纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 047萨顿胡头盔(6)（在线收听）

"Especially after 11 September 2001, when the firemen were so involved in New York, the helmet attained new significance for me personally, because I had been given a fireman's helmet way back in the 1980s by a Boston fireman which was heavy, which was classically made, made of leather with copper and metal spine on it and so on. I was given this, and I had a great sense of receiving a ritual gift, not unlike the way Beowulf receives the gift from Hrothgar after he kills Grendel."

911事件中,纽约的消防队员舍生忘死。在那之后.头盔对 我个人而言有了全新的意义。早在二十世纪八十年代，一名波士顿消防员就送过我一个消防员头盔，分量极沉，用传统工艺制成，原料是皮革和黄铜等等，还有一道金属脊。接受这件礼物对我而言有宗教仪式般的感觉，就和贝奥武甫杀死哥伦多后接受来自荷罗斯加的礼物一样。

In a sense, the whole Sutton Hoo burial ship is a great ritual gift, a spectacular assertion of wealth and power on behalf of two people-the man who was buried there and commanded huge respect, and the man who organised this lavish farewell and commanded huge resources. We are clearly in the presence of power.

从某种意义上说，整个萨顿胡墓葬都是一件仪式性的礼物，展示了两位历史人物的财富与权力：一位是埋葬在这里的受人尊敬的逝者，另一位是拥有巨大财富、安排了这次豪华葬礼的人。

The Sutton Hoo grave ship brought the poetry of Beowulf unexpectedly close to historical fact. In the process it profoundly changed our understanding of this whole chapter of British history. Long dismissed as the Dark Ages, this period-the centuries after the Romans withdrew-could now be seen as a time of high sophistication and extensive international contacts, that linked East Anglia not just to Scandinavia and the Atlantic, but ultimately to the eastern Mediterranean and beyond.

萨顿胡船葬无意中将诗歌《贝奥武甫》拉近了历史现实。在这个过程中，它彻底改变了我们对英国这一时期历史的认识。罗马撤离后的几 个世纪曾长期被认为是“黑暗时代”，现在我们了解，这其实是个高度发达的社会，贸易范围十分广泛，东安格利亚不仅与斯堪的纳维亚和大西 洋地区建立了密切联系，甚至与东地中海以外的地区也有往来。

The very idea of ship burial is Scandinavian, and the Sutton Hoo ship was of a kind that easily crossed the North Sea, so making East Anglia an integral part of a world that included modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The helmet is, as you might expect, of Scandinavian design.

船葬是斯堪的纳维亚常见的墓葬形式。我们的萨顿胡船轻松地穿越北海，使东安格利亚成为包括现代丹麦、挪威和瑞典在内的一个更广阔 世界的一部分。你也许猜到了，头盔也是斯堪的纳维亚式的。