鑽石舞台

A few years ago, a stranger sitting next to me on a plane, asked what I did for a living. I told him that I'm an archeologist. And I study the ancient Maya. He said: Wow, I love archeology! And told me how excited he gets when hearing about new finds. Then he told me how amazing it is that aliens from the planet Nibiru had come to Earth, and established the ancient Sumerian culture in Mesopotamia. I have these conversations a lot on planes, in bookstores and in bars. People want to talk with me about pseudoarcheology, something that seems like archeology, but isn't.

幾年前，在飛機上一個坐在我旁邊的陌生人問了我做什麼為生。我告訴他我是一個考古學家。而且我研究古代瑪雅人。他回答，哇，我很喜愛考古，並且告訴我他每次聽到新發現時有多高興。然後他又跟我說，太神奇了，外星人從尼比魯行星到了地球並在美索不達米亞開創了古代蘇美爾。我經常會在飛機上有這種對話，也可能在書店和酒吧里。人們想跟我談偽考古，一個像考古但並不是考古的東西。

It involves making wild and unproven claims about the human past, things like aliens built the pyramids or survivors from the lost continent of Atlantis invented hieroglyphic writing. Now, most of us know that claims like these are unfounded and frankly absurd. Yet they're everywhere. They're on TV shows, in movies and in books. Think of the History Channel series Ancient Aliens, currently in its 15th season, or of the most recent Indiana Jones movie about the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, or Erich von Daniken's classic book Chariots of the Gods?

說出一些對人類歷史天馬行空又毫無根據的看法，像金字塔是外星人搭的，或者來自失落的亞特蘭蒂斯大陸倖存者發明了象形文字。我們很多人都知道這樣的說法是沒有根據的，完全是離譜的。但它們無處不在。它們在電視節目裡、在電影和書裡面。比如歷史頻道系列《遠古外星人》正在播出第15季，或者最新的印第安納瓊斯電影，講述水晶骷髏王國，又或者埃利希·馮·丹尼肯的經典書籍《諸神的戰車》？

Here's the crucial question. Who cares? It's just entertainment, right? Isn't it a nice escape from reality and a fun way to think about the world? It's not. Most pseudoarcheology is racist and xenophobic and like other forms of entertainment, it influences our culture in real ways. Let me give you an example. It's common to hear pseudoarcheologists claim that groups like the ancient Egyptians or the ancient Maya accomplished incredible things, but only with the help of outside groups, like aliens or people from Atlantis. What you rarely hear is pseudoarcheologists claiming that, say,Romans had help building the Colosseum or that Greeks had help building the Parthenon.

關鍵問題是：誰在意呢？這只是娛樂，對吧？這難道不是一種逃避現實的好方法和思考世界的有趣方式嗎？並不是。大多數偽考古學是種族主義和仇外的，並且像其他娛樂方式一樣，實際地影響着我們的文化。舉個例子。通常偽考古學家會聲稱古埃及或者古瑪雅的這群人完成了不可思議的事情，但是只是在外族的幫助下才做成，比如外星人或亞特蘭蒂斯人。你很少聽到偽考古學家稱比如說，是羅馬人幫搭了鬥獸場，或是希臘人幫建了帕特農神廟。

Why is that? For pseudoarcheologists Europeans could have accomplished their feats on their own. But non-Europeans must have had outside guidance. Claims like these are not just outrageous. They are offensive. Here and in so many other instances, pseudoarcheology sustains myths of white supremacy, disparages non-Europeans and discredits their ancestors' achievements.I've spent the last 12 summers doing archeological fieldwork in the Maya area. Several years back, I was staying in a small village along the Belize–Guatemala border. I spent day after day in the lab, staring at tiny, brown, eroded pieces of ceramics.

為什麼呢？對偽考古學家來說，歐洲人本可以靠自己完成他們的壯舉，但非歐洲人必須有外部的指導。像這種的說法不僅是離譜，更是侮辱性的。在這種和很多其他的情況下，偽考古學是在維持白人至上的神話，貶低非歐洲人，敗壞他們祖先的成就。過去十二個夏天裡，我在瑪雅地區做了實地考古考察。很多年前，我在伯利茲-危地馬拉邊境的一個小村莊裡。我天天待在實驗室里，盯着一片小小的、棕色的、腐爛的陶瓷片。

The Maya man who lived across the street made slate carvings to sell to tourists. He'd stop by every once in a while to chat. And one day he brought over a slate carving. And it was this image. The image carved into the sarcophagus lid of the Maya king Pakal around his death in 683 AD. This image is incredible. And it's complex. It shows the deceased king rising from the jaws of the underworld to be reborn as a deity. In the center is a stylized world tree that extends from the underworld through the realm of the living into the upper world. Around the edges is a sky band with symbols for the sun, moon and stars.

