纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 060基尔瓦陶器碎片（1）（在线收听）

060：EPISODE 60 - Kilwa Pot Sherds

第六十集：基尔瓦壶碎片

Kilwa pot sherds (made between tenth and fourteenth century). Ceramic fragments; found on a beach in Tanzania

Don't worry! We've just heard the sound of a piece of crashing china, but that was not a priceless piece of porcelain from the British Museum's collection, it was a chipped old mug from the staff kitchen. I just wanted to remind you of that terrible moment when one of your favourite plates, pots or vases plunges to the floor and is destroyed, beyond the help of glue, forever. This programme is about pottery - but it's not about the high ceramic art which usually survives only in treasuries or in ancient graves, it's about the crockery of everyday life, which as we all know usually survives only in fragments. It's a paradox that while a plate or a vase is whole it's alarmingly fragile, but once it's smashed, the pieces of pottery are almost indestructible - and broken bits of pot have told us more than almost anything else about the daily life of the distant past.

I've got a handful of fragments with me now which have survived for about a thousand years on a beach in East Africa. An alert beachcomber picked them up and presented them to the British Museum, knowing that these broken oddments - of no financial value at all - would open up not just life in East Africa a thousand years ago, but the whole world of the Indian Ocean.

"This is the history of the first evidence for international trade that existed between East Africa and the rest of the world." (Bertram Mapunda)

"Knowing about India, knowing about China, knowing about all these places - that was really important." (Abdulrazek Gurnah)

陶瓷碎片，发现于坦桑尼亚基尔瓦

公元九百年至公元一千四百年

几个残破的瓶罐碗碟也能道出精彩的故事。这一节的物品是陶瓷，但并非那种只在某些宝藏或是古墓中才出现的高档物品，而是寻常家庭所使用的普通陶器，众所周知，能留存至今的一般都是碎片。盘子和花瓶之类的物品向来脆弱无比，不过一旦打碎，倒是几乎无法再遭破坏。陶器的碎片比其他任何物品都更能细致地为我们提供古人饮食起居的面貌。

照片中的这些陶器碎片残存在东非海滩上长达千年。一九四八年，它们被一个敏锐的海滩寻宝人发现，并于一九七四年被送至大英博物馆。这些碎片虽然毫无经济价值，却能让我们一窥千年前的东非乃至整个印度洋周边世界的民生状况。