导读:2015年2月的一个阴沉沉的上午，奇维卡.费尔在以色列港口古城凯撒利亚近海潜水时发现金币，进而揭开了千年前古文明的神秘面纱。

On an overcast morning in February 2015, Zvika Fayer was scuba diving off the ancient Israeli port town of Caesarea when he saw a glimmer on the sand.

在2015年2月的一个阴沉沉的上午，当奇维卡.费尔（Zvika Fayer）在以色列港口古城凯撒利亚（Caesarea）近海进行水肺潜水时，他察觉到了海底沙子里发出的一瞥闪光。

He’d gone diving in the area dozens of times before, and loved it for the teeming fish and scattered remains of shipwreck cargo and pottery that he sometimes glimpsed on the ocean floor. Many of Israel’s underwater archaeological zones are open to divers, and Caesarea was one of Fayer’s favourite spots.

他之前在这一带已经潜水几十次，喜爱观察水中成群结队的鱼群和海底沉船散落四处的货物与瓶罐。以色列的很多水下考古现场都开放潜水，而凯撒利亚是费尔最喜欢的地方之一。

A violent storm the previous night had battered Israel’s west coast, stirring up the ocean floor and changing the underwater topography. As Fayer dove deeper to investigate the shimmering object he’d seen, he was aware of another storm on the way. As an experienced diver, he’d felt confident going out that morning. But now the winter sky was beginning to darken, the breeze changing.

一场猛烈的风暴在前一晚吹袭了以色列西海岸，搅动了海底，也改变了水下的地形。当费尔继续下潜，去仔细调查他刚才看见的亮晶晶的东西时，他也意识到另一场风暴又将来到。作为一名经验丰富的潜水者，他在早上出门时还很有自信，但现在冬季的天空开始昏暗，风向也改变了。

As he got closer, Fayer reasoned that the gleam must have been a discarded sweet wrapper, perhaps the chocolate coins that look like pirate doubloons. But as he swept the sand away and picked the item up, he saw that he was wrong. This wasn’t a piece of foil; it was a real gold coin with Arabic script on both sides.

当他逐渐接近目标是，费尔做好了心理准备，那道闪光肯定是一片被丢弃的糖纸，也可能是看上去像海盗金币的金币巧克力。但当他抹去沙砾把那片东西捡起时，他发现他的猜测是错的。这不是一片铝箔，这是一枚真的金币，一枚两面都铸有阿拉伯文字的金币。

“I was astonished when I saw that both sides of the metal were gold,” he said.

我那时大吃一惊，发现这片金属两面都是金色的，他说。

Fayer swept more sand aside, and saw another coin, and another, and another — the bounty of a shipwreck that had been lost to time.

费尔掀开更多沙土，发现了一枚又一枚金币-这是藏在一条消失在岁月里的沉船里的财宝。

Less scrupulous explorers might have decided to take the treasure home with them, but Fayer and his diving companions got back in their boat and contacted Caesarea officials, who called Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) and told them to come quickly.

不正直的发现者们也许会决定私吞这笔财宝，但费尔和他的潜水同伴们回到船上并联系了凯撒利亚的官员，而官员们联系了以色列文物局并请他们尽快赶来。

When they arrived, the IAA investigators were sceptical. Caesarea is an underwater archaeological site that’s littered with ancient artefacts, and they were concerned about looting.

抵达后，文物局的调查员们态度并不积极。凯撒利亚的水下考古现场遍布古物，而他们更在意的是劫掠行为。

“We got a bit of a (proverbial) cold shower,” Fayer said. “They were yelling at us, asking why we had taken the coins out of the sea. We explained about the conditions… there was another storm coming, with waves expected to be 10m high. We told them that if we didn’t take the coins out of the ocean right then, we might never find them again.”

我们就像被泼了一盆冷水，费尔说，"他们对我们横加指责，问我们为什么把金币打捞出水。我们解释了那时的情况……又一场风暴即将来袭，巨浪可能有10米高。我告诉他们如果我们不在那时就把金币捞出来，就可能再也找不到它们了。"

Working with the IAA, Fayer and his friends went back underwater and helped recover more coins. Days later, they went back and retrieved hundreds more. As of now, more than 2,000 coins have been found at the site. Because the coins are 24-karat gold with a purity of upwards of 95 percent and were well preserved in the temperate Mediterranean water for about 1,000 years, they’re giving historians exciting information about a forgotten chapter in history.

与文物局合作，费尔和他的朋友们再次潜入水下，并帮助发掘了更多的金币。几天后他们再度返回，又发现了数百枚金币。到目前为止，在此处已经发现了超过2,000枚金币。这些金币堪称24K金，纯度超过95%，并在地中海的温暖海水中完好保存了大约1,000年，它们能够为历史学家们提供历史上一段被遗忘篇章的令人兴奋的信息。

Today, Caesarea, located between Tel Aviv and Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea, is best known for its towering Roman ruins. The historical centre has been restored and turned into a tourist destination with a modern restaurant and museum. There’s a golf course and residential park nearby. But when you stand in front of the crescent-shaped harbour or near the arches of the remaining aqueduct and look out over the azure water toward Cyprus, Turkey and Greece, it’s easy to imagine this place as it was centuries ago.

