William Lindesay, 59, has written five books on the Great Wall of China. His most recent, “The Great Wall in 50 Objects,” has just been published by Penguin China, and it will be released in Britain and the United States next year. In an interview, Mr. Lindesay, a native of Wallasey, England, discussed a bronze warrior’s face, a recalcitrant curator at the Vatican Museums and how he first got interested in the wall.

59岁的威廉·林赛(William Lindesay)写过五本关于中国长城的书籍。企鹅图书中国(Penguin China)刚刚出版了他的新书《虚拟长城展：50件长城文物》(The Great Wall in 50 Objects)，该书将于明年在英国和美国发布。林赛在英国沃拉西出生长大，他在采访中谈到了一块青铜的士兵面部塑像，梵蒂冈博物馆一位难以对付的策展人，以及他最初是如何对长城发生兴趣的。

Q. You’ve been living in China for 30 years. What got you interested?

问：你在中国生活了30年。什么让你对中国产生了兴趣？

A. My first headmaster, who was a church minister, said we should have three books at our bedsides: a Bible, a prayer book and an atlas. I vividly recall seeing in the “Oxford School Atlas” the Great Wall with its battlement symbol. From that moment, I had in my mind that when I grew up I’d go to China and walk along the Great Wall from end to end.

答：我上学时的第一位校长是个牧师，他说我们床头应该摆放三本书：《圣经》、祈祷书和地图册。我清楚地记得我在《牛津学生地图册》(Oxford School Atlas)中看到了长城的雉堞线。从那刻起，我就萌生了长大后要去中国，沿着长城从一端走到另一端的想法。

Like most childhood dreams, that was almost forgotten. But then in my 20s, my brother suggested running the length of Hadrian’s Wall, from Newcastle to Carlisle. During a break, he turned to me and said, “Hey, Will, you should go to China and do the wall!” It was 1984, China was open, there were stories about China in the press. China was on the map, but kind of the great unknown. I thought, well, I am not going to have this chance again. I had no loves or loans to hold me back. I was in good shape — a two-hour, 39-minute marathoner — so I set off.

就像大部分儿时梦想一样，这个想法也几乎被淡忘了。但在我20多岁的时候，我的兄弟提议沿着哈德良长城(Hadrian’s Wall)从纽卡斯尔跑到卡莱尔。途中休息期间，他转过头来对我说，“威廉，你应该去中国走一遍长城！”那是1984年，中国已经对外开放。媒体有报道中国的故事。从地图上也能看到中国，但中国对我来说是一个巨大的未知数。我想，好吧，我以后不会有这样的机会了。我没有恋人或贷款的牵绊，我状态很好——跑马拉松花了2小时39分钟，所以我就出发了。

Q. You’d written four books already on the Great Wall. Why another?

问：你已经写了四本有关长城的书。为什么还要再写一本？

A. Thus far I’ve studied the wall by looking at its grand remains, the ruins. You see ruins. You see things are missing, but what and where? Naturally, I visited museums and saw many relics behind glass. Many of the objects just had a name and a date and a place where they were found. Sometimes they would have a tantalizing label like “an important relic for understanding life on the Han dynasty Great Wall,” but they didn’t explain why. So I thought, I’ll have to do that one day. I want to let these objects speak. I also saw objects in Mongolia, realizing that, although the Great Wall as a building is Chinese, as a story it has two sides.

答：到目前为止，我一直通过观察宏伟的遗迹，或者说废墟来研究长城。你看到了那些遗迹。发现缺失了一些东西，但缺失的是什么，它们去哪了？自然而然地，我又参观了博物馆，看到了很多玻璃展窗里的文物。很多文物都只有名称、日期及被发现的地点。它们有时候会被贴上引人遐想的标签，比如“有助于了解汉长城沿线生活的重要文物”，但没有说明原因。所以我想，我将来有一天要做这件事情。我想让这些文物开口说话。我还在蒙古国看到了相关文物，我意识到虽然长城是中国的建筑，但作为一个故事，它有两面。

Q. You make a point of telling the nomads’ side of the story, too.

问：你也从游牧民的角度讲述了这个故事。

A. I went to Mongolia in 2011 and realized that for 20 years I had largely studied the wall from just the Chinese side. I was Sinocentric. I visited a private museum there and saw a tiny, yet amazing, bronze belt decoration depicting a Xiongnu warrior’s face, which is Object 3 in the book. These were the people who had attacked the Han dynasty [206 B.C.-220 A.D.] for centuries, but this was the first time I’d seen a representation of what one looked like. This object humanized them.

