为什么大英博物馆不归还殖民时期被盗的文物?
Why doesn’t the British Museum return the artifacts stolen during colonisation?
译文简介
因为他们满足于忽视他们所表现出的傲慢和对他们曾经掠夺过的国家的不尊重。英国的历史不是保存在其他国家的博物馆里，
正文翻译
Josh Gibson
Because they are content to ignore the arrogance they display and disrespect they show towards the countries their nation once pillaged. Britain's history is not held in other nation's museums, they dont have to beg for portions of their cultural memory to be returned. Just as during colonial times they are the one with power and they are using it to perpetuate the subjugation of those nations. No shame, no decency, just imperialism.
因为他们满足于忽视他们所表现出的傲慢和对他们曾经掠夺过的国家的不尊重。英国的历史不是保存在其他国家的博物馆里，他们不必乞求归还他们的部分文化记忆。就像在殖民时期一样，他们是拥有权力的一方，他们正在利用它来永久征服那些国家。没有羞耻，没有体面，只是帝国主义。
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Because they are content to ignore the arrogance they display and disrespect they show towards the countries their nation once pillaged. Britain's history is not held in other nation's museums, they dont have to beg for portions of their cultural memory to be returned. Just as during colonial times they are the one with power and they are using it to perpetuate the subjugation of those nations. No shame, no decency, just imperialism.
因为他们满足于忽视他们所表现出的傲慢和对他们曾经掠夺过的国家的不尊重。英国的历史不是保存在其他国家的博物馆里，他们不必乞求归还他们的部分文化记忆。就像在殖民时期一样，他们是拥有权力的一方，他们正在利用它来永久征服那些国家。没有羞耻，没有体面，只是帝国主义。
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Right, variations of this question are everywhere and after reading an inflammatory article in the Guardian, I've decided to say something.
Have you ever actually asked yourself, why the Elgin Marbles look so broken and shattered?
是的，这个问题的变体无处不在，在看了《卫报》上一篇煽动性的文章后，我决定说点什么。
你有没有问过自己，为什么埃尔金大理石雕看起来如此破碎?
Look at these ISIS morons engaging in a tradition as old as the ancient artefacts they’re destroying.
Because make no mistake, there is a reason why the Elgin Marbles are broken into itty bitty pieces.
看看这些ISIS的白痴，他们从事的传统和他们正在摧毁的古代文物一样古老。
因为毫无疑问，埃尔金大理石雕被打碎是有原因的。
Maybe you think this destruction of ancient artefacts is a thing of the past, well you would be mistaken, it still happens today.
In 1799, some bloke named Elgin visited Greece, which had been part of the Ottoman empire for 4 hundred years, while there, old Elgin who had a passion for history visited the Parthenon, what he found saddened his heart, for such history lay in ruins and workers were actively breaking the once majestic marble statues into itty bitty bits.
也许你认为对古代文物的破坏已经成为过去，但你错了，这种情况今天仍然存在。
1799年，一个名叫埃尔金的家伙访问了希腊，那时希腊已经是奥斯曼帝国的一部分长达400年了。在那里，热爱历史的埃尔金参观了帕特农神庙，他发现心情沉重，因为这些历史遗迹正在遭受破坏，工人们正将曾经威严的大理石雕像打碎成小块。
Nope, perfectly practical, you see until the British and French started to assign value to historical artefacts, no one gave a flying toss.
Old Elgin watched as the marble sculptures were broken down and burned.. Yep, fracking burned in lime kilns, to make mortar. Fracking mortar, human history destroyed to build shite buildings.
为什么，这是宗教原因吗？不是的，完全是出于实际考虑。你看，在英法开始给历史文物赋予价值之前，没有人在乎这些东西。
埃尔金目睹着大理石雕塑被打碎并被烧毁。是的，被用来建造石灰窑的时候被烧毁了。人类历史被摧毁，只为了建造一些糟糕的建筑。
No, he wanted to preserve human history for the benefit of all mankind. Elgin didn't steal anything, he paid to save what no one valued. Elgin wasn't unique, the French and British museums are full of our preserved collective history, for all to see.
