非洲岩画：这个大洲的真正历史

http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=11088&extra=page%3D8

[2008-5-1]The continent's true history 非洲岩画：这个大洲的真正历史
African rock art
The continent's true history
非洲岩画：这个大洲的真正历史
May 1st 2008 | NAIROBI
From The Economist print edition

Protecting cave paintings can restore Africa's pride in its history
保护岩画可以重塑非洲的历史自豪感



SO LATE to be “discovered” by the rest of the world—Henry Stanley made the continent's first crossing only in 1877—Africa, it can be forgotten, is probably the cradle of humanity. Palaeo anthropologists, archaeologists and, more recently, geneticists have all bolstered the “out of Africa” theory, which holds that early man wandered out of the Rift Valley. Yet little is known of pre-colonial African cultures. Some vanished out of history, along with their languages and beliefs, before they ever came to be named. That is one reason why Africa's rock art is so precious. The faintest ochre scratches of prehistoric antelope in a cave open a rare window into Africa's—and humanity's—distant past.

非洲被（世界其他地方）“发现”的实在有点晚， 直到1877年Henry Stanley（译注：1841—1904，威尔士出生的美国记者和探险家）才首次穿越了这片大陆。这件事可能被人们遗忘了，但是别忘了非洲可能是人类的摇篮。古人类学家，考古学家，最近还有遗传学家都支持“走出非洲”的理论，该理论认为早期人类是从非洲大裂谷走出来的。但是，人们对殖民之前非洲人文化知之甚少，很多东西还没来得及命名就随着他们的语言和信仰一起消失了，而这正是非洲岩画显得弥足珍贵的原因之一。那些岩洞里模糊不清的赭石线条勾画的史前羚羊（仿佛）打开了一扇窗口，它通往非洲---也是人类—遥远的过去。

Africa may have 200,000 rock-art sites, more than any other continent. The oldest known site, in Namibia, is between 18,000 and 28,000 years old. Several African universities now have programmes to decipher the paintings and carvings. They are being helped by the Kenya-based Trust for African Rock Art (TARA), which seeks to discover and digitally archive as much of the art as it can for future scholars.

非洲有20万个岩画地点，比任何其他大洲都多。已知的最古老的岩画地点在纳米比亚境内，距今一万八千年至两万八千年之间。现在非洲几所大学有了解译那些绘画和雕刻的项目。他们得到了以肯尼亚为基地的非洲岩画艺术联合会（TARA）的帮助，TARA争取尽可能多的找到（岩画）艺术品，为他们数字化存档，以备将来学者使用。

The best is in the Sahara desert, particularly in Niger's Air mountains, in the Tibesti mountains of northern Chad and southern Libya, and in south-east Algeria's Tassili n'Ajjer range. Such desert sites are too remote to be damaged by graffiti, though wars involving the local Tuareg have resulted in some being shot up or smashed apart for sale to foreign collectors. David Coulson, one of TARA's founders, raves about a recent find in the Tassili n'Ajjer range: an anatomically perfect four-metre-long carving of a hippo hunted by an Egyptian-looking figure with a superbly sinuous bow. This in a region that dried up several thousand years ago.

保存最好岩画位于非洲的撒哈拉沙漠，特别是尼日尔的埃尔山脉、乍得北部和利比亚南部的提贝斯提山脉、阿尔及利亚东南的塔西利-恩-阿耶山脉。这些沙漠地区地处偏远从而使岩画免遭破坏，尽管如此，图阿雷格还是被卷入过战争，结果使一些（岩画）被凿下来或弄成小片出售给收藏家。TARA的创立者之一大卫•库尔森 兴致勃勃地提到，最近在塔西利-恩-阿耶山脉发现了一幅长达四米、图构完美的雕刻画，上面描绘一名貌似埃及人模样的形象手执精美弯弓猎杀河马。而该地区早在几千年前就已经干涸。


Elsewhere in Africa, rock art often chronicles the hunting magic of Bushmen and Pygmies. Not much rock art survives in western Africa, and in eastern and central parts of the continent more recent but still invaluable paintings have been poorly preserved.

在非洲的其他地方，岩画经常用来记录布须曼人和陴格米人打猎的神话。在非洲西部没有多少岩画保存下来，而在东部和中部地区，一些近代却极有价值的岩画得以残存。

But there is progress. Locals are being encouraged to see the value of showing off their sites to tourists. National museums are being overhauled, with new displays of lost peoples. New history textbooks may follow. New finds are being made. A sensational discovery in a cave in Kenya is being kept under wraps until it can be properly dated.

但是进步是有的。当地人向游客展示岩画遗址被视为有价值之举而受到鼓励。国家博物馆正在重新调整，新增了一些关于灭绝了的人种的展览。新的历史教科书可能随后出版。人们不断找到新发现。在肯尼亚的一个岩洞中便有惊人之处，只是在其年代被确定之前尚未公开。

Some think African rock art should provide a pan-African rallying point, free of politics or religion. A rich rock-art heritage could connect Libya and South Africa, two of the African Union's biggest backers, which sometimes struggle to find anything in common. Kofi Annan, a former UN secretary-general, is a big rock-art fan. He reckons it represents nothing less than the earliest record of the human imagination.

有些人认为非洲岩画会为整个非洲提供凝聚力，无关政治和宗教。一个丰富的岩画遗产可能把利比亚和南非联系起来，他们是非洲联盟的最大的支持者，不时的努力的寻找一切有共性的东西。前联合国秘书长柯菲•安南就是一个岩画的大粉丝。他评价道：岩画无关其他，那只是人类想象力最早的记录而已。