答：我在2011年去了蒙古国，认识到自己在20年的时间里主要从中国那一面研究长城。我是以中国为中心的。我在蒙古参观了一家私人博物馆，在那里看到一个微小但令人惊叹的铜制腰带装饰，它描绘了一个匈奴士兵的面部，也就是书中的“文物3”。这些人在长达几个世纪的时间里攻击汉朝［公元前206年至公元220年］，但那是我第一次看到他们的模样。这一文物赋予了他们人性。

Q. Your method of focusing on objects reminds me of the podcasts and book published by Neil MacGregor of the British Museum, “A History of the World in 100 Objects.”

问：你这种关注文物的做法，让我想起了大英博物馆的尼尔·麦格雷戈(Neil MacGregor)推出的播客和他出版的《大英博物馆世界简史》(A History of the World in 100 Objects)。

A. I’m a great fan of his. He’s a fantastic interpreter of history. Out of the millions of objects in the British Museum, he chose 100 and enthralled people around the world. He showed objects that seem unrelated, but which have so many connections. He showed that the formula worked. But only when you try to do it yourself do you realize how much hard work it is!

答：我是他的铁杆粉丝。他是一个非常棒的历史解读者。他从大英博物馆的数百万件藏品中挑出100件，令世界各地的人着迷。他展现了一些看似无关的文物，但它们之间又有很多联系。他的经验表明这种做法是有效的。但只有当你设法做这些事情的时候，才会认识到它有多难。

Q. You order your objects chronologically, but start with eight that give an overview.

问：你在书中按照年代编排了这些文物，但开篇却利用八件文物进行了综述。

A. I started out with objects to illustrate how Europeans first heard about the wall, and how Chinese did. For foreigners, it was through maps. For the Chinese, it was through the heartbreaking legend of Meng Jiangnu, whose tears of mourning for her husband, a wall builder, caused the fortification to collapse.

答：在书的开头，我用这些文物说明欧洲人第一次听说长城的途径，以及中国人是如何听说的。外国人是通过地图了解的。中国人则是通过有关孟姜女的悲情传说了解的，孟姜女为了悼念修筑长城的丈夫而痛哭城下，导致那段长城就此坍塌。

Also, in the opening group of objects I introduced two of the most common building materials. In the west of China I showed that water was a key building material as evidenced by the plethora of broken water pots. Every museum has rooms of pots you have to go through before you get to the gold and jade, but actually pots tell you a hell of a lot.

在开篇中，我还介绍了两种最普遍的建筑材料。我指出，在中国西部，水是很重要的建筑材料，大量破水罐就可以说明这一点。每个博物馆都有展览各种罐子的展厅，在抵达黄金、玉器展厅前，肯定要先经过陶罐，实际上通过这些罐子可以了解很多事。

Q. What was the most challenging section of the book?

问：书中最有挑战性的哪个章节？

A. I have a section called “Intrusions.’’ This is the middle period of the Great Wall’s 2,300-yearlong story, after the collapse of the Han dynasty and before the rise of the Ming [1368-1644] and its famous wall. I learned a lot, such as why the Tang [dynasty, 618-907] didn’t build a wall. This is often considered China’s “golden era.” I chose a gorgeous triglazed camel figurine carrying a small group of foreign musicians to illustrate the prosperous trade on the Silk Road, which brought in the taxation to fund alternatives to ultracostly walls, namely pacification policies and military offensives.

