2015-06-25

【Aiden in English】

        Not to confuse with Zanzibar of Tanzania, the other ancient city of Nessebar in Bulgaria is spelled with an N, not a Z. However, if I didn’t know any better or haven’t visited this stone city in Africa, I probably could pass those two for the same place. 

        Zanzibar is an ancient city of winding and narrow streets paved with cobbles situated in the Indian Ocean. The walls of the city were put up stones, and it looked like a life-size maze. Along the coast of the Black Sea, Nessebar has the 19^th-century wooden houses with broad, lively squares and restaurants everywhere. I mean absolutely everywhere! Out of all the cities that my cruise ship has sailed so far, this city is boasting its seafood to the world the most. I guarantee you that there is a restaurant with shrimps, fish, and scallops on every street, which is quite opposite to Zanzibar. And to add another difference, Nessebar had over 4,000 churches built in the village. Nowadays, only eight churches remain and are full of history. 

        In Nessebar, the first civilization started with the Thracian settlement more than 3,000 years ago, way before the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Slavs, and Ottomans all laid claim to this port city. Its history sounds quite interesting. First of all, the Thracians didn’t have a writing system. So you may ask how the heck we know about these people if they didn’t even record down things. History comes from writing, you know. All we have are things written about them in Greek. In other words, we didn’t know anything about them until after it became a Greek colony at the beginning of the 6th century B.C. Now every empire thinks that its people were superior, and the Thracians were known as barbarians. That statement is not completely a lie since they were not afraid of death. They believed death was just a gateway, which was extremely dangerous during the battles. Imagine facing a warrior not afraid of dying. They would fight stress free, but you would freak-out with “what-if”s. To say exactly how much, women would fight over who was buried with their husbands. It is Nessebar that the Greek myths of Dionysus share the stage with reality tales of Spartacus. 

        After the Thracians came the Greeks and Romans, then the Byzantine. Nevertheless, the Thracians probably had the most achievements out of all. They became the first to work with gold, which is very surprising. Many artifacts were the oldest of Europe, and possibly the world so far discovered. All from a group I have never heard of. 

        The Thracian settlement was a civilization that came out of the blue to me. First it was the Greeks, the Minoans then came after, and now the Thracians showed off. What other crazy and strong civilization is out there that I don’t know of?

【紅霞譯文】

        千萬不要與坦桑尼亞的桑給巴爾混淆在一起，另一座以“N”而非“Z” 打頭的保加利亞古城名叫內塞巴爾，然而要不是我曾親自到訪過非洲石頭城，恐怕還真以為兩個天南海北的歷史名城同歸一個地方吶。

        桑給巴爾瀕臨印度洋，鵝卵石鋪就的街徑巷陌曲折又狹窄，再加石頭圍牆，親臨此地猶如置身於真人大小的迷宮。黑海之濱內塞巴爾到處布滿十九世紀興建的木質建築，廣場寬敞開闊，餐館生意興旺，人頭絕對遍地涌動！截至到目前為止，就遊輪所停泊的地方而言，內塞巴爾海鮮筵席堪稱世界之最，我敢保證每條街上各家餐館無不提供大蝦、鮮魚、扇貝美味佳餚，這與桑給巴爾形成鮮明對照。兩地之間還有一點差異，內塞巴爾有史以來共建造了四千多座教堂，其中僅有八座保持下來，飽經歷史滄桑。

        內塞巴爾文明史起源於三千多年前色雷斯部落，比古希臘、古羅馬、波斯、斯拉夫及奧斯曼人各自聲稱自己領土組成部分要早出很長時間，令人玩味的倒是其歷史背景。首先，色雷斯從未創建文字系統，你也許會說豈不活見鬼，沒有文字記載後人如何了解過去，要知道歷史離不開筆跡，而我們掌握的全部來自希臘記載，也就是說，直到公元前六世紀色雷斯變成古希臘殖民地之後，人們才開始逐步了解這個民族。如今，沒有一個帝國不認為自己的民族是天下最偉大的，而色雷斯人卻被視作野蠻部落，這種結論並非言過其實，因為色雷斯人天不怕地不怕，堅信死亡是一種超脫，戰場上跟亡命徒針鋒相對該有多恐怖，試想眼前面對的是一幫無所畏懼的勇士，他們視死如歸，不令你抓狂才叫奇怪。更有甚者，婦女們前赴後繼，誓死鏖戰沙場替先夫報仇，難怪內塞巴爾在推崇希臘神話中酒神狄俄尼索斯的同時，尤以色雷斯傳奇英雄斯巴達克斯為榮。

        色雷斯人之後，內塞巴爾先後淪落於古希臘、古羅馬、拜占庭手中，歷史變遷絲毫抹煞不掉該民族所創造的豐功偉績，出乎意料地，他們是第一個打造黃金的先驅，身後留下許多工藝製品業已成為歐洲乃至全世界年代最久遠的古董，並且全部出自我從來沒有聽說過的工匠之手。

        色雷斯古代文明着實讓我耳目一新。此行先目睹希臘文明，再鑑賞米諾斯文明，而今又躍然出現色雷斯其人其事，世上還有其它什麼稀奇古怪的文明我尚未聽說過？