纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 051玛雅宫廷放血仪式浮雕（1）（在线收听）

051：EPISODE 51 - Maya relief of Royal Blood-letting 玛雅宫廷放血仪式浮雕

Maya relief of royal blood-letting (made early eighth century AD). Stone; from Mexico

It's tough at the top - at least, that's what those at the top like us to think - the long hours, the public exposure, the responsibility. In return though, most of us would argue, they get the status and the pay - and most people it seems are willing to settle for that particular trade-off.

But, we'd all think twice, I suspect, about envying anyone, however privileged, whose regular duty was to go through an ordeal that sounds like this cry of pain . . . in this case that of a man in the Philippines, seeking and enduring excruciating physical pain, in order to achieve a transformed spiritual state. These days most of us take quite a lot of trouble to avoid pain. And wilful "self-harm" suggests to most people an unstable psychological condition. Sado-masochism gets, on the whole, a bad press, but around the world there are, as there always have been, believers who see self-inflicted pain as a route to transcendental experience. To the average 21st-century citizen, and certainly to me, this willed suffering has about it something deeply shocking. And so I find it hard even to look at the image that I'm going to be discussing in this programme.

"What I find startling about this horrific image is how visible the woman's pain is." (Susie Orbach)

"You can tell from her clothing, her jewellery and her elaborate head ornament that this is a woman of great status and wealth." (Virginia Field)