相比于历史上其他文明,比如中国,为什么一些古代文明如埃及、希腊和罗马会受到更多的关注?
2024-02-02 翻译熊 14025
正文翻译

Why do some ancient civilizations, such as Egypt, Greece, and Rome, receive more attention in history compared to others, like China?

相比于历史上其他文明,比如中国,为什么一些古代文明如埃及、希腊和罗马会受到更多的关注?

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评论翻译
Tim Tran
Let's rephrase the question: Why do some ancient civilizations, such as Egypt, Greece, and Rome, receive more attention in THE WEST compared to others, like China?
Because the West only pays attention to the West. It's nothing new, and not unusual, since they're more familiar with Western civilization.

让我们换个说法:
相比于历史上其他文明,比如中国,为什么一些古代文明如埃及、希腊和罗马会受到西方更多的关注?
因为西方只关注西方。这不是什么新鲜事,也不是不寻常的,因为他们更熟悉西方文明。

But, you may ask, why such attention to Egypt when it's not a western civilization? Well, the West claims Egypt as part of western civilization, as their ancestral civilization of Mycenaeans and Minoans were descendants of Egyptian and, to some extent, Mesopotamian civilizations.
Moreover, Egypt was conquered by Hellenic powers and Rome, which were western civilizations, so there's a sense of familiarity yet exoticism to ancient Egypt. Meanwhile, cradles like China and India weren't conquered by Europe until the colonial era, so their cultures remain intact: unfamiliar, exotic, and foreign.

但是,你可能会问,既然埃及不是西方文明,为什么还要关注它呢?西方认为埃及是西方文明的一部分,因为他们的祖先迈锡尼文明和米诺斯文明是埃及文明的后裔,在某种程度上,也是美索不达米亚文明的后裔。
此外,埃及曾被属于西方文明的希腊列强和罗马征服,所以对古埃及有一种熟悉而又充满异国情调的感觉。与此同时,像中国和印度这样的摇篮直到殖民时代才被欧洲征服,所以他们的文化保持完整:不熟悉、异国情调、异域。


Another reason is that, ancient Egypt (and ancient Mesopotamia) are extinct civilizations. The ones that decoded hieroglyphs and cuneiforms were Europeans, so it's possible they feel affinity to them due to this history. Meanwhile, China is still here and doesn't need much help from Europeans to decode oracle bone scxts. Cradles like Harappan, Olmec, and Caral are still undeciphered and mysterious, so it's unlikely for the West to care much for them.

另一个原因是,古埃及(和古美索不达米亚)是灭绝的文明。破译象形文字和楔形文字的人是欧洲人,所以有可能由于这段历史,他们对这些文字有亲近感。与此同时,中国还活着,不需要欧洲人的太多帮助来解码甲骨文。像哈拉帕、奥尔梅克和卡尔这样的摇篮仍然未被破译和神秘,所以西方不太可能关心他们。

Emphasis on THE WEST, because these civilizations don't receive the most attention everywhere. In East Asia, for example, Chinese civilization still reigns supreme as the main talking point, not Egypt, Greece, or Rome. In South Asia, Harappan and subsequent Vedic-derived cultures are more talked about. In the Middle East, I'm sure they talk more about the Islamic caliphates, Mesopotamia, and Egypt more than Greece and Rome. It's all about where you are.

强调西方,因为以上提及的文明并不是在任何地方都有得到最高的关注。例如,在东亚,中国文明仍然占据着至高无上的地位,而不是埃及、希腊或罗马文明。在南亚,哈拉帕和随后的吠陀衍生文化被更多地谈论。在中东,我敢肯定他们谈论更多的是伊斯兰哈里发、美索不达米亚和埃及,而不是希腊和罗马。
关键是你在哪里。


Ulric Haraldsen
I think those videos of interviewers asking random japanese people on the streets about who Hitler was and their bewilderment speaks to this. Imagine having commited such attroceties and you dont even know this recent history

我认为那些采访人员在街上随机询问日本人“希特勒是谁?”的视频,以及随后他们的困惑说明了这一点。想象一下,犯下了这样的暴行,你甚至不知道最近的历史
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Tim Tran
Honestly that's also partly because Japan purposefully hides that history because they sided with Hitler. Every other Asian country knows who Hitler is.

老实说,部分原因是日本故意隐藏这段历史,因为他们曾经与希特勒为伍。其他亚洲国家都知道希特勒是谁。

Zane Liu
The Jap lovers hiding their history has little to do with them siding with Hitler. Thailand knows perfectly well who Hitler is.

