纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 012乌尔军标(1)

012 - Standard of Ur

Abstract摘要 :

Standard of Ur (made around 4,500 years ago). Wooden box inlaid with mosaic, found in southern Iraq

MP3听力原文：

At the centre of pretty well all great cities, in the middle of the abundance and the wealth, the power, and the busy-ness, you'll find a monument to Death on a massive scale. It's the same in Paris, Washington, Berlin and London.

At the moment, I'm standing in Whitehall, just a few yards from Downing Street, the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence, where the Cenotaph marks the death of millions in the great wars of the last century. Why is death at the heart of our cities? Perhaps one explanation is that in order to retain the wealth and power that our cities represent, we have to be willing to defend them from those who covet them. In this week's programmes, I'm looking at the moment, about five thousand years ago, when people first started living in cities.

Today's object, from one of the oldest and the richest of them all - seems to say quite clearly that the power of cities to get rich is indissolubly linked to the power to wage and win wars.

"For the Iraqis, it's a symbol of their very deep long tradition, being one of the centres of civilisation." (Lamia al-Ghailani)

"Since the invention of history, five to six thousand years ago, a large part of history has been the history of competing classes and class conflicts - Marx was not so wrong." (Anthony Giddens)