考古学家赵康民：修复兵马俑第一人
据中国官方新闻媒体报道，曾通过拼合农民发现的陶片修复兵马俑的考古学家赵康民去世，享年81岁。这种真人大小的陶俑已经成为中国最著名的古代奇迹之一。
Mr. Zhao died of an unspecified illness on May 16, the state news media reported. His granddaughter, who declined to give her name, confirmed the death on Tuesday.
该媒体报道称赵康民于5月16日病逝，没有具体说明是什么疾病。周二，他的孙女证实了他的死讯，但她本人拒绝透露姓名。
The thousands of warriors were made more than 2,000 years ago and buried at the vast underground tomb complex of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, along with models of horses, weapons, chariots and other objects.
两千多年前，成千上万个兵马俑制成后埋葬在中国第一个皇帝秦始皇的地下陵墓中，一同埋葬的还有战马、武器和战车等物品的模型。
Qin Shi Huang had united much of the country under the short-lived Qin dynasty, which is generally considered the origin of the name “China.” The warriors’ job was to defend him in the afterlife.
在短暂的秦代，秦始皇统一了中国的大部分地区。人们通常认为，“秦”是China这个名字的起源。兵马俑的任务是在秦始皇死后保护他。
Several thousand of the terra-cotta warriors are now on display in giant pits — the largest the size of an aircraft hangar — at the partly excavated tomb complex, which lies at the site of the Qin dynasty’s ancient capital, Xianyang, about 22 miles east of present-day Xi’an. Many others remain buried around the complex.
在秦朝都城咸阳(今西安以东约22英里)部分发掘的陵墓中，数千个兵马俑在巨大的坑中展出，其中最大的坑与飞机库面积相当。还有很多仍被埋在陵墓周围的地下。
The complex, which was designed as a subterranean mirror of Xianyang, was named a Unesco World Heritage site in 1987.
整个陵墓综合体是咸阳的地下翻版，1987年，它被联合国教科文组织(Unesco)列为世界文化遗产。
Mr. Zhao was not the first person to see the pottery fragments, nor did he order the partial excavation of the complex, which became a national treasure.
赵康民并不是第一个看到陶器碎片的人，对这座后来成为国宝的陵墓进行部分发掘，也不是他的决定。
Yet decades later he was still signing his name with a grand title: “Zhao Kangmin, the first discoverer, restorer, appreciator, name-giver and excavator of the terra-cotta warriors.”
但几十年后，他依然骄傲地带着这样的头衔：“赵康民，率先鉴定、修复、命名和试掘兵马俑的人。”
Qi Xiaodong, the office director at the Xi’an Museum, said that Mr. Zhao’s work had a significant impact in China and beyond. 西安博物院的办公室主任齐晓东表示，赵康民的工作在中国乃至全世界产生了重大影响。
“It’s a great loss for us to lose a hard-working and responsible archaeologist like him,” Mr. Qi said.
“失去赵康民这样一位认真负责、努力工作的考古学家是我们的损失，”他说。
The statues were uncovered in 1974, when a group of farmers in Lintong County hit a hard patch in the red earth while digging a well, according to a 2009 account in the state-run newspaper China Daily.
据中国官方报纸《中国日报》2009年的一篇报道称，这些塑像是1974年发现的，当时，临潼县的一群农民在挖井时在红土中砸到一块硬硬的东西。
One of the farmers, Yang Zhifa, recalled finding a warrior’s head, which was mistaken for a jar.
其中一位农民杨志发(音)回忆称，他发现了一个兵马俑的头，以为那是一个罐子。
“Another villager asked me to dig gently so he could take the ‘jar’ home to use as a container,” Mr. Yang told China Daily. “Then we dug out the body, which was like a statue in a temple.”
“另一个村民让我小心点挖，他好把‘罐子’拿回家装东西用，”杨志发在接受《中国日报》采访时称，“然后，我们挖出了身体，就跟庙里的神像一样。”
Mr. Zhao, a local cultural official, rushed to the scene and had the pieces collected and taken to a local museum. He began reconstructing heads, torsos, arms and legs from the fragments, including pieces as small as a fingernail.