日本爱好者隐瞒他们的历史与他们站在希特勒一边没有什么关系。泰国非常清楚希特勒是谁。

Tim Tran
From my knowledge, Thailand was forced to join the Axis powers, unlike the willing Japanese

据我所知,泰国是被迫加入的轴心国,不像日本人是想要加入。

Raymond Ona
Japanese children probably never realized their ancestors did bad things in WW2.
Like many Americans today don't believe believe their government is viewed as the villain or a bully outside US

日本孩子可能从来没有意识到他们的祖先在二战中做了坏事。
就像今天许多美国人不相信他们的政府在国外被视为恶棍或恶霸一样。

Michael Staengl
Which doesn’t prevent such strange and tasteless things like:
New Hitler Store in India Triggers Global Uproar
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-45140801
Tasteless but true: Made in India Hitler ice-cream, café
Chinese Nazi Cosplay Marriage!
Chinese lovebirds in Nazi garb
What's behind Asia's weird Nazi obsession? — Asia by Africa
India MP shocks with Hitler costume protest in parliament
I wonder how the eastern Asian world would react to Europeans and northern Americans wearing Japanese imperial uniforms, the rising sun flag and other things from that part of worlds history.

这并不能阻止一些奇怪且毫无品味的事情发生,比如:
《印度新开希特勒商店引发全球哗然》、《印度制造的希特勒冰淇淋,咖啡》
《中国纳粹Cosplay婚服》、《穿着纳粹服装的中国情侣》、《亚洲人对纳粹的奇怪痴迷背后是什么?》
我想知道东亚世界对欧洲人和北美人穿着日本帝国制服、旭日旗和其他世界历史上的东西会有什么反应。

Daniel Good
India is culturally mystifying. Thirty years ago, I knew an elderly Hindu security guard in his early 70's at a state agency where I worked.
He was more knowledgeable about Judaism than other Hindus I've met because he had worked for Jewish employers in his youth back in the 1930′s. He told me his employers later emigrated to Israel and that they were Indians, not British. I think they were from the Baghdadi Jewish community
But India has a fascination with Nazi imagery based entirely on the Nazis being enemies of the British.

印度在文化上令人费解。30年前,我认识一位70出头的印度裔保安,当时他在我工作的一家国家机构工作。
他比我见过的其他印度人更了解犹太教,因为他在20世纪30年代年轻时曾为犹太雇主工作过。他告诉我,他的雇主后来移民到了以色列,他们是印度人,不是英国人。我想他们来自巴格达迪犹太社区
但印度对纳粹形象的迷恋完全建立在纳粹是英国敌人的基础上。

They aren't horrified at the swastika, and neither are Buddhists. But there's a difference between the swastika alone as a religious symbol, and the swastika in conjunction with Nazi chic in restaurants and marketing.
Hindus I've talked to are very pro Israel because they have their own issues with Islamist terror, and Modi, like Netanyahu, is an example of right wing nationalism in democracies just like Orban in Hungary and New Apostolic Reformation Christian Nationalists in the Republican Party here in the U.S.

他们不会被纳粹万字符吓到,佛教徒也不会。但是,作为一种宗教象征的卍字与在餐馆和营销中与纳粹时尚相结合的卍字是有区别的。
与我交谈过的印度教徒非常支持以色列,因为他们有自己的伊斯兰恐怖主义问题,莫迪和内塔尼亚胡一样,是民主国家右翼民族主义的一个例子,就像匈牙利的欧尔班和美国共和党的新使徒改革基督教民族主义者一样。

So I've had two Hindus tell me independently of each other that if Israel ceased to exist, India will welcome Jewish refugees. They agree with me that they want Israel to survive.
So Indian culture has two trends related to anti-British sentiment and anti-Islamist policy that is pro Israel. It seems contradictory and mystifying to Westerners.
Americans once used swastikas as a good luck symbol and there are examples in 19th and early 20th century marketing, but the Nazis tainted the symbol in the West forever.

有两个印度教徒各自告诉我,如果以色列不复存在,印度将欢迎犹太难民。他们同意我的观点,希望以色列能够生存下去。
因此,印度文化有两种趋势,与反英情绪和亲以色列的反伊斯兰政策有关。对西方人来说,这似乎是矛盾和不可理喻的。
在19世纪和20世纪初的市场营销中,美国人曾将纳粹标志作为好运的象征,但纳粹在西方永远玷污了这一标志。

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Giovanni B.
“The West only pays attention to the West” is nonsense that only those who don't know the history of relations between Europe and Asia can say.
See for example the Maritime Silk Road from Southern China to Imperial Rome.
See for example the study of ancient Chinese philosophy and Indian religion in Europe since the Late Antiquity.
The West claiming Ancient Egypt as a part of Western civilization as the Minoans and Mycenaeans are descended from Egypt is another nonsense coming directly from the afrocentric fantasy narrative.
No one in the West ever claimed Egypt as part of Western civilization because it was not. Period.
However it is true that for a long time the only ones who were interested in the history, culture and art of non-European peoples were the Western Europeans.
The long history of cultural relationships between Europe and Asia belies your ignorant assertions.

