四座消失的城市
Four Vanished Cities

当一座城市消失以后，什么还会留下？
What remains when a city disappears?

English

A city can disappear without becoming silent.

Streets vanish beneath soil. Walls collapse. Markets become archaeological layers. Names change, languages disappear, and generations move on. Yet sometimes, long after a city has ceased to exist as a living urban community, fragments of it remain: a road, a wall, a drainage system, a temple, a seal, a painted surface, a buried room.

From these fragments, we try to reconstruct something that can never be completely reconstructed: the life of a city.

中文

一座城市可以消失，却并不意味着它已经沉默。

街道被泥土覆盖，墙壁坍塌，市场变成考古地层；名称改变，语言消失，一代又一代的人继续向前。然而，一座城市即使已经不再作为一个活着的城市共同体存在，它仍然可能留下碎片：一条道路、一段城墙、一套排水系统、一座神庙、一枚印章、一面壁画，或一间被掩埋的房屋。

我们借助这些碎片，试图重新认识某种已经无法完整重现的东西：一座城市曾经怎样生活。

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1. Teotihuacan — The City Whose Name Came Later

1. 特奥蒂瓦坎 – 名字后来才来到这里

English
Long before the Aztec Empire, a great city rose in the Valley of Mexico. Teotihuacan developed between approximately the 1st and 7th centuries CE and became one of the major cultural centres of ancient Mesoamerica. UNESCO describes it as one of the largest ancient cities in the Americas, with at least 25,000 inhabitants at its height.

The city was abandoned after a period of extraordinary urban development. Its monumental avenues, pyramids and murals survived long after everyday urban life had ended.

“Teotihuacan” is a later Nahuatl name, commonly translated as “the place where the gods were created.” The original name used by its inhabitants remains uncertain.

Sometimes we remember a city without knowing what its inhabitants called it.

中文
在阿兹特克帝国之前很久，一座巨大城市在墨西哥谷地兴起。特奥蒂瓦坎大约形成于公元1世纪至7世纪，是古代中部美洲的重要文化中心之一。联合国教科文组织将其描述为美洲古代最大的城市之一，高峰时期人口至少约25,000人。

这座城市在经历非凡的城市发展后最终被遗弃。它的宏伟道路、金字塔和壁画，在日常城市生活结束之后仍然保存下来。

「特奥蒂瓦坎」是后来形成的纳瓦特尔语名称，通常被解释为「神诞生之地」。而最初居住者如何称呼这座城市，今天仍不确定。

有时，我们记住了一座城市，却不知道当年居住在那里的人怎样称呼它。

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2. Chan Chan — A City of Earth

2. 钱昌 – 一座由泥土建成的城市

English
On the Pacific coast of northern Peru lies Chan Chan, the capital of the Chimú Kingdom. At its height in the 15th century, it was the largest earthen-architecture city in pre-Columbian America. UNESCO describes a carefully planned urban structure divided into nine major citadels or palace compounds.

Its remains preserve evidence of political organization, agriculture, water management, craft production and daily life. The city was not simply a collection of buildings. It was a system.

A city does not vanish only when its buildings fall. It also vanishes when the network that makes the buildings meaningful can no longer function.

Chan Chan reminds us that civilization is not simply stone, brick or earth. It is also water, food, labour, memory, organization and cooperation.

中文
秘鲁北部太平洋沿岸的钱昌，是奇穆王国的首都。15世纪达到鼎盛时，它是前哥伦布时期美洲最大的夯土建筑城市。联合国教科文组织指出，其城市规划严密，由九个主要城堡式或宫殿式建筑群组成。

它的遗址保存着政治组织、农业、水利、手工业生产和生活用的痕迹。这座城市并不只是建筑物的集合，它本身就是一个系统。

城市的消失并不只是建筑倒塌。当维系城市运行的社会网络不再运转时，城市其实已经开始成为遗址。

钱昌提醒我们：文明并不只是石头、砖块和泥土。文明同时也是水、食物、劳动、记忆、组织与合作。

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3. Palmyra — A City at the Crossroads

3. 巴尔米拉 – 文明交汇处的城市

English
In the Syrian desert, an oasis once became a meeting place between worlds. Palmyra stood on routes connecting Persia, India and China with the Roman world. UNESCO describes its art and architecture as a combination of Graeco-Roman techniques, local traditions and Persian influences.

Its colonnaded streets, temples, theatre, agora, funerary monuments and urban quarters became a physical record of cultural contact.

