马丘比丘―失落的印加古城

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在安第斯山高处、云雾弥漫的地方，一个印加古城一度繁荣；后来又人去城空，几个世纪以来，一直为世人所遗忘。印加人为何建造这座古城，后来又为什么遗弃它呢？

The ancient city of Machu Picchu attracts visitors from all over the world. The most famous archaeological[考古学的] site in Peru, this Inca ruin floats among the clouds 2,000 feet above the Urubamba River that runs below and 7,700 feet above sea level.

Historians believe the Inca began building Machu Picchu around the 1450s, but because they left no written records behind, no one knows exactly what their purpose was.

Johan Reinhard (Archaeologist): The Inca royal family would go there for different kinds of ceremonies[典礼，仪式],and we do know that…the…Incas had a very strong ritual[（宗教）仪式的] element there. There are some who think that maybe it was just a retreat[静养的场所].

They went there to have a nice, you know, retreat from all the hubbub[吵闹声] of the capital city of Cuzco.

But within a hundred years after the Inca began building this impressive city, they started to abandon[放弃，遗弃] it.

Reinhard: Machu Picchu was probably abandoned or began to be abandoned already before the Spanish came, and that’s because around 1525 there was a civil war.

After the Spanish arrived seven years later, in 1532, the Inca deliberately[故意地] burned the forest around Machu Picchu.

Reinhard: They burned it because the foliage re-grows and completely covers it and made it virtually[实质上]

impassable[不能通行的].

Perhaps, thanks to the Inca’s efforts to hide the city, the Spanish never found Machu Picchu. It was lost to the wider world until geographer Hiram Bingham rediscovered it in 1911.

Over the last century, archaeologists have learned that Machu Picchu was also the hub[中心] of a large network of Inca sites.

Reinhard: So the picture of Machu Picchu as being an isolated[使孤立] ruin on this…ridge is…is…really incorrect. There are a whole series of sites that lead to it.

This series of sites has been described as a pilgrimage[朝圣] trail, but the Inca’s ultimate[最终的] plan for these places [remain]注1 a mystery.

Reinhard: It’s part of a BIG system, that was being built up by the…by the…Incas and it wasn’t finished. We know there were things that were abandoned, so we don’t

know ultimately what it would…that whole area would have looked like if the Incas had inhabited it, say for another hundred years.

In 1983, Machu Picchu was named a UNESCO注2 World Heritage Site. As archaeologists learn more about what happened here, new questions continue to arise, guaranteeing[保证] that Machu Picchu will remain a place of mystery for years to come.

马丘比丘古城吸引了世界各地的游客慕名前来。作为秘鲁最著名的考古遗址，这座印加遗址高高地漂浮在乌鲁班巴河上2000英尺（约609米）、海拔7700英尺（约2347米）的白云深处。

历史学家相信印加人在公元15世纪50年代开始建造马丘比丘城，但由于他们没有留下文字记载，因此没有人知道他们建造这座城市的真正目的。

约翰・莱茵哈德(考古学家)：过去，印加皇族会到那里举行各种不同的仪式，我们确知……呃……在那里印加人有很强的宗教仪式元素。也有人认为它可能只是一处隐居地。你知道，他们到那里静养，以便躲避首都库斯科的喧嚣。

然而在印加人建造这座令人惊叹的城市之后不到一百年，他们却开始弃置这座城市。

莱茵哈德：在西班牙人到来以前，印加人很可能就已经遗弃，或者开始遗弃马丘比丘，因为1525年左右发生了一场内战。

在西班牙人到来七年之后，也就是1532年，印加人故意焚烧马丘比丘周围的森林。

莱茵哈德：他们焚烧森林的目的是因为那里的植物会重新生长，并完全覆盖这座城市，使之成为无法到达的区。

或许，真的要感谢印加人为隐藏这座城市所作的努力，西班牙人没有发现马丘比丘。它自此从世人的视线中消失，直到1911年，地理学家海勒姆・宾厄姆才“重新发现”了它。

上个世纪，考古学家研究得出马丘比丘同时也是一个巨大的印加文明遗址网络的中心。

莱茵哈德：因此，把马丘比丘描绘成这个……山脊上的一个孤立遗址，这是……是不对的。因为还有一系列遗址通向它。

这一系列的遗址被认为是一条朝圣的道路，不过印加人建造这一系列建筑的最终目的仍是一个未解之谜。

莱茵哈德：马丘比丘是……印加人建造的一个庞大系统的一部分，而这个系统尚未完成。我们只知道有些部分被遗弃了，因此我们不知道如果印加人在这整个地区――例如继续住上一百年的话，它的最终面貌会是什么样。

1983年，马丘比丘被列为联合国教科文组织的世界文化遗址。随着考古学家对这里的方方面面有了进一步的了解，新的疑问也将不断出现，这必然使马丘比丘在未来仍然保持其神秘的魅力。

注1：此处为口误，应为remains。

注2：联合国教科文组织（United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization）的缩写。