“西方只关注西方”是无稽之谈,只有那些不了解欧亚关系历史的人才会说。
例如,从中国南方到罗马帝国的海上丝绸之路。
例如,从古代晚期开始,欧洲对古代中国哲学和印度宗教的研究。
西方声称古埃及是西方文明的一部分,因为米诺斯人和迈锡尼人是埃及的后裔,这是另一个无稽之谈。西方从来没有人声称埃及是西方文明的一部分,因为它不是。
然而,很长一段时间以来,唯一对非欧洲民族的历史、文化和艺术感兴趣的人是西欧人,这是事实。
欧洲和亚洲之间悠久的文化关系史掩盖了你无知的断言。

Tim Tran
How many media in the West are based on Ancient Egypt? How many films, series, books, etc. are based in Ancient Egypt? How many Westerners are well-versed in the Egyptian pantheon?
Now tell me how many Western films are based in Ancient India and Ancient China? How many films, series, books? How many know about Chinese pantheon?
You know the answer.

西方有多少媒体是以古埃及为基础的?有多少电影、电视剧、书籍等是以古埃及为背景的?有多少西方人精通埃及的诸神? 现在告诉我有多少西方电影是以古印度和古中国为背景的?有多少部电影、电视剧、书籍?有多少人知道中国的诸神?
你知道答案。

Giovanni B.
I know you confuse different things.
Precisely because ancient Egypt is such a strange and alien world, it lends itself well to the imagination of writers and film directors.
However, this doesn't mean that the cultural roots of the West are in ancient Egypt.
There are zero films and very few popular books about the Etruscans , though they are part of our roots.
Egypt sells well, that's all.
But the cultural level is a completely different thing.
Here the culture, art and religion of China, India and Japan have always been well regarded.
You just need to visit museums and libraries to verify it.
Of course, from a commercial point of view, that of the media, ancient Egypt is more profitable.

你把很多不同的事物混为一谈。
正是因为古埃及是一个如此奇怪和陌生的世界,它非常适合作家和电影导演的想象力。然而,这并不意味着西方的文化根源就在古埃及。
关于伊特鲁里亚人的电影和流行书籍寥寥无几,尽管他们是我们的根的一部分。埃及题材卖得很好,但仅此而已,文化层面是完全不同的。
在这里,中国、印度和日本的文化、艺术和宗教一直受到高度重视。你只需要去博物馆和图书馆验证一下。
当然,从商业的角度来看,对于媒体来说,古埃及是更有利可图的。

BH
Egypt was part of the core old-testament bible story of Moses so the west under Jews and Christian domination will always connect to it.

埃及是摩西的核心旧约圣经故事的一部分,所以犹太人和基督教统治下的西方将永远与它联系在一起。

Giovanni B.
Was part? They left Egypt in every sense, Egypt was never part of Israel’s culture and religion.

是吗?他们离开了埃及,从任何意义上说,埃及都不是以色列文化和宗教的一部分。

Kirk Gushue
So did the Mycenaeans and minoans. They still brought that part of their culture and the roots with them. Europeans left Europe doesn’t mean they didn’t bring their culture and knowledge with them to the new world.

迈锡尼人和米诺斯人也是如此。他们仍然带着他们的文化和根的一部分。欧洲人离开欧洲并不意味着他们没有把他们的文化和知识带到新世界。

Daniel Good
We can reject Afro Centrism pseudo archeology and instead see Egypt and the Levant as part of a wider Bronze Age civilization with trade stretching from Afghanistan to Spain, from Mesopotamia to the Balkans.
But the core cultures who's religion and philosophy influenced us since the later Hellenistic era were from Greece and Judea via Rome and Christianity.
So while Egypt wasn't directly a Western ancestor, it was better documented in Greek writings and made familiar to Western readers from the Bible.
I consider Egypt sort of like an eccentric Great Aunt of our Western civilization, if not a Grandparent.