一個住在馬路對面的瑪雅男子會把他做的石板雕刻賣給遊客。他偶爾會過來聊一下天。有一天他帶過來了一個石板雕刻，上面是這個圖像。圖像雕刻在瑪雅國王帕卡爾石棺蓋上，於公元683年他逝世之時製作。這個圖像令人震驚，又非常複雜。畫着先王從冥界升起重生成為了一個神。中間是藝術風格的世界樹，從冥界延伸到生靈的王國，再到天界。邊緣是一片天空，上面有太陽、月亮和星星的圖案。

I was so excited to talk with my neighbor about ancient Maya religion, cosmology and iconography. Instead, he wanted to talk about an Ancient Aliens episode he had seen. The one about the Maya. And he told me that this image was of an astronaut at the controls of a rocket ship. I was shocked. Instead of marveling at his own ancestors, he was in awe of a fictional alien. He even told me that one day, he hoped to give this carving to Erich von Daniken, father of the ancient aliens phenomenon.

Pseudoarcheology undoubtedly harms its subjects, often Indigenous people, like the Maya.

我特別興奮能跟我的鄰居聊古瑪雅的宗教、宇宙學和圖畫學。但是，他只想聊他看過的一集《遠古外星人》，講瑪雅的一集。他告訴我這個圖像是一名宇航員在操作一艘火箭飛船。我很震驚。與其尊崇自己的祖先，他竟然崇拜一個虛擬的外星人。他還告訴我有朝一日，他希望可以把這個雕刻送給古外星人現象之父埃利希·馮·丹尼肯。偽考古無疑會傷害它的主體，通常是土著人，比如瑪雅人。

But it also harms its viewers. It harms all of us. Like other forms of racism, it exacerbates inequality and prevents us from appreciating and benefiting from human diversity. What's really scary is that pseudoarcheology is a small part of a much bigger problem. It's just one example of people getting history wrong on purpose, of people knowingly changing historical and archeological facts. Why would anybody do that? Often, the past is knowingly changed either to justify racism in the present or to present a nicer version of history, a version of history that we can all take pride in.

但它也會傷害它的觀眾。它傷害我們所有人。和其他形式的種族歧視一樣，它惡化不平等現象，並讓我們無法欣賞和受益於人類的多樣化。其實真正嚇人的是偽考古只是一個更大問題的一小部分。它只是人們故意弄錯歷史的一例子，人們有意識地修改歷史和考古事實。為什麼人們要這麼做？通常，人們故意改變歷史，要不為了辯護現代的種族歧視，要麼為了展示更好版本的歷史，一個讓我們引以為豪的版本。

Six years ago, Jefferson County, Colorado became a battleground over how to teach American history to high school students. The Advanced Placement curriculum had been expanded to include things like the removal of Native Americans to reservations and the rise of extreme economic inequality. Members of the local school board were upset. They vigorously protested the changes, arguing that the new curriculum didn't do enough to promote capitalism or American exceptionalism. Right now we are in the midst of a heated debate over public monuments to controversial figures.

六年前，科羅拉多州傑斐遜縣成為了一個戰場討論應該怎麼教高中生美國的歷史。美國大學先修課程的課程已延伸至將美洲原住民遷至保留地，以及極端經濟不平等的加劇這樣的事件。當地學校的校董很不高興。他們激烈地抗議了這個改進，爭辯說新的課程在促進資本主義或美國例外主義方面做得不夠。我們現在如火如荼地討論着公共雕塑以及有爭議的人物。

People like Robert E Lee and Christopher Columbus.Should these monuments be left as they are, destroyed or put in museums and what should happen to the protestors who deface these monuments? Should they be praised for helping debunk myths of white supremacy? Or should they be punished for vigilantism and lawlessness? What do we make of scenes like this?For me, debates about history curricula and public monuments suggest similar messages. First, the past is political. What we choose to remember and forget relates directly to current political concerns.

像羅伯特·李和克里斯托弗·哥倫布這樣的人。這些雕像是應該被留下來，還是被毀壞或放入博物館裡，或者我們應該怎麼處理那些損害紀念物的抗議者？他們是應該因為幫助揭穿白人至上的神話而被表揚？或是應該因義警行為、目無法紀而受到懲罰？我們該怎麼面對這種場面？對我而言，關於歷史課程和公共雕塑的爭論傳達着相同的信息。一，歷史是政治化的。我們選擇記住和忘掉的與現在的政治憂患息息相關。

Second, we need to consider who presents the past, who chooses the content of history textbooks and the subject matter of public monuments. Imagine how our understanding of history might be different if it was told by the marginalized, rather than the powerful. We can help combat racism and xenophobia today by changing how we think about the past. Archeologists need to do two things. First, we need to make our discipline more inclusive. We need to work with and for the descendants of the people we study. Richard Leventhal's work at Tihosuco, Mexico is groundbreaking, pun intended.

