英语新闻｜大英博物馆“失窃”丑闻震惊世界，馆内文物失窃早有先例！

 Since it was established by the British Parliament in 1753 to house the collection of 71,000 artifacts bequeathed to the nation by physician Hans Sloane, London's British Museum has welcomed millions of visitors, including some of the most famous names in history, through its doors to marvel at its wonders.自1753年英国议会为收藏医生汉斯-斯隆遗赠给国家的71,000件文物而建立以来，伦敦大英博物馆已接待了数百万参观者，其中包括一些历史上最著名的人物，他们都曾走进博物馆的大门，惊叹于博物馆的奇迹。In 1765, the 9-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote a piece of music dedicated to the museum on Great Russell Street after a visit. Years later, Karl Marx, Bram Stoker and Arthur Conan Doyle became regular users of its famous reading room.1765年，9岁的沃尔夫冈·阿玛迪斯·莫扎特在参观大罗素街的博物馆后，写下了一首献给博物馆的乐曲。多年后，卡尔·马克思、布拉姆·斯托克和阿瑟·柯南·道尔也成了博物馆著名阅览室的常客。In 1972, the visit of the relics of Tutankhamen drew a record 1.8 million visitors to the museum. Then in 1980, it hosted a Viking exhibition. Currently, China's Hidden Century exhibition is being held at the museum to great acclaim.1972年，参观图坦卡门遗物的游客达到创纪录的180万人次。1980年，博物馆举办了维京海盗展。目前，该博物馆正在举办的“中国隐秘世纪”展览广受好评。But this summer, it is not who has been coming through the museum's doors that is being talked about, but it is what has been taken out of them, as a scandal over missing items has made hugely damaging international headlines.但今年夏天，人们谈论的不是谁走进了博物馆的大门，而是什么从博物馆里被拿走了，因为一桩关于藏品丢失的丑闻成为了极具破坏性的国际头条新闻。When the story first broke in mid-August, the BBC reported that a staff member had been sacked and there was a police investigation over items that were "missing, stolen or damaged", with museum director Hartwig Fischer calling it "a highly unusual incident".英国广播公司（BBC）在8月中旬首次报道了这一事件，称一名工作人员已被解雇，警方正在对“丢失、被盗或损坏”的物品进行调查，博物馆馆长哈特维格·菲舍尔称这是“一起极不寻常的事件”。But less than two weeks later, it was Fischer who was on his way out, with his deputy Jonathan Williams stepping back from duties, as the scandal and reputational damage to one of the world's most highly regarded historical institutions grew, with the revelation that there had been unheeded warnings over suspected thefts two years earlier.但不到两周后，菲舍尔就辞职了，他的副手乔纳森·威廉姆斯也退居二线，因为这起丑闻和对这个世界上最受推崇的历史机构之一的声誉造成的损害越来越大。About 2,000 treasures are thought to have been stolen, but recovery has begun for some of them, BBC cited British Museum chairman George Osborne as saying on Aug 26.英国广播公司8月26日援引大英博物馆主席乔治·奥斯本的话说，大约2000件珍宝被认为失窃，但其中一些已经开始追回。Alert ignored警告被忽视The items involved are dated from 15th century BC to 19th century AD, and had been kept primarily for academic and research purposes.这些物品的年代从公元前15世纪到公元19世纪，主要用于学术和研究目的。Osborne told BBC Radio 4's Today program that not all of the items were "properly cataloged and registered".奥斯本告诉英国广播公司四台的“今日”节目，并非所有物品都“进行了适当的编目和登记”。The BBC reported that art dealer Ittai Gradel alerted the museum in February 2021 when he saw items that belonged to it for sale online, but he received a reply from Williams in July that year, saying "there was no suggestion of any wrongdoing".英国广播公司报道称，艺术品经销商伊泰·格拉德尔在2021年2月看到属于博物馆的物品在网上出售时向博物馆发出了警告，但他在当年7月收到了威廉姆斯的回复，称“没有任何不当行为的迹象”。Senior figures dismissed suggestions of theft as "wholly unfounded", and emails sent to Osborne said "all items are accounted for". But the truth was very different.高层人士驳斥盗窃的说法“毫无根据”，发给奥斯本的电子邮件也称“所有物品都已清点”。但事实却大相径庭。"It is evident that the British Museum did not respond as comprehensively as it should have in response to the warnings in 2021, and to the problem that has now fully emerged … the responsibility for that failure must ultimately rest with the director," Fischer's resignation letter said.费舍尔在辞职信中说：“很明显，大英博物馆没有对2021年的警告和现在已经完全显现的问题做出应有的全面回应......最终责任必须由馆长承担。”