答：有一章叫“入侵”。在长城2300年的历史中，那一章的内容发生在中期，是在汉朝灭亡，明朝［1368年至1644年］和著名的明长城建起之前。我学到了很多，比如唐代［618年至907年］为什么没有修长城。这个时期通常被认为是中国的“黄金时代”。我选了一件非常漂亮的三彩釉骆驼雕像来表现丝绸之路上繁荣的贸易，骆驼驮着一小群外国乐师。繁荣的贸易带来了税收，从而为安抚政策和军事进攻提供了资金，以此替代了花费昂贵的长城。

Q. I note that the heart of your book centers on the Ming Great Wall.

问：我注意到你这本书的核心是在明长城上。

A. Yes, Objects 27 to 41 cover the Ming. Most people who come to China see the Ming wall, typically the brick-and-stone “dragon” snaking through the mountains north of Beijing. That’s the core, the zenith of the story.

答：是的，第27号到第41号文物涉及的都是明朝。来中国的大部分人看到的都是明长城，典型的是那条在北京北部的山岭间蜿蜒盘旋的砖石“巨龙”。这是本书的核心，是故事的高潮。

Q. Were all the museums you approached helpful?

问：你接洽的所有博物馆都乐于帮忙吗？

A. Museums in Mongolia were most helpful. When I started, my rule was to be able to see each object, and examine it up close. They allowed that. They’d take the plate glass off the display case with suction pads and lift the object out and take it to the office and let me look at it. The national museum’s curator said the only thing we haven’t got here is live horses, but you must include this in your 50 objects. Without the Mongolian horse, he said, there would be no nomads attacking China, no cavalry, no means of conquering. I included it as a “living antiquity.’’

答：蒙古国的博物馆是最愿意帮忙的。一开始，我的要求就是要能看到每一件文物，并且近距离地观察。他们允许了。他们会用吸盘取下展示柜的厚玻璃板，取出文物并将其带到办公室让观察。国家博物馆的馆长说，我们唯一没带来的就是活马了，但你必须把马收进你的50件文物里。他说，没有蒙古马，就不会有游牧部族袭击中国的行动，不会有骑兵，不会有征服的手段。我把它当做“活的文物”收录进了书里。

Q. Which museum was the least cooperative?

问：哪家博物馆最不配合？

A. I was very keen to include a 7-meter-long [23 feet] map that was in the Vatican Museums, listed there as the Borgia Great Wall Scroll and dating from circa 1695. I wrote to them, but they didn’t reply. I wrote in Italian, but still no reply. I went there, but not at the right time. It had been sent overseas on loan for the first time.

答：我非常渴望把梵蒂冈博物馆(Vatican Museums)一幅七米长的地图收录进来。那幅地图被该博物馆命名为《波吉亚长城古卷》(Borgia Great Wall Scroll)，可追溯至大约1695年。我写信给他们，但对方没回信。我又用意大利语写，还是没收到回信。我亲自去了，但时间又不对。那幅地图首次被借到外国去了。

I later saw the museum was soliciting money to conserve it, and asking for donors. So I raised the money, $25,000, and offered to help. I was astonished when they told me that another group had pledged to fund the map’s repair. Never giving up, I wrote again to the curator — who finally gave me a reply, but a rather nasty and unfriendly one. He didn’t want to let any outsider in, least of all one who is considered a friend of China, as I am, for the conservation contributions I have made to the Great Wall.

后来，我看到梵蒂冈博物馆在为保护那幅地图筹集资金，请人捐款。于是我筹集了2.5万美元，表示愿意帮忙。没料到他们告诉我，另一个团体已经承诺为地图的修复出资了。我不肯放弃，又给那个策展人写信。对方最后回信了，但回信态度恶劣，很不友好。他不想让任何外人参与进去，尤其是像我这样一个被认为是中国的朋友的人——因为对保护长城做出了贡献，我也的确是中国的朋友。

Museums are the best classrooms for knowledge and education, but some curators are like prison wardens, holding the keys, keeping the antiquities imprisoned, not allowing visitors, trying to keep people out.

博物馆是学知识、受教育的最好的课堂。但有些策展人就像监狱里的看守一样，手拿着钥匙，把文物关起来，不允许有人参观，想方设法地把人拒之门外。