Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class. The professor has been discussing Mesoamerica, a region that covers parts of Mexico and Central America.

旁白: 听一段艺术史课上的讲座。教授一直在讨论中美洲，这是一个涵盖墨西哥部分地区和中美洲的区域。

Professor：So we've established that ancient Mesoamerican cultures shared unique art, architecture, and technology for thousands of years.

教授：所以我们已经明确，古代中美洲文化在数千年间共享着独特的艺术、建筑和技术。

Professor：What we're going to talk about today is the art of another one of the early Mesoamerican cultures, the Olmec civilization.

我们今天要谈论的是另一个早期中美洲文化——奥尔梅克文明的艺术。

Now, to analyze any work of art it helps to know about the people who created it. The problem here is that we don't know a lot about the people who created the Olmec civilization and much of what we know about them we actually only know through their art.

现在，要分析任何一件艺术品，了解创作它的人会有所帮助。问题是，我们对创造奥尔梅克文明的人了解不多，实际上，我们对他们的很多了解都只能通过他们的艺术得知。

Why do we know so little? Well, the Olmec civilization began around 1200 BC and lasted for just 700 years.

我们为什么知道得这么少呢？嗯，奥尔梅克文明始于公元前1200年左右，只延续了700年。

By 400 BC Olmec society was gone. We know that the people lived in small agricultural communities in the swampy lowlands of Southern Mexico.

到公元前400年，奥尔梅克文明就消失了。我们知道这些人生活在墨西哥南部多沼泽的低地地区的小型农业社区里。

They fished, raised turkeys, and had an extensive trade network of valuable materials like Jade. They had a writing system as well.

他们捕鱼、饲养火鸡，还拥有一个广泛的贸易网络，交易像玉石这样的贵重材料。他们也有自己的书写系统。

We'll see their writing on various pieces of their art as we study it. But it's their art, not their writing that they're known for.

在我们研究的过程中，会在他们的各种艺术品上看到他们的文字。但他们闻名于世的是他们的艺术，而不是他们的文字。

The Olmec created large stone sculptures, painted murals, fine pottery and little figures carved out of Jade. But their gigantic stone heads are the most famous of their art.

奥尔梅克人创作了大型石雕、彩绘壁画、精美的陶器以及用玉石雕刻的小雕像。但他们的巨型石首像是他们最著名的艺术品。

Here's a picture of one. These heads are huge, approximately three meters high.

这是其中一个的图片。这些石首非常巨大，大约有三米高。

That's at least a whole meter taller than most of us, right? And they're almost just as wide.

那至少比我们大多数人高出整整一米，对吧？而且它们的宽度几乎和高度差不多。

They all have similar features. The heads are really round and they've all got broad noses and these very full down-turned lips.

它们都有相似的特征。这些石首非常圆，都长着宽鼻子和非常饱满的下垂嘴唇。

It looks like they're frowning. They're so characteristic it's easy when you see one of the heads to look at it and say, 'Yep, that's Olmec.'

看起来它们像是在皱眉。它们的特征非常明显，当你看到其中一个石首时，很容易就能说：“没错，那是奥尔梅克的。”

And something really surprising, astonishing really, the heads were carved out of a very hard type of rock using only stone tools.

还有一件非常令人惊讶、确实令人震惊的事是，这些石首是用一种非常坚硬的岩石雕刻而成的，而且只使用了石器。

The Olmec didn't have metal tools. And yet with just these stone tools they created what many considered the best quality sculptures in ancient Mesoamerica.

奥尔梅克人没有金属工具。然而，仅用这些石器，他们就创作了许多人认为是古代中美洲质量最好的雕塑。

It's really striking how they achieved such remarkable sophistication with such basic tools.

他们用如此简陋的工具达到了如此高的精湛程度，这真的很令人惊叹。

Student: What's that on its head?

学生：它头上的那个是什么？

It looks like some kind of helmet or something. Did they wear armor for fighting wars?

看起来像某种头盔之类的东西。他们打仗时穿盔甲吗？

Professor: Well, it is a helmet and helmets like these probably did provide protection in battles, but most archeologists and art historians think it was also used in a ball game.