埃尔金找到奥斯曼帝国的统治者，用钱买下了剩下的大理石雕塑。为什么呢？难道埃尔金想垄断石灰市场吗？不，他想为了全人类的利益而保存人类历史。埃尔金并没有偷走任何东西，他是为了拯救那些没有得到重视的文物而付钱的。埃尔金并不是唯一一个这样做的人，法国和英国的博物馆里都陈列着我们所保留的共同历史，供所有人观赏。
There is a simple reason the Greek marbles are in broken shattered pieces, missing arms, legs and faces, and that uncomfortable truth is people didn't give a shit about history, in fact sometimes that history was an insult to their beliefs.
It wasn't until the British and French started paying large sums for artefacts and preserving them in museums, that people started caring.
有一个简单的原因，希腊雕塑被打碎成碎片、失去了手臂、腿和面部，那个不舒服的事实是人们对历史不关心，事实上有时候那些历史会侮辱他们的信仰。直到英国和法国开始为文物付出巨额资金并将其保护在博物馆里，人们才开始关心。
I found it very interesting that after Iraq was liberated from Saddam Hussein that the American army was castigated because it didn’t protect museums from being looted by the Iraqis themselves: not Isis or the Taliban. What does that tell you about modern day respect for the past there? Why should an invading army have to protect a country’s cultural heritage from its own citizens? No one had to protect the Uffizi Gallery in Florence when Italy was liberated from the Germans - or any other museum in Italy that I know of - from Italian citizens.
我觉得很有趣的是，伊拉克从萨达姆·侯赛因手中解放后，美国军队因未能保护博物馆免受伊拉克人自己的洗劫而受到指责：不是伊斯兰国或塔利班。这说明了现代对于那里过去的尊重有多少？为什么入侵的军队要保护一个国家的文化遗产免受其自己的公民侵害？当意大利从德国解放时，无需保护乌菲兹美术馆或我所知道的任何其他意大利博物馆，那是为什么呢？
Well, there were a few which were taken as spoils of war, or reparations for various outrages.
This overlooks a number of things though.
As in, if two or more parties were engaged in warfare, the looser would get looted most comprehensively.
So, if you do not want to be looted, do not start and then loose wars, would be the idea.
The whole idea of “Party A stole something from party B” is just… stupid.
A serious lack of knowledge of history. Should Greece start a war with Britain in order to loot it?
好吧，有一些艺术品是作为战争赔款或对各种侮辱的补偿品被夺走的。但这忽略了一些问题。比如，如果两个或更多的当事方参与战争，失败者将被最全面地洗劫。因此，如果你不想被抢劫，就不要开始并输掉战争，这就是观念。整个“甲方从乙方偷走了东西”的想法只是…愚蠢。对历史缺乏严重的了解。希腊应该开始与英国开战，以掠夺它吗？
Basically, it’s people trying to apply modern standards of law, to a point in time where that did not exist, and to a level of resolution where it does not now exist, and to the wrong parties.
If you want, as some Greek activist, to make a case for this, go fight with Turkey, and sue them for selling something they did not (in your eyes) own.
Or, if you are the curator of a greek museum, you could ask nicely, and swap exhibitions of various things for some years. Museums do this all the time.
不，有几个原因，最重要的是这是不可能的。基本上，这是人们试图将现代法律标准应用于那个没有存在的时代点，在一个现在不存在的级别上，以及对错误的当事方。如果你想像某个希腊活动家那样提出这个问题，去跟土耳其打交道，起诉他们出售他们认为不属于他们的东西。或者，如果你是一个希腊博物馆的馆长，你可以礼貌地询问，交换几年的展览。博物馆经常这样做。
My main issue with these questions and demands, is that they refer to artifacts as ‘Stolen or looted’ when in many cases these artifacts were saved from almost certain destruction, vandalism and the private collections of the wealthy.
The British museum in particular is free to visit, meaning the entire institution is literally about the preservation, study and display of human history.. That is a noble cause.