Though it is called the British Museum, the most frequently searched term on its website is "Egypt". Despite the location, many of its most famous pieces are from much further afield.虽然名为大英博物馆，但其网站上最常被搜索的词却是“埃及”。尽管大英博物馆位于英国，但许多最著名的藏品却来自其他国家和地区。For many years, questions have been asked — and not always satisfactorily answered — about how some of them ended up in British hands.多年来，人们一直在追问其中一些藏品是如何落入英国人手中的，但答案并不总是令人满意。Sloane, whose life's collection started the museum, was a highly respected medic, promoting inoculation against smallpox, and becoming president of both the College of Physicians and the Royal Society. But the museum's own biography of him acknowledges that he worked on slave plantations, and that his wife's family fortune, which helped fund his collection, also had links to slavery.斯隆一生的收藏是博物馆的起点，他是一位备受尊敬的医生，提倡接种天花疫苗，并成为内科学院和皇家学会的主席。但博物馆自己为他撰写的传记承认，他曾在奴隶种植园工作过，他妻子的家族财富也与奴隶制有关，而这笔财富也为他的收藏提供了资金。In addition to the contentious provenance of many of its exhibits, the security lapses exposed by the scandal have demolished the suggestion that the British Museum is a safer repository for priceless items of international cultural significance than their places of origin.除了许多展品的来源备受争议之外，丑闻暴露出的安全漏洞也使人们不再认为大英博物馆是比其原产地更安全的具有国际文化意义的无价之宝的存放处。One of the most high-profile examples of this is the long-running dispute with Greece over the marble friezes from the Parthenon in Athens, acquired by Thomas Elgin in the early part of the 1800s and subsequently sold to the museum. The other is the Benin bronzes, brought back by British soldiers from what is now southern Nigeria, in the late 19th century.其中最著名的例子之一就是与希腊就雅典帕台农神庙大理石楣板的长期争端，托马斯·埃尔金在19世纪早期收购了这些大理石楣板，随后卖给了大英博物馆。另一件是19世纪末英国士兵从现在的尼日利亚南部带回的贝宁青铜器。Member of Parliament Bell Ribeiro-Addy, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Afrikan reparations, told The Guardian that the recent scandal, and the fact that there is a specific law — the 1963 British Museum Act preventing the return of such objects — highlighted the "insulting ridiculousness" of the situation.非洲裔人赔偿问题跨党派议会小组主席、议员贝尔·里贝罗·阿迪告诉《卫报》，最近的丑闻，以及有专门法律（1963年《大英博物馆法》）阻止归还此类文物的事实，表明这种情况“荒唐透顶”。Unfolding scandal不断发展的丑闻"One of the most insulting reasons that they've given is that the other countries that these items belong to would either not be able to take care of them or they are likely to be stolen," she said. "But you've got people in this country putting them on eBay."她表示：“他们给出的一个最侮辱人的理由是，这些物品所属的其他国家要么没有能力处理这些物品，要么这些物品很可能被盗。”她说：“但这个国家的人却把它们放到了eBay上。”Unsurprisingly, the Greek government has been watching the unfolding of the scandal closely, saying that it "reinforces the permanent and just demand of our country for the definitive return" of the marbles.不出所料，希腊政府一直在密切关注着这起丑闻的发展，并表示这“坚定了我国对最终归还大理石的永久而公正的要求。”In an interview with newspaper To Vima, Greek Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni said the scandal brought into question the fundamental credibility of the British Museum.希腊文化部长莉娜·门多尼在接受《To Vima》报采访时说，丑闻使大英博物馆的基本信誉受到质疑。"The loss, theft, deterioration of objects from a museum's collections is an extremely serious and particularly sad event," she said. "In fact, when this happens from within, beyond any moral and criminal responsibility, a major question arises regarding the credibility of the museum organization itself … the Ministry of Culture is following the development of the issue with great attention."她表示：“博物馆藏品的丢失、失窃和变质是一件极其严重和特别令人痛心的事情。事实上，当这种情况从内部发生时，除了任何道德和刑事责任之外，博物馆组织本身的信誉也会出现重大问题......我国文化部正在密切关注此事的发展。”