世界上有哪些鲜为人知的古代“奇观”

【来源龙腾网】

正文原创翻译：

Lesser Known Ancient "Wonders" of the World

世界上鲜为人知的古代“奇观”

So everyone knows about Stonehenge, the Great Pyramids, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Lighthouse (and of course) the Library of Alexandria, the Colosseum and Circus Maximus of Rome, and the Great Wall of China. But what are some other important but less discussed architectural achievements of the ancient and classical world?

每个人都知道巨石阵、大金字塔、罗得岛、巴比伦空中花园、灯塔（当然还有）亚历山大图书馆、罗马竞技场和罗马圆形大剧场以及中国长城。但是，古代和古典世界的一些其他一样重要但较少讨论的建筑成就有哪些？

Personally, I think Roman sewer system and their public baths are a fantastic wonder in and of themselves. Although less "flashy" than the well-known wonders, they served an extremely important sanitary purpose that helped make the Roman civilization stand-up even to a lot of modern expectations.

就我个人而言，我认为罗马下水道系统和他们的公共浴室本身就是一个奇妙的奇迹。尽管它们不像那些著名的奇迹那样“浮华”，但它们起到了极其重要的卫生目的，帮助罗马文明站起来，甚至达到了许多现代的做法。

评论翻译

[dexed]

In term of economic impact or total size: China's Grand Canal.

就经济影响或总规模而言：中国大运河。 0

（京杭大运河） 0

AlexAiakides

It’s not like it didn’t cost China, especially the dynasty Sui that was responsible for building it dearly.

这并不意味着它没有让中国付出代价，尤其是负责建造它的隋朝。 0

deezee72

The botched war against Gorgoryeo was a more immediate cause of the fall of the Sui dynasty.

The future Emperor Gaozu of Tang even served as a logistics officer in that campaign before being reassigned to fighting the Eastern Turks. Many of the other early supporters of the Tang were other military officials dissatisfied with the handling of the war.

When you break it down, nearly every one of the ancient wonders came at an enormous price. And while the cost of these mega-projects certainly took its toll, the fact that renovations of the Grand Canal continued into the Tang dynasty casts a lot of doubt on the claim that overspending on infrastructure is what brought down the Sui.

对高句丽的拙劣战争是隋朝灭亡的一个更直接的原因。

未来的唐高祖甚至在这次战役中担任后勤官员，然后被重新分配到与东突厥人作战。许多其他早期支持唐的人是其他军事官员，对战争的处理都感到不满。

当你细究，几乎每一个古老的奇迹都是以巨大的代价换来的。虽然这些大型项目的成本确实造成了损失，但在唐代，大运河的翻修仍在继续，这一事实使人们对基础设施的超支是导致隋朝灭亡的原因的这种说法产生了很大的怀疑。 0

[dexed]

Didn’t it kill a shitload of peasants?

它不是导致了很多农民的死亡吗？ 0

Keighlon

The grand canal system is absolutely astonishing. While europe was still chucking sticks at each other and living in huts china was building country wide water highways. The manpower forethought and organization of it blows my mind

大运河系统绝对是惊人的。当欧洲还在互相残杀，住在茅屋里的时候，中国正在建设全国范围的水上公路。他对人力的筹划和阻织度让我大吃一惊。 0

deezee72

The Grand Canal is an amazing demonstration of China's organization, but let's not get too carried away. It was built at the end of the 6th century - I don't think it's too fair to say that Europe was "chucking sticks at each other and living in huts".

大运河是中国组织度的一个惊人的展示，但我们不要太激动。 它建于6世纪末——我不认为说欧洲“还在互相残杀，住在茅屋里”是一个公平的说法。 0

[dexed]

At that moment you can say that Europe (apart from Bizantine / East Roman Empire) was figuratively in a state of chucking sticks, because the fall of the Roman Empire brought a severe collapse of institutions and knowledge loss that might have been less developed than ancient Greece (in terms of institutional complexity and knowledge production), and was victim of wave after wave of sacks from German/Huns/Norsemen/Turkic and Mongols, whom may have indeed been living in structures closer to "huts" than to roman cities and villas. The Eastern Roman Empire and the Middle East were flourishing tho, so the "sticks and huts" hyperbole is half appropiate.

在那个时候你可以说欧洲（除了拜占庭/东罗马帝国） 确实处于一种互相残杀的状态，因为罗马帝国的垮台带来了制度的严重崩溃和知识的损失，导致其可能比古希腊还欠发达（在体制复杂性和知识生产方面），而且他们是一波又一波的洗劫的受害者，这些洗劫来自日耳曼/匈牙利/挪威人/突厥人和蒙古人，他们也可能确实生活在比罗马城市和别墅相比更接近“小屋”的建筑中。与此同时东罗马帝国和中东地区都在欣欣向荣，因此“残杀与茅屋”的夸张说法至少有一半是对的。 0

Intranetusa

europe was still chucking sticks at each other and living in huts

No, that comes from incorrect stereotypical portrayals of the "Dark Ages." In the 6th century, the Eastern Roman Empire was rich, powerful, and technologically advanced, and emperor Justinian was partially successful at reconquering the Roman territories of the Western Empire that were lost.

