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Without written documents we would be like cats and dogs, who can only teach their kittens and their puppies a few simple things
如果沒有文字記錄的文獻(xiàn)，人類便會像貓狗一樣。貓狗只能教下一代一些簡單的東西，
and who, because they cannot write, possess no way in which they can make use of the experience of those generations of cats and dogs that have gone before.
因為它們沒有掌握一種方選，能把前面一代代貓狗的經(jīng)驗保存下來，全部傳給下一代。
In the first century before our era, when the Romans came to Egypt, they found the valley full of strange little pictures which seemed to have something to do with the history of the country.
公元前1世紀(jì)，古羅馬人來到埃及。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)整個尼羅河谷遍布一種奇怪的小圖案，它似乎和這個國家的歷史有關(guān)。
But the Romans were not interested in "anything foreign"
可羅馬人對任何“外國的”東西都不感興趣，
and did not inquire into the origin of these queer figures which covered the walls of the temples and the walls of the palaces and endless reams of flat sheets made out of the papyrus reed.
也就沒對這些雕刻在神廟和宮殿墻上，或是描畫在無數(shù)紙莎草紙上的奇怪圖案刨根究底。
The last of the Egyptian priests who had understood the holy art of making such pictures had died several years before.
最后一個懂得這種神圣宗教藝術(shù)的埃及祭師，在好幾年前就已經(jīng)死去。
Egypt deprived of its independence had become a store-house filled with important historical documents which no one could decipher and which were of no earthly use to either man or beast.
失