An unnamed Greek government official was quoted by the Financial Times as saying that the government "like others in the cultural community, are shocked by the scale of the theft … these issues have no direct bearing on our campaign for our legal right for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece, which continues unabated".《金融时报》援引一位不愿透露姓名的希腊政府官员的话说，希腊政府“与文化界其他人士一样，对盗窃案的规模感到震惊......这些问题与我们争取帕特农神庙浮雕回归希腊的合法权利的活动没有直接关系，我们的活动仍在继续。”In addition to the current temporary exhibition, which ends in October, there are around 23,000 pieces from China among the British Museum's estimated 8 million items, with some there since its foundation.目前的临时展览将于10月结束，除此之外，在大英博物馆约800万件藏品中，约有2.3万件来自中国，其中一些藏品自建馆以来就一直在那里。Given the importance that has recently been placed on repatriating Chinese cultural artifacts that have ended up overseas, the saga has been followed with interest in Beijing. There has been no formal comment from the authorities yet, but there was a strongly worded editorial piece about the issue in the Global Times on Aug 28.鉴于近来对流失海外的中国文物回国的重视，中方一直在关注这一事件。中国政府尚未对此发表正式评论，但8月28日《环球时报》发表了一篇措辞强烈的社论。Emiline Smith, a fellow of the Centre for Criminology at the University of Hong Kong and a lecturer at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, told China Daily that although the initial story had taken her by surprise, given the museum's status as being the epitome of safe guardianship, it was less of a shock when more details emerged.香港大学犯罪学中心研究员、苏格兰格拉斯哥大学讲师埃米琳·史密斯告诉《中国日报》，虽然最初的报道让她大吃一惊，但考虑到博物馆是安全监护的缩影，当更多细节出现时，她就不那么震惊了。"It was clear that there was total lack of oversight and action contributing to an epic failure," she explained. "This isn't the first theft from a museum, and it's not the first insider theft either — anyone who's been in museum storage would know that things do go walkabout, and in this case, it was very clear that there is far too much in the collection for anyone to be able to control it effectively.她解释说：“很明显，完全缺乏监督和行动导致了史无前例的失败。”她解释说：“这不是博物馆第一次失窃，也不是第一次内部失窃--任何在博物馆仓库里呆过的人都会知道，东西确实会不翼而飞，而在这起案件中，很明显藏品太多，任何人都无法对其进行有效控制。”"It's a problem of documentation, but also a problem of funding in relation to the kind of oversight needed to avoid these things happening. In recent years, the former government's policy of austerity has clearly had a negative impact in terms of the loss of expertise and a weakening of the systems that could have prevented this happening, so it's quite ironic that the former chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne, one of the political architects of that policy, is now chairman of the museum, when this has emerged."“这是一个归档的问题，也是一个资金的问题，涉及到避免这些事情发生所需的监督。近年来，前政府的紧缩政策显然产生了负面影响，导致专业人才的流失，削弱了本可以防止此类事件发生的系统，因此，前财政大臣乔治·奥斯本作为该政策的政治设计师之一，如今却成为博物馆的主席，而这一事件却出现了，真是颇具讽刺意味。”Although the British Museum had the misfortune to be caught out, other museums around the world, particularly ones with roots in colonialism, could face many of the same difficult questions.虽然大英博物馆不幸中招，但世界各地的其他博物馆，尤其是那些与殖民主义有渊源的博物馆，也可能面临许多同样棘手的问题。In recent years, momentum has been building behind a wider global movement to repatriate items, and Smith said the publicity this incident has received had given that campaign renewed energy.近年来，全球范围内掀起了一场遣返文物的运动，史密斯说，这次事件的曝光为这场运动注入了新的活力。"It seems that for too long, the British Museum has been run by people who have regarded it as a private collection and think no one will ask any questions," she said. "It seems to have been operating on a too-big-to-fail mentality. This has been proven very wrong."她说：”似乎长期以来，大英博物馆都是由一些人在管理，他们把大英博物馆视为私人收藏，认为没有人会提出任何问题。”她说，“大英博物馆似乎一直抱着‘大而不能倒’的心态在运营。事实证明这是大错特错的。”China is one of many countries that will be keeping a close eye on how the story continues to develop, given the amount of items of its own heritage that are in different hands and distant lands. But as Smith pointed out, its approach to repatriation so far has been distinctive.