凯撒利亚坐落在地中海海滨，地处特拉维夫（Tel Aviv）与海法（Haifa）之间，如今它以高耸的罗马遗迹而闻名。凯撒利亚的旧城中心复原了以往的风貌，有一座博物馆和现代餐馆，成为了游客云集的地方。附近还有高尔夫球场与住宅绿地。但当人们站在新月形的港湾或者古老的输水道拱门前，遥望那片延伸向塞浦路斯、土耳其和希腊的蔚蓝水面时，几百年前的景象仿佛就在眼前。

The first buildings in Caesarea were erected in the 4th Century BC to establish a Phoenician and Greek trading post. Then, sometime after 96BC, the city came under the rule of Egyptian queen Cleopatra. But the region was conquered by the Romans, and Caesarea – then called Stratonos Pyrgos (Straton’s Tower) – was soon handed over to Herod the Great, a regional king appointed by the Romans. He re-named the town after the infamous Roman emperor.

凯撒利亚最早的建筑可以追溯到公元前四世纪，当时它被开拓成为了腓尼基人与希腊人的商站。随后，在公元前96年之后某时，埃及艳后-女法老克莱奥帕特拉（Cleopatra）统治了这座城市。罗马人之后又征服了这片地区，而凯撒利亚-当时被称作"斯特拉顿之塔" （Stratonos Pyrgos）-在此后不久又被转交给大希律王（Herod the Great）管辖，他当时是罗马人指派的从属王。他将这座城市改名，以纪念名声远播的罗马君王凯撒。

Under Herod, Caesarea blossomed. The king ordered the construction of break walls to form a massive deep-sea harbour, along with an aqueduct, hippodrome and 20,000-person amphitheatre for watching the rush and carnage of chariot races.

在希律治下，凯撒利亚蓬勃发展。为了将这里建成一座规模庞大的深水港，这位国王下令建设防波堤、引水渠、竞技场以及一座可容纳20,000人的露天剧场，让人们欣赏马车大赛的疯狂与刺激。

By 6AD, Caesarea was the capital of the Roman province of Judea. As such, it was also the home of the many Roman governors stationed there, including Pontius Pilate, who ruled during the time of the historical Jesus. And, when the Jewish people revolted against Roman rule between 66 and 70AD and Jerusalem was razed, Caesarea became the political and economic hub of the region. If the town looks like a backwater now, it was anything but that 2,000 years ago.

公元6年时，凯撒利亚是罗马治下犹太行省的首府，因此历任罗马总督也在此驻节，包括本丢.彼拉多（Pontius Pilate），历史上耶稣基督在世时当地的统治者。而在当地人于公元66至70年间发动起义反抗罗马统治，导致耶路撒冷被夷平之后，凯撒利亚成为了所在地区的政治与经济中心。2000年前这里可完全不像如今这样风平浪静。

The city remained important with its history well recorded until 640AD, when it was the last city in the region to fall to Muslim invaders. After that, records are spotty. The consensus is that Caesarea faded from glory and its role on the socio-political scene, its ruins sacked and re-settled by small communities before eventually becoming home to a small fishing village in the late 1800s.

这座城市的重要地位在史书中记载详尽，直到640年它被穆斯林攻陷为止。它是这一地区抵抗到底的最后一座城市。在此之后，关于它的记录就非常稀少了。基本上认为凯撒利亚就此告别了它在社会与政治上的重要地位，它的城池年久失修，只有少数人迁入这里，到了19世纪末，它就只是一座小渔村。

But the discovery of the coins has changed that story, according to Jakob (Koby) Sharvit, director of the IAA’s Marine Archaeology Unit. In fact, it suggests that Caesarea remained a hub of trade and commerce during the time it was under the rule of the Muslim caliphates; that it did not simply revert to a remote, rural backwater.

但根据文物局水下考古部门负责人雅可布（科比）.沙维特（Jakob (Koby) Sharvit）的看法，此次发现的金币足以改变过去的历史认识。事实上，这说明凯撒利亚在穆斯林哈里发统治下仍然维持了它作为商贸中心的地位，而不是退化成了遥远荒凉的一潭死水。

“Before finding the coins, we had no idea that the community in Caesarea at that time was so large or so rich," Sharvit said. “So it changed what we believed about that time.”

在发现这些金币前，我们对当时凯撒利亚的社群的规模与富有程度一无所知，沙维特说，"所以这次的发现改变了我们对那个时代的认识。"

For items so small, the coins, called dinars, offer many clues about what the world was like at the time they were made. The dates minted on them show that they were manufactured during the reigns of Caliphs al-Hakim (996–1021AD) and his son al-Zahir (1021–1036AD) when Caesarea was part of the Islamic Fatimid Dynasty, which at that time extended around the Eastern Mediterranean.