教授：嗯，那确实是头盔，而且像这样的头盔可能在战斗中确实能提供保护，但大多数考古学家和艺术史学家认为它也用于一种球类游戏。

A ceremonial ballgame of the Olmec culture. Teams played the game with a rubber ball on courts that were built specially for those games, which brings up an interesting point.

一种奥尔梅克文化中的仪式性球类游戏。队伍用橡胶球在专门为这些游戏建造的球场上进行比赛，这引出了一个有趣的观点。

Let's say, you've come across an ancient sculpture in the jungle and carved onto its head as a helmet, but you don't know anything about the culture it came from.

假设你在丛林中发现了一座古代雕塑，它的头上刻有一个头盔，但你对它所属的文化一无所知。

So you'd probably assume it was for protection during war, but if you knew that other ancient people groups in the area played a ball game and you knew they wore lots of protective clothing during the game, then you'd realize there might be another meaning.

那么你可能会认为它是为了在战争中提供保护，但如果你知道该地区的其他古代人群玩一种球类游戏，并且知道他们在比赛时穿很多防护装备，那么你就会意识到可能还有另一种含义。

It might not be a warrior. It might be the head of a ball player.

它可能不是战士。它可能是一个球类运动员的头像。

So you see, as an art historian, you must also study, be knowledgeable about, subjects like anthropology and archeology so that you can see how different cultures have influenced one another.

所以你看，作为一名艺术史学家，你还必须研究并了解人类学和考古学等学科，这样你才能明白不同文化是如何相互影响的。

You have to understand a culture, its region, its neighbors, to really understand how its artistic style developed, what its symbols meant to come up with a valid interpretation of the art.

你必须了解一种文化、它所在的地区、它的邻邦，才能真正理解其艺术风格是如何发展的，其符号的含义是什么，从而对艺术品做出合理的解读。

In other words, you can't study just art because you have to have something to relate the symbols in art to. Now let's see what's next.

换句话说，你不能只研究艺术，因为你必须有一些东西来将艺术中的符号与之联系起来。现在我们来看看接下来是什么。

Oh yes. The jaguar, the jaguar is a common image in Olmec art. This large predatory cat was prevalent throughout the Americas.

哦，对了。美洲豹，美洲豹是奥尔梅克艺术中常见的形象。这种大型食肉猫科动物在美洲各地都很常见。

It was very important to Olmec culture and religion. So it's not surprising that we see it so often in their art.

它对奥尔梅克文化和宗教非常重要。所以我们在他们的艺术中经常看到它也就不足为奇了。

It was frequently used to represent, actually to glorify, someone important, like a ruler.

它经常被用来代表，实际上是颂扬某个重要人物，比如统治者。

You even see it represented in the stone heads like that stone head we just looked at.

你甚至能在我们刚刚看过的那种石首上看到它的体现。

You saw the mouth, the way the lips turned down, it looked a lot like the mouth of a big cat, a Jaguar, didn't it?

你看到那个嘴巴了，嘴唇向下撇的样子，很像一只大型猫科动物——美洲豹的嘴巴，不是吗？

And this is one of the reasons why many researchers believe that these heads represent important rulers of the period.

这也是许多研究人员认为这些石首代表了那个时期重要统治者的原因之一。

Student: I'm sorry, professor, but now I'm confused. Are these heads, are they ballplayers or rulers?

学生：对不起，教授，我现在有点困惑。这些石首，它们代表的是球类运动员还是统治者呢？

Professor: Or warriors? Rulers often fill many roles, some real, some ceremonial.

教授：或者战士？统治者通常扮演多种角色，有些是实际的，有些是仪式性的。

So these sculptures could symbolize more than one thing. But regardless, the similarities, the way all these heads look alike makes them pretty easy to identify as Olmec.

所以这些雕塑可能象征着不止一种事物。但不管怎样，这些石首的相似之处，它们外观上的一致性，使得它们很容易被识别为奥尔梅克的作品。