我们可以拒绝非洲中心主义的伪考古学,而是将埃及和黎凡特视为更广泛的青铜时代文明的一部分,从阿富汗到西班牙,从美索不达米亚到巴尔干半岛。
但埃及的核心文化的宗教和哲学影响了我们,因为希腊化时代的后期是从希腊和犹太经罗马和基督教传播过来的。
因此,虽然埃及不是西方的直接祖先,但它在希腊文献中有很好的记载,西方读者也从《圣经》中了解到这一点。我把埃及看作是我们西方文明古怪的姨婆/姑婆,如果不是祖父母的话。

Rajan
The connections the West has to other parts of the world historically is dandy and all. It's still true here in the West we favour Eurocentric history, because well, it's where we live and grew up. Not sure it's ignorant or belittling to say this. We learn more about European history at school and are thus exposed and more interested in it compared to Chinese dynasties and African kingdoms. The author doesn't claim there is absolutely no interest in history outside of this, just that it's heavily favoured, which is perfectly senesable.

从历史上看,西方与世界其他地区的联系是很好的。在西方,我们仍然喜欢以欧洲为中心的历史,因为这是我们生活和成长的地方。
我不确定这样说是不是无知或轻视。我们在学校里学习的关于欧洲历史的知识会更多,因此与中国朝代和非洲王国相比,我们对欧洲历史更感兴趣。作者并没有说在这之外,人们对历史完全没有兴趣,只是说人们对历史很感兴趣,这是完全有道理的。

Burt Turderson
A lot of it simply comes down to fashion. For instance, in Victorian times, the British had a sudden obsession with everything Japanese. By the 1920s, it had been replaced with a fixation on ancient Egypt. Romans and Greeks are the most recent interest, and a lot of that is probably inspired by popculture across the recent decades (Gladiator, 300).

很多都归结为时尚。例如,在维多利亚时代,英国人突然痴迷于日本的一切。到了20世纪20年代,它已经被对古埃及的迷恋所取代。罗马人和希腊人是最近的兴趣点,其中很多可能是受到近几十年流行文化的启发(《斯巴达300勇士》)。

Steven Fankhauser
There are a lot more people in Asia then Europe and the Americas. They primarily focus on Asian civilizations and history. Globally that would mean a larger population of humans focus more on Asian history. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. Your addition of “in the West" is perfect. The question could be written the same in the East by someone in Asia about focusing on ancient China, India, Japan, Mongol, or other empires and civilizations.

亚洲的人口比欧洲和美洲多得多。他们主要关注亚洲文明和历史。从全球来看,这意味着更多的人将更多地关注亚洲历史。这一点没有问题。
你加的“在西方”是完美的。这个问题也可以由东方的亚洲人写出来,关注古代中国、印度、日本、蒙古或其他帝国和文明。

Anthony John Finch
Europeans can visit the ruins of the Greek and Roman civilisations easily. Even Egypt is not too far away. China, Japan and even India are much further and fewer Europeans visit them. It is this contact with the past that inevitably leads to greater knowledge. Probably more Americans visit Europe than the Far East so much the same applies

欧洲人可以很容易地参观希腊和罗马文明的遗迹。就连埃及也离我们不远。而中国、日本甚至印度都远得多,很少有欧洲人去拜访。正是这种与过去的接触不可避免地导致了更大的知识。
去欧洲的美国人可能比去远东的美国人多,所以情况也差不多。

La De Da
Even China gets a lot more attention from the West than Iran.

即使是中国也比伊朗得到了西方更多的关注。
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Tu Ney
I was looking for this comment. Chinese, Indian, Japanese histories get way more attention than Persian/Iranian history. If the title had referred to Persia instead, it would have made more sense, lol.

我正在寻找这条评论。中国、印度、日本的历史比波斯和伊朗的历史更受关注。如果标题指的是波斯,那就更有意义了,哈哈。

La De Da
Definitely true for China and Japan, but I think Indian history is pretty overlooked too and about on par with Iran. Well ancient Indian history, people have passing info on modern Indian history with the British Raj, the tea company and Ghandi. Go back any further and it's just Indus River Valley, Buddha (at some point) and the Mughals (just the name, nothing specific at all). Comparatively Iran and Persia at least have the Greek perspective of their wars in Antiquity and people know they went from Zoroastrian to Muslim at some point. And I'm probably being too generous on both countries saying even that scant knowledge is common. But of a poor showing for two massively important civilizations in human history.

对中国和日本来说绝对是这样,但我认为印度的历史也被忽视了,和伊朗差不多。好吧,古印度历史,人们通过英国统治,茶叶公司和甘地传递现代印度历史的信息。再往前看,只有印度河流域、佛陀(在某种程度上)和莫卧儿王朝(只是名字,没有什么具体的)。
相比之下,伊朗和波斯至少从希腊的角度看待他们在古代的战争,人们知道他们在某种程度上从琐罗亚斯德教(中国多翻译为拜火教)转向了穆斯林。如果我说这种缺乏了解的情况很普遍,可能太过武断了。但人类历史上这个极其重要的文明曝光度确实不够。

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