the handaxe.'

在当时，英国与欧洲大陆之间有一条主要的大陆桥连接着。我们真不知道人类当时为什么在英国土地上生息繁衍，然而大概也是因为手斧这种有效的新兴技术吧。”

The stone handaxe was made essentially in the same way and in the same shape for over a million years, and it must be the most successful piece of human technology in history. But is there one last secret in the stone? Our handaxe is just a bit too large to use easily.

本质上而言，在超过一百万年的时光里，石斧都是按同一种工艺制作，保持同一种形状，所以它真不亚于人类历史最最成功的技术成果了。然而这块石头中究竟还蕴藏着哪一个终级秘密呢？我们这块手斧就是个头有点过大点儿，使用不方便。

Why would you make it like that? I showed it to an expert in ergonomic design, the inventor Sir James Dyson:

但究竟为何要制作成这样呢？我就些咨询了一位人体工程学设计上的专家、发明家詹斯·戴森爵士：

What interests me about this is that it's not really very practical. It's double-sided, it has a sharp edge both sides, and it's symmetrical. It's almost as though it's an object of beauty rather than a practical object. So I wonder actually if it's a decorative thing, or even something like a ceremonial sword to make you look brave, powerful, and maybe to pull women.

“让我颇感兴趣的倒是它并不十分实用这一点。它有双面，两侧边缘都很锋利，而且相当对称。它看上去简直就像是一件颇俱美感的物品，而不仅仅具有实用性。所以我在思考其实它是否本身是一件装饰品，甚至像一把象征性很强的剑之类的，能衬托出你的勇气与力量，或者用来引吸女士的注意力呢。”

'It doesn't look to me like a practical tool, it looks to me more like a show object, a decorative object, than a practical object, because I can only see that whatever I do with it I'm gonna hurt my hand. So I think it's a beautiful object, but I don't believe it has any intent - serious intent - behind it.'

“反正在我看来它不像是一件实用工具，倒像是一样炫耀品、装饰品，没带多少实用性；因为我能看到无论我怎么使用它，总会弄伤自己的手。因此，我就认为这是一个美丽精致的物品，不过我倒不觉得其身上蕴含着任何特殊的含意。”

Of course it 'is' still a practical object, but I think it's nonetheless worth speculating, as Sir James Dyson does, whether our handaxe 'was' made a bit too big for easy use, in order to show that it was made for somebody important. Are we looking here at one of the oldest of all status symbols; the expression of a social pecking order?

当然，事实上它仍旧是一件实用的物品，但我想它还满值得认真思考的，正如詹姆斯·戴森爵士那样说，是否我们这手斧被“制造”得有点过大不便使用，只为了能突显出它所有人的重要性？我们是否正面对着人类最古老的地位象征物品之一？代表着一个社会的尊卑秩序？

And then the handaxe is so pleasing to the eye as well as to the hand, that it's hard not to ask if it wasn't to some extent made quite intentionally to be a thing of beauty. Is this the beginning of the long story of art and, indeed, the long story of art being pressed into the service of power?

然而这手斧是看上去多么的赏心悦目，拿到手上又多么的玲珑精致，使得我们不由而然地思考是否在某程度上，它是为了呈现美感而制作的。这是否是人类漫长艺术史的开端呢？

Or are we just projecting back on to these distant ancestors our own ways of thinking about beauty and status?

是否意味着艺术服务于权威的开始呢？又或许我们在一厢情愿地以我们自己对美感与地位的认知，来揣测我们那些遥远时光的祖先们？

In the next programme we're going to be unquestionably in the realm of art - I'm going to be looking at a masterpiece of Ice Age sculpture, carved in the tusk of a mammoth.

接下来的节目里，我们将毫无疑问地迈进艺术的领域。我将要去寻找一件冰河时期雕刻在猛犸象牙上的不朽杰作。