Yet people paint it as some currupt, devious evil institution that steals cultural history to amass wealth by charging people to see it. Which is wrong and does a disservice to the people who recognised these artifacts and saved them from being lost forever.
我对这些问题和要求的主要问题是，他们把文物称为“被盗或被抢劫”的时候，在许多情况下，这些文物几乎肯定会遭到破坏、破坏和富人的私人收藏。特别是英国博物馆是免费参观的，这意味着整个机构实际上就是关于人类历史的保护、研究和展示…这是一项崇高的事业。然而，有些人把它描绘成一种腐败、阴险的邪恶机构，他们盗取文化历史以积累财富，通过向人们收费来看它。这是错误的，对那些认识到这些文物并将它们从永远丧失中拯救出来的人们是不公正的。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
I think it comes down to two very basic human characteristics.
Those being envy, and greed.
And of course, utter ignorance as to how museums and similar institutions operate. Some kind of idea that they are arms of some evil empire which is just a bunch of looting pirates.
Which, of course, is not not say the British were not pirates. We were. We just happened to be better and more competent ones than Dyaks, Vikings, Spanish, french, Ottoman, Malayan, japanese, Chinese, North African, and many others. And valued other things in the last few centuries.
Ever heard of those being asked to give back artefacts? No?
Because they melted down all the precious metals, burnt the rest, and didn’t give a shit.
5000 year of history in the middle east. How many locals revere their own past?
“Turn it into building stone, or shit we can use, goddamit! Erase the infidel!”
So did western society, until fairly recently.
我认为这归结于两个非常基本的人类特性。那就是嫉妒和贪婪。当然，还有对博物馆和类似机构运作方式的彻底无知。一些人认为它们是一些邪恶帝国的武器，只是一群掠夺海盗。当然，这也不是说英国人不是海盗。我们是。我们只是比达雅克、维京人、西班牙人、法国人、奥斯曼人、马来亚人、日本人、中国人、北非人和许多其他人更好、更有能力。并且在最近几个世纪里看重其他事情。你听说过有人被要求归还文物吗？没有？因为他们把所有贵重金属熔化了，把剩下的烧了，不在乎这些东西。中东有5000年的历史。有多少当地人尊重他们自己的过去？“把它变成建筑石材或者我们可以用的东西，该死的! 抹掉异教徒!”所以西方社会也是如此，直到最近。
And it continues. The destruction at Palmyra and Aleppo (amongst everything else!) just a few years ago was tragic. Personally, I hope some of the ruins and sculptures have been rescued from there - I’d pay to go to a museum (the payment of which helps the museums to maintain the artefacts) and see them since we can’t go there and, if one day the area settles down and the artefacts can be returned then so much the better.
Same things goes for manuscxts. Christopher de Hamel wrote an amazing book called Meetings with Remarkable Manuscxts which goes into great detail the journeys that some of the world’s most precious manuscxts have taken. And when you think about it - that’s just the ones that were SAVED.
Great answer, Henrey Bradley.
它还在继续。就在几年前，帕尔米拉和阿勒颇的破坏（以及其他一切！）是悲惨的。就我个人而言，我希望一些废墟和雕塑从那里被救出来——如果有一天这个地区安定下来，这些文物可以被归还，那就更好了。对于手稿来说也是一样。克里斯托弗·德·哈梅尔写了一本名为《与卓越手稿见面》的精彩书籍，详细介绍了世界上一些最珍贵的手稿所经历的旅程。当你思考这件事时——那只是被“拯救”的那些东西。
原创翻译：龙腾网 https://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
In the example used while some activists claim that geeece was occupied and the ottoman rulers did not have the rights to sell off the marbles, and they are a part of Greek culture and history they overlook the detail that without foreign intervention they would have been destroyed along time ago. It has been happening recently in other cultures. History is being destroyed today by people who do not value it. In the future when it is valued as indicative of the advanced culture that was present the only examples are those in foreign countries, as the locals in the past did not appreciate the future value their children would place on the artifacts they destroyed.