这些被称作第纳尔的小巧金币，能够提供关于它们那个时代的很多信息。铸造在上面的日期说明它们在阿尔-哈基姆哈里发（Caliphs al-Hakim，公元996-1021年在位）和他儿子扎希尔哈里发（Caliphs al-Hakim，公元1021-1036年在位）执政时期铸造，当时凯撒利亚在穆斯林的法蒂玛王朝（Islamic Fatimid Dynasty）治下，这个王朝的势力在当时延伸到了地中海东岸。

The coins were minted in the far-flung cities of Cairo, Egypt, and the Sicilian capital of Palermo, showing that currency was circulating through a united empire. Other clues are more personal, like teeth marks that belie how ancient people would test the coins to make sure they were real gold.

这些金币在埃及开罗以及西西里首府巴勒莫（Palermo）这两个遥远的城市铸造，说明这种通货在这个统一的帝国内周转流通。其他的信息更加个人化，比方说上面的牙印，证明了古代人如何测试这些金币是否成色十足。

And judging by their value, it’s likely that Caesarea was still a prosperous, busy city at the turn of the 11th Century.

而从这笔金币的价值来判断，凯撒利亚在11世纪时很可能仍然是一座兴旺而繁忙的城市。

“Those coins were a lot of money for the people who lived there,” Sharvit said.

这些金币对当时住在那儿的人来说可是一大笔钱，沙维特说。

Each coin would have been about one month’s salary for a military soldier, which means the treasure was enough to hire an army of 2,000 for a month. And, of course, the hoard was probably only lost because of an accident on one ship. There were likely many ships going in and out of the harbour that didn’t drop their money into the sea.

单独一枚金币就大致相当于一名军人一个月的饷金，也就是说这笔金币足以在一个月的时间里雇佣一支2,000人的军队。而且很自然，这笔财富藏身海底可能只是因为一艘船的意外，那时很可能有很多船只进进出出，并没有把它们的财富抛入大海。

According to Sharvit, archaeologists aren’t sure how the coins got lost in the first place. It’s possible that a case of them slid off the deck of a ship in a storm, or that raiding pirates caused it to tip off and sink.

根据沙维特所述，考古学家们还不确定这些金币一开始是如何遗失的。可能在一场风暴中一艘船上的一个货柜从甲板上滑入大海，或者这条船遇上海盗打劫，以致翻覆沉没。

It’s also possible that the money was being sent back to Cairo, the Fatimid capital, either as taxes or for safekeeping. The First Crusades were launched in 1095, and people in Caesarea may have been bracing for raids.

也有可能这笔钱是要被送回法蒂玛王朝的首都开罗，可能是税金，或者是想要妥善保管这笔钱。第一次十字军东征在1095年启程，而凯撒利亚的人民可能会成为劫掠的目标。

Historians will likely never know the whole story, but even a glimpse of what life was like so long ago is exhilarating, Fayer said.

历史学家可能永远无法查明真实的故事究竟如何，但能够一窥古人的生活也令人无比激动。

When you see something that old, you can feel that it’s telling you a story of what used to be there before. That’s especially true when you find it under the sea. Most of the time, no-one had touched those things since they were lost 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000 years ago – from when they were dropped into the sea until you found them… that’s the part that’s exciting to me.”

费尔说："当你发现了一件如此古老的东西，你可以感觉到它在告诉你一个故事，描绘这里在以前是什么样子的。当你在海底发现这样的东西时，这种感觉尤其真切。大部分情况下，这些东西遗落世间的几百乃至数千年间-直到你找到它们之前，没有其他人触碰过它们……这使我格外激动。"

Since finding the coins, Fayer and his diver friends have been working with the IAA to help recover other treasures both around Caesarea and elsewhere along the Mediterranean coast. They also plan to start exploring new areas, like the waters off the coastal Israeli city of Netanya where Phoenician and Roman ships left a legacy of maritime treasures in the water. He’d like to help uncover more lost pieces of history beneath the sea.

在发现这些金币后，费尔和他的潜水员朋友们继续与以色列文物局合作，在凯撒利亚周边以及地中海沿岸的其他地方寻找古物。他们也计划去探索新的地狱，例如以色列海滨城市内坦亚（Netanya）沿海，腓尼基与罗马商船在那里留下了不少财富。他希望能够为在海底找到更多失落的历史片段贡献自己的力量。

“For me, that discovery was never about the money behind it,” Fayer said. “It was about the history and what the coins said about the area and what it was like so long ago.”

对我来说，这种发现的意义永远不是关于钱财，费尔说，"关于历史，关于这些钱币描述的地区与时代，才是意义所在。"

（来源：爱语吧）