中国是密切关注此事后续发展的众多国家之一，因为中国有大量的文物掌握在不同的人和遥远的国度手中。但正如史密斯所指出的，迄今为止，中国对文物回归的态度是与众不同的。"China has positioned itself slightly differently from other countries, as it's bought back items — normally countries of origin make a legal claim, involving law enforcement and suing, or go down the ethical route, making a public claim," Smith explained.史密斯解释说：“中国的定位与其他国家略有不同，因为它买回了文物--通常情况下，文物来源国会提出法律要求，包括执法和起诉，或者走道德路线，提出公开要求。”"Instead, China … has asked private donors to buy back objects, which are then reinstated through private museums, which has been effective — if Chinese items ever come up at auction, the room is sure to be full of Chinese buyers."“相反，中国......要求私人捐赠者回购文物，然后通过私人博物馆恢复原状，这种做法很有效。如果中国的物品出现在拍卖会上，拍卖场上肯定会挤满中国买家。”Wider shock waves更广泛的冲击Although official voices have not been heard from China on the issue, the Global Times made it clear where the authorities stand over the matter.尽管中国官方尚未就此事发出声音，但《环球时报》清楚地表明了当局对此事的立场。"The Global Times statement showed a desire to go down the ethical route and hold countries accountable for the harms they have done through history," she explained.她解释说：“《环球时报》的声明表明，中国希望走道德路线，让各国为其在历史上造成的伤害负责。”The wider shock waves caused by the museum's very public crash and burn are likely to embolden efforts from communities of origin around the world to reclaim their heritage, a path of action cleared by the most unlikely of helpers — COVID-19.博物馆的公开坍塌和焚毁所引发的更大范围的冲击很可能会使世界各地的原住民社区更有勇气重新找回他们的遗产，而最不可能的帮助者——新冠疫情——则为这一行动开辟了道路。"The pandemic meant museums had to put their collections online, to maintain visitor interest, and that made it easier to discover where things are," she explained.她解释说：“新冠疫情意味着博物馆必须将其藏品放到网上，吸引游客的兴趣，这使得人们更容易发现藏品的下落。”"Now people in even the remotest areas can get hold of a smartphone and follow the story and track things down, so you're getting countries and communities that haven't necessarily spoken up before saying that they want their heritage back. Politically, it's extremely interesting."她解释道：“现在，即使是最偏远地区的人们也可以通过智能手机了解相关故事，追踪相关物品，因此，以前不一定会说出来的国家和社区现在也会说，他们想要回自己的遗产。从政治层面来看，这非常有趣。”As the museum looks to rebuild its credibility, Carl Heron, its director of scientific research, has been appointed as acting deputy director. But the museum's journey back to its former status will be a long one, with difficult decisions to be made along the way.由于博物馆希望重建其信誉，其科学研究主管卡尔·赫伦已被任命为代理副馆长。但是，博物馆恢复其昔日地位的道路将是漫长的，一路上需要做出艰难的决定。What was initially described as a "highly unusual incident" has brought voices and spirits from the past into the spotlight of the present, and the final irony is that these items, long buried in dark archives, could end up shaping the future of the museum world.最初被描述为“极不寻常的事件”将过去的声音和精神带到了现在的聚光灯下，而最后的讽刺是，这些长期埋藏在黑暗档案中的物品最终可能会塑造博物馆世界的未来。"For years, momentum has been dictated by European and North American forces, but it's high time someone else took over at the wheel as what they have been doing has been shown to have failed," Smith said.史密斯说：“多年来，欧洲和北美的力量一直在主导着博物馆的发展势头，但现在是时候让其他人来掌舵了，因为他们一直在做的事情已经被证明是失败的。”"The world is ready for the British Museum to be reinvented, so it needs to take stock of what it has, and come up with an authentic and equitable safeguarding plan that is practical, as opposed to the outdated approach of the gentleman curator. If it changes those values, then there's hope it can reinvent and rebuild itself."“世界已经准备好让大英博物馆重塑形象，因此它需要对自己所拥有的一切进行评估，并提出一个真实、公平、切实可行的保护计划，而不是像绅士馆长那样采用过时的方法。如果它能改变这些价值观，那么它就有希望重塑和重建自己。”Artifact英/ˈɑːtɪfækt/ 美/ˈɑːrtɪfækt/n.（尤指有文化价值或历史价值的）人工制品，历史文物Scandal英/ˈskænd(ə)l/ 美/ˈskænd(ə)l/n.丑行，丑闻