在被使用的例子中，一些活动家声称希腊被占领，奥斯曼统治者没有权利出售这些大理石，而它们是希腊文化和历史的一部分，他们忽略了一个细节，没有外国的干预，这些大理石本来早就被摧毁了。最近在其他文化中也发生了这种情况。历史今天被那些不重视它的人摧毁了。当它被看作是存在的先进文化的指标时，在未来，唯一的例子是在外国国家中，因为过去的居民没有意识到他们的孩子会怎么看待他们摧毁的文物的未来价值。
Very well put, said the same thing 2 years ago but without the extra details about Elgin having purchased them.
The nerve of some people to make demands without knowing the facts, should they want them back then come up with the cost of buying them from the Ottomans. removing and looking after them all these years,
There wouldn’t be any Marbles or anything for that matter if not for people like Lord Elgin
说得好极了，两年前我也说了同样的话，但没有额外的有关埃尔金买下它们的细节。有些人在不知道事实的情况下提出要求，如果他们想把它们拿回来，那么就提出购买它们从奥斯曼人手中购买的费用、将它们移走并照顾它们所有这些年，如果没有像埃尔金爵士这样的人，就不会有大理石或任何其他东西。
I agree. Those treasures belong to all our collective past and history. The British Museum has done well to preserve this from the radicals in the Ottoman Empire for the sake of all humanity. We only have to look at the Taliban in Afghanistan to witness the horrific destruction of the Buddhas of Banian, l two 6th-century monumental statues,
我同意。这些宝藏属于我们所有人的集体过去和历史。英国博物馆为了全人类的利益而将它们从奥斯曼帝国的激进分子手中保护起来，做得很好。我们只需要看看阿富汗的塔利班，就能目睹巴米扬大佛（两座六世纪的纪念雕像）遭到可怕的破坏，
Wow, thank you for this answer. The Elgin Marbles being “stolen” is a canard I’ve been hearing since I was in school. It has never sat right with me, particularly the gleeful zeal with which people nod their head at it and piously exclaim “We have so much to make up for as a civilisation”, but I’ve never been confident enough in the opposing position to obxt. Now I am.
哇，谢谢你的回答。我从上学时起就听到了“埃尔金大理石被盗”的说法。这一点从未让我感到满意，特别是当人们以虔诚的神态点头表示“作为一个文明，我们有很多需要弥补的地方”时，我总觉得不对。但我从来没有足够自信地反对对立的观点。现在我有了。
Thank you! Finally someone said it! There is so much history that the “locals” who should care about it but simply don’t- if it weren’t for the fact that they need / want the revenue for tourists, they’d loot every piece and sell it for a few bucks or let it all crumble away. Not just from “colonialism,” either. I was always shocked at how some European countries had little regard for their very rich history and, again, even today, if tourists weren’t interested, they’d still be burning the bits for lime or varying them off to build something crappy.
谢谢！终于有人说了！有这么多历史，“当地人”应该关心，但他们却根本不关心——如果不是因为他们需要/想要旅游收入，他们就会掠夺每一件东西，卖几美元，或让它们全部崩溃。而且不仅仅是“殖民主义”。我总是对一些欧洲国家对自己非常丰富的历史毫不关注感到震惊，而且即使今天，如果没有游客的兴趣，他们仍然会将这些东西烧成石灰或抛弃用来建造一些垃圾。
I am not ISIS, not a Muslim or a Christian. Your argument is no one cared until the civilized people arrived and started caring,
In India, where the religion is or used to be Hinduism, we used to worship in temples to different and care about our God's. A lot of our statues, icons and religious structures were taken away or destroyed.
我不是ISIS，也不是穆斯林或基督徒。你的论点是没有人关心，直到文明人到来并开始关心， 在印度，宗教是或曾经是印度教，我们过去在寺庙里崇拜不同的神并关心他们。我们的许多雕像、图标和宗教建筑都被带走或摧毁了。
Not all those things were bought and not everything is at risk of being destroyed. Things like Tipu Sultan's animated Tiger,his sword or the Kohinoor diamond were all looted as a part of war,not destroyed. And they won't be destroyed if they were sent back to India.
