【BBC英国史】Beginnings英国起源(5)
Beginnings 起源（3100 B.C.——1000 A.D.）http://t1.g.hjfile.cn/listen/201212/201212241129527039601.mp3So Skara Brae was not just an isolated settlement of fishers and farmers. Its people must have belonged to some larger society, one sophisticated enough to mobilise the army of toilers and craftsmen needed, not just to make these monuments, but to stand them on end. And they were just as concerned about housing for dead as the living. The mausoleum at Maes Howe, a couple of miles from Skara Brae, seems no more than a swelling on the grassy landscape. But this is, as it were, a British pyramid and in keeping with our taste for understatement, it reserves all its impact for the interior. Imagine them open once more. A detail from a village given the job of pulling back the stone seals, lugging the body through the low opening in the earth. Up 36 feet of narrow, tight-fitting passageway, lit only once a year by the rays of the winter solstice. A death canal, constriction, smelling of the underworld. Finally the passageway opens up to this stupendous, high-vaulted masonry chamber. Some of these tombs would have been elaborately decorated with carvings in the form of circles or spirals, like waves or the breeze-pushed clouds. Others would have had neat little stone stores or cubicles where the bodies would be laid out on shelves.看来斯卡拉布雷并不只是渔夫和农民与世隔绝的世外桃源，这些人一定从属于成熟强大的社群。人员组成复杂到足以动员起劳工与工匠所组成的大军，不仅能建造起这些庞然大物，还将其立置起来。而他们对地宫的关注，绝不逊于生前的寓所。在斯卡拉布雷数英里外的麦豪石室，看上去不过是青草间一处隆起地块，其实它堪称不列颠之金字塔，其含蓄与我们的审美情趣不谋而合，将所有华美尽藏于室内。试想将这墓穴再次打开，一个村民受雇，进入将石门封死，匍匐穿进这条深入的地洞，一条长达三十六英尺狭窄，并只有在每年冬至才会沐浴日光的通道，一条紧窄并弥漫着阴森气息的冥界之路。最终，这条通道将我们引向了这巨大的,穹窿形石室。一些装饰华美的陵墓，被雕刻上圆圈或是螺旋的形状，犹如波浪，又如清风掠过的云海一般。另一些则附有精巧的小型石室，便于死者的遗体存放于搁架之上。
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