A crossroads is never isolated. It is connected to distant worlds — and therefore also exposed to changes beyond itself.

Today, what remains is a landscape of ruins. Yet the ruins still tell us that civilizations have rarely developed in complete isolation.

中文
在叙利亚沙漠中，一片绿洲曾经成为不同世界相遇的地方。巴尔米拉位于连接波斯、印度、中国与罗马世界的路线之上。联合国教科文组织指出，它的艺术和建筑融合了希腊—罗马技术、地方传统与波斯影响。

柱廊街道、神庙、剧场、市场、墓葬建筑和城市街区，共同成为文明交流的物质记录。

文明交汇点从来不是孤立的。它因为连接遥远世界而繁荣，也因此会受到遥远世界变化的影响。

今天留下来的已经是一片遗址景观。但这些遗址仍然告诉我们：文明很少是在完全孤立的状态下发展出来的。

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4. Medina Azahara — Built, Destroyed, Forgotten

4. 麦地那·扎赫拉 – 一座建成、毁灭，又被遗忘的城市

English
Near Córdoba in present-day Spain lies the archaeological site of Medina Azahara. The city was founded in the mid-10th century by the western Umayyad dynasty as the seat of the Caliphate of Córdoba.

After prospering for several years, the city was laid to waste during the civil war that ended the Caliphate in 1009–1010. The remains were then forgotten for almost a thousand years until their rediscovery in the early 20th century.

The archaeological remains include infrastructure, buildings, decoration and objects of daily use. They allow researchers to approach not only monumental architecture but also aspects of everyday material culture.

A city can be built to represent permanence. Yet history does not guarantee permanence.

中文
今天西班牙科尔多瓦附近，保存着麦地那·扎赫拉考古遗址。这座城市建于10世纪中叶，是西部倭马亚王朝建立的都城性城市。

城市繁荣数年后，在结束科尔多瓦哈里发国的内战中于1009—1010年间遭到毁坏。此后遗址被遗忘近一千年，直到20世纪初重新被发现。

遗址保存了基础设施、建筑、装饰以及日常生活用品。研究者因此不仅可以研究宏伟建筑，也可以接近那个时代普通生活的物质痕迹。

一座城市可以被建成「永恒」的象征。但历史从来没有承诺永恒。

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Four Cities, Four Different Memories

四座城市，四种不同的记忆

English
These four cities did not vanish in the same way. Teotihuacan became a monumental memory after urban life ended. Chan Chan preserves the remains of a complex earthen city system. Palmyra records cultural encounter across long-distance networks. Medina Azahara shows how quickly even a newly built city can become an archaeological memory.

Perhaps the more open question is not only “Why did these cities disappear?” but “What did they leave behind?”

A city leaves more than buildings. It leaves patterns, technologies, images, roads, water systems, writing, objects, stories — and questions.

A vanished city may disappear twice: first from everyday life, and later from human memory. Archaeology and history can slow the second disappearance by making fragments visible again.

A ruin is not the city. But it is one of the ways the city can still speak.

中文
这四座城市并没有以同样的方式消失。特奥蒂瓦坎在城市生活结束后成为宏伟的历史记忆；钱昌保存了复杂夯土城市系统的痕迹；巴尔米拉记录了远距离文明交流；麦地那·扎赫拉则让我们看到，即使一座城市刚刚建成，也可能很快成为考古记忆。

也许，更开放的问题不仅是「它们为什么消失」，还包括：「它们留下了什么？」

城市留下的不只是建筑，还有制度痕迹、技术、图像、道路、水利系统、文字、器物、故事，以及问题。

一座消失的城市可能消失两次：第一次，是从现实生活中消失；第二次，是从人类记忆中消失。考古学与历史可以让那些碎片重新可见，从而让第二次消失来得慢一些。

遗址不是城市本身。但它是城市仍然能够说话的方式之一。

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Sources & Further Reading / 资料与延伸阅读

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编者按：本文为「消逝中的传统」板块的框架页面，四个案例分别代表了城市消失的四种形态：名字的遗失、系统的瓦解、交汇的代价、遗忘与重发现。内容将持续丰富与修订。
Editor’s Note: This is a framework page for the Vanishing Traditions section. The four cases represent four distinct modes of urban disappearance: the loss of a name, the collapse of a system, the cost of encounter, and forgetting followed by rediscovery. Content will be expanded and revised over time.