二，我們需要思考誰代表過去、誰有權利選擇歷史課本的內容以及公共雕塑的主體。想象一下如果歷史不是由有權利的人，而是由被忽視的人講述的，我們對歷史的理解可能會有什麼不同。我們可以通過改變我們對過去的看法，對抗現在的種族主義和仇外心理。考古學家需要做兩件事。首先，我們必須要讓我們的學科更包容。我們要和我們研究的人的後代一起工作，並為了他們工作。理查德·利文撒爾在墨西哥的蒂霍蘇科的工作是開天闢地的，雙關語意。

For over a century, foreign archeologists have traveled to the Maya area to excavate the things they thought were interesting. Mostly temples and pyramids.Leventhal took a different approach. Instead he asks the contemporary Maya of Tihosuco what they thought was interesting. And it turns out they didn't particularly care about temples or pyramids. They were interested in the Caste War, a major but understudied colonial period Maya rebellion. Second, we need to make archeology more accessible. The last time I walked into a bookstore, I asked where I could find the archeology books.

一個多世紀以來，國外的考古學家來到了瑪雅地區發掘他們認為有趣的東西。大多數是神殿和金字塔。利文撒爾走了一條不一樣的路。他問了蒂霍蘇科的現代瑪雅人他們自己覺得什麼有趣，事實證明，他們對神殿或金字塔沒什麼特別的興趣。他們反而對種姓戰爭興趣，一場重大但未被充分研究的瑪雅殖民時期叛亂。第二，我們需要將考古學推廣給更多人。我最近去書店的時候，我問了在哪裡可以找到考古相關的書。

The clerk took me to a section labeled Ancient Mysteries and Lost Knowledge. It had books with titles like Extraplanetary Experiences. And what is absolutely absurd about this is that real archeology, archeology based in scientific facts and historical context, is fascinating. You don't need aliens to make it interesting. It's up to us archeologists to find new ways to share our work with the public. And this used to be the norm. In the 1950s, there was a game show on CBS called What in the World? The host would present an object, an artifact.

店員帶我去了一個標着古代奧秘和失落的知識的片區。上面擺着的書名像《外星體驗》。可笑的是真正的考古學，基於科學事實和歷史背景的考古，是迷人的。你不需要用外星人讓它更有趣。我們考古學家有責任尋找與公眾分享我們的工作的新方式。以前都是這樣。1950年代，CBS有一檔名為《世界有些什麼》的遊戲節目。主持人會展示一個物體，一個人工製品，

And the archeologist contestants would try to figure out what this thing was and where it was from. The show was funny and interesting and exposed viewers to the diversity of human cultures. Beginning in the mid-to-late 1960s, archeology changed focus. Instead of concentrating on public engagement, archeologists began working together to professionalize the discipline. On the plus side, we now have things like Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates and theoretical approaches, like the new materialisms. But in the process, archeology left the public behind.

然後考古學家參賽者要試着猜出這個東西是什麼，從哪裡來。這是一檔好玩有趣的節目，讓觀眾了解了人類文化的多樣性。從1960年代的中後期開始，考古學轉換了焦點。他們不再專注於公眾參與，而是開始共同努力使這門學科專業化。好處是現在我們有了像放射性碳日期的貝葉斯分析和新唯物主義這樣的理論方法。但在這個過程中，考古學放棄了公眾。

Shows like What in the World? Became less common and pseudoarcheology emerged to fill the void.But we can all contribute to changing how we think about the past. When you see a pseudoarcheological claim, be skeptical and know that if you post about Atlantis, tweet about ancient aliens or forward a clip from a pseudoarcheology TV show. Even if it's not your intention, you may be promoting racism and xenophobia. Also know that the past is alive.

像《世界有些什麼》這樣的節目變稀有了，偽考古學應運而生。但我們所有人都可以致力於改變對過去的看法。當你看到一個偽考古的說法時，要保持懷疑態度，如果你發亞特蘭蒂斯相關的信息，或發表遠古外星人的推文，或轉發一個偽考古電視節目的片段。就算你不是故意的，你也有可能在宣揚種族主義和仇外心理。此外，記得歷史是活的。

It is political. It is ever-changing. And it influences our daily lives in meaningful ways. So the next time that you watch the History Channel, read an archeology book or view a public monument, remember that every statement about the past is a powerful statement about the present. Thank you.

它是有政治性的，它瞬息萬變，深刻影響我們的日常生活。所以下一次打開歷史頻道、讀一本考古學書、或欣賞一個公共雕塑時，記得每一個關於過去的說法都是一個對當下的有力陳述。謝謝。