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In Africa, the animals that dominate European cave paintings
欧洲壁画由动物主导 但在非洲
are accompanied by humans.
它们还有人类相伴
They appear as stylised, elongated figures.
他们以固定风格的 细长的形象出现
Sometimes they're shown while becoming transformed into beasts.
有的时候他们还以野兽化的形象出现
Men with the heads of antelopes,
长着羚羊头的人
creatures that could never have been observed from life,
这是生活中看不到的生物
but which arose from the trance-struck imagination of the shamans.
而是源自于萨满的迷幻想象
In the rock art of Africa, these hybrids were painted.
在非洲的岩画中 画着这些兽人
In Europe, where there were far fewer of them,
在欧洲 兽人形象相比非洲少很多
they went three-dimensional.
但他们变成了三维立体的
In 1939, the fragments of this lion-man,
1939年在德国的石洞中发现了
carved from mammoth ivory, were found in a German cave.
这个用猛犸象牙雕刻而成的狮人的碎片
They remained an unsolved puzzle for 30 years
它们成了一个三十年未解之谜
before archaeologists realised that they formed a single figure
直到考古学家发现它们拼在一起是一个人物形象
made between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago.
距今三万五千到四万年
This may be a shaman in the middle of a transformation.
这可能是一个正在变身的萨满
It may be the very first of the beast gods,
它可能是最早的兽神
around which Pagan religions would build their mythologies.
异教的神话就是围绕它们创造的