The Scandinavian and Germanic people who also invaded Western Rome adopted many aspects of the Romans - culture, government, Latin, fashion, architecture, etc - so they weren't simply living in huts.

“还在互相残杀，住在茅屋里”

不，这是来自对“黑暗时代”的不正确的刻板印象。在6世纪，东罗马帝国是富有的，强大的，技术先进的，查士丁尼皇帝部分成功地重新征服了失去的西罗马帝国的罗马领土。

斯堪的纳维亚和日耳曼人虽然入侵了西罗马，但是他们接受了罗马人的许多方面--文化、政府、拉丁、时尚、建筑等--所以他们不仅仅住在小茅屋里。 0

Intranetusa

On a similar note, the Qin State's Fish Mouth Levee irrigation and flood control system in use to this day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dujiangyan

类似地，秦国的河口灌溉和防洪系统至今仍在使用：https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dujiangyan（都江堰的维基百科） 0

（古罗马桥梁） 0

Qafqa

Don't forget the aqueducts.

别忘了引水渠

（罗马引水渠） 0

recuise

Yeah, but what have the Romans ever done for us?

是啊，但是罗马人为我们做了什么？ 0

ecknorr

Could not have the Superbowl without Roman numerals.

没有罗马数字就不可能有超级碗。 0

SantasBananas

People often praise the Roman bridges, and I certainly agree that they are impressive and covered the empire in such a scale that I would not have dreamed of back in those days.

At the same time, the engineer in me can't help but chuckle at being impressed that those bridges still stand. That's a sign of those bridges being overbuilt - they put too much effort and resources into the structures to make them not fail for over a thousand years, when honestly they only needed them for a few hundred. That's effort and resources that they could have applied to other projects.

If I could commission a bridge that would last 300 years for $100,000 or one that lasts a millenium for $200,000, I'd pick the first in a heartbeat. Why spend an extra $100,000 on something functionally identical? In 300 years we might be beyond the point of using bridges, or we may have better bridge design for cheaper, or the location might be irrelevant. It's a waste of effort, imho. Sure, people in the future might be impressed, but that's not really worth much to me. It would be trivial for modern engineers to build bridges that last a millennium as well, it's just not worthwhile.

人们经常赞美罗马的桥梁，我当然同意它们覆盖帝国的规模令人印象深刻，以至于我有时不禁梦回罗马时代。

同时，作为工程师的我忍不住对因为那些桥梁仍然屹立不倒而感到印象深刻的人发笑。这是那些桥梁被过度建造的迹象--他们在结构中投入了太多的努力和资源，使他们在一千多年里不会倒塌，但老实说，他们只需要这些桥能用几百年。这些努力和资源他们本可以应用于其他项目的。

如果我能委托建造一座桥，可以花10万用300年，也可以用20万用一千年，我会选择第一座。为什么要花多10万在功能相同的东西上？在300年内，我们可能已经无需再使用这条桥梁，或者我们可能有更好的桥梁设计，以更便宜，或者位置可能更好。在我看来这就是浪费精力。 当然，未来的人们可能会对此印象深刻，但这对我来说并不太值得。对于现代工程师来说，建造长达一千年的桥梁也是微不足道的，但这是不值得的。 0

knavillus

I don’t think they thought in these terms though, structural and materials analysis that can predict longevity of a structure just didn’t exist back then. I’m guessing the primary motivation by the designer was to ensure it didn’t fail at any cost. I hadn’t really thought of it in those terms though, it’s really funny!

我不认为他们用这些方式来思考，但是，能够预测结构寿命的结构和材料分析在当时不存在。 我猜设计师的主要动机是确保它不会以倒。不过，我从来没有以这种角度想过，这真的很有趣！ 0

Arsnicthegreat

I'm not an expert, but I recall that before we developed the more complex mathematics to precisely engineer things to tight tolerance, the general solution was to estimate and round up, at risk of greater expense, to avoid failure.

我不是专家，但我记得，在我们开发更复杂的数学来精确地将事物设计到严格的容忍度之前，一般的解决方案是进行估计和总结，用更大的费用，来避免失败。 0

SantasBananas

Yeah, that's exactly my point - they made the bridges with such longevity because they didn't have the engineering confidence to not.

Still massively impressive structures, obviously. I'm just always a little ticked when people say they were able to build structures we can't anymore, or some other nonsense.

是的，这正是我的观点-他们建造了如此长寿的桥梁，是因为他们没有工程信心。

当然，这还是令人印象深刻的结构。当人们说古人能建造我们现代无法再建造的结构，或者其他类似的一些废话时，我总是有点生气。 0

idan_zamir

Gobekli Tepe definitely counts in my book. It is around 12,000 years old! An incredible a achivement for the time.

哥贝克力石阵在我的这里肯定很重要。它大约有12000岁了！这是一个不可思议的成就。 0

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