That being said,yes the British did do some good things in preserving history that may otherwise have been destroyed. Breaking down ancient monuments for mortar was pretty common. That's why half of the Colosseum and many old Roman buildings are gone now.
并不是所有这些东西都是购买的，也不是所有东西都面临被摧毁的风险。像提普·苏丹的机械老虎、他的剑或库稀努尔钻石这样的东西都是在战争中被掠夺的，而不是被摧毁的。如果将它们送回印度，它们不会被摧毁。 话虽如此，英国确实做了一些保存历史的好事情，否则可能会被摧毁。拆除古代纪念碑用作砂浆是相当普遍的。这就是为什么一半的斗兽场和许多古罗马建筑现在已经消失了。
Since the market in old statuary improved, forgeries have increased as well. The best ones make a fake and bury it in the ground for ten or twenty years, as a sort of retirement bonus. There used to be a life-sized “Etruscan” statue, the only life size one ever discovered, proudly displayed in the foyer of a museum in New York until an old Italian man confessed on his deathbed that it was a forgery. Now it’s in the basement of the museum and no longer featured in their catalogs and brochures.
自从旧雕像市场变得火爆以来，赝品也增加了。最好的方法是制造一个假货，埋在地下十年或二十年，作为一种退休奖金。曾经有一尊真人大小的“伊特鲁里亚”雕像，在纽约的一座博物馆大厅自豪地展示，直到一个意大利老人在临终前坦白它是个假货。现在它在博物馆的地下室里，不再被列入他们的目录和宣传册中。
Secure, controlled atmosphere storage is incredibly expensive. Many artifacts have to be stored in a pure argon atmosphere to protect from damage that exposure to oxygen can do. Some countries that would like custody of these items don't have ability to care for them long term, even though their hearts are in the right place.
安全、受控的气氛存储非常昂贵。许多文物必须存储在纯氩气氛中，以保护免受暴露于氧气可能造成的损害。一些希望拥有这些物品的国家没有能力长期照顾它们，即使他们的心在正确的位置上。
There are some that were taken after war - are the countries still at war or in any position to take care of these items now? Do they even care about it?
there were some gifted - you don’t take back gifts.
some were reparations - I put these more in the gifted section so same thing.
some were bought.
Some we don’t even know who originally created and owned them. They therefore might not have any existing rightful claimants.
some are on loan to us from foreign museums, which is becoming more popular, therefore are not ours to give.
有一些是在战争后夺走的——这些国家现在还在战争或有能力照顾这些物品吗？他们甚至在乎吗？ 有些是送礼物——你不会拿回礼物。 一些是赔偿——我把它们放在送礼物的部分，所以同样的事情。 有些是购买的。 有些我们甚至不知道最初的创造者和所有者是谁。因此，他们可能没有任何现有的合法要求人。 有些是从外国博物馆借来的，这越来越流行，因此不是我们可以给出的东西。
Only in certain situations should anything be ‘returned’.
if you aren’t from that country, even if you have ties to it, you do not have a voice. Only legitimate sources should be speaking about it.
是的，有些东西是值得质疑的，但仅仅为了归还而归还并没有建设性。在那些博物馆里，它们受到最好的保护和照顾。 只有在某些情况下才应该“归还”任何东西。 如果你不来自那个国家，即使你与之有联系，你也没有发言权。只有合法的来源才能谈论它。
While I do not disagree with you as to the specific instances mentioned, there are several instances where the artefacts taken did have value but were looted either way. (Emphasis on “looted” as you insist in your comments that they were not looted) The bulk of artefacts taken from Kingdoms making up present-day Nigeria had intrinsic religious value and were certainly not at risk of being destroyed.
虽然我不反对你所提到的具体情况，但有几种情况下，被夺走的文物确实有价值，但无论如何都被掠夺了。（重点在于“掠夺”，因为你在评论中坚持认为它们没有被掠夺）从组成现代尼日利亚的王国中夺走的大部分文物都具有内在的宗教价值，肯定不会面临被摧毁的风险。