赵康民当时是当地的一名文化官员，他迅速赶到现场，把那些碎片收集了起来，送到了当地的一个博物馆。他开始用碎片修复头部、躯干、手臂和腿，包括指甲大小的碎片。
Soon the warriors were standing before him: life-size, armored and with half-clenched fists.
很快，兵马俑的形象出现在了他的面前：真人大小，穿着盔甲，拳头半握。
“My discovery marked the beginning of the enormous excavation project of the underground army,” Mr. Zhao wrote in a 2014 essay.
“我的发现拉开了发掘这个庞大的地下军阵的序幕，”赵康民在2014年的一篇文章中写道。
Zhao Kangmin was born in July 1936, his granddaughter said in a message on Sina Weibo, a site that is similar to Twitter. The state news media reported that he worked as an archaeologist for more than 40 years, but further details about his family and career were scarce.
赵康民的孙女在新浪微博上称，赵康民生于1936年7月。中国官方新闻媒体报道称，他从事考古工作40余年，但关于他的家庭和事业的细节却很少。
When Mr. Zhao and his colleagues arrived at the tomb complex in 1974, he wrote, some villagers had already taken pieces home as trophies. Children were tossing other fragments around like toys.
赵康民写道，1974年，他和同事们到达这个陵墓建筑群时，一些村民已经把脆片拿回家当战利品了。孩子们把碎片当成玩具四处乱丢。
At the time, Mr. Zhao wrote, he feared that reporting the restoration project to the central government could put him in the cross-hairs of a Cultural Revolution-era campaign to wipe out the “Four Olds”: ideas, customs, culture and habits. That campaign resulted in the widespread destruction of historical sites.
赵康民写道，当时，他担心向中央政府报告修复项目可能会让他成为文化大革命时期除“四旧”运动的焦点：“四旧”包括旧思想、旧风俗、旧文化和旧习惯。那场运动导致了历史遗址被大面积破坏。
But a few months later, a journalist from a state news agency heard about the discovery while vacationing in Xi’an. The journalist described the find in an article, which caught the attention of a top official in Beijing. Soon a formal excavation was underway.
但几个月后，中国官方新闻机构的一名记者在西安度假时听说了这个发现。这名记者在一篇文章中描述了这个发现，引起了北京一位高级官员的注意。很快，正式的挖掘工作开始了。
In 2003, three of the farmers who had found the statue fragments asked the museum authorities for a certificate that officially declared them the discoverers of the terra-cotta army. It didn’t happen, China Daily reported in 2009.
2003年，发现雕像碎片的三位农民向该博物馆当局索要一份正式证书，证明他们是兵马俑发现者。《中国日报》2009年报道称，他们未能如愿。
Mr. Zhao told the newspaper that “seeing doesn’t mean discovering.”
赵康民在接受该报采访时表示，“看见不等于发现。”
“What they want is money,” he said.
“他们就是想要钱，”他说。
The warriors have become a major draw for international tourists, and some are lent out for exhibitions around the world, including a recent one at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
兵马俑已成为吸引国际游客的一项主要遗迹，有些还被租借到世界各地展览，包括最近在费城富兰克林学院(Franklin Institute)举办的展览。
In February, an American man was charged with vandalizing one of the warriors on display at the Franklin Institute. An affidavit by an agent assigned to the F.B.I.’s art crime team said that the man broke off a thumb after putting his arm around the warrior and snapping a selfie.
今年2月，一名美国男子被指控在富兰克林学院的展览上故意破坏了一个兵马俑。联邦调查局(FBI)艺术犯罪团队的一名特工在书面陈述中表示，这名男子用胳膊搂着兵马俑自拍时，弄断了兵马俑的一个大拇指。
That statue alone is valued at $4.5 million.
单是那一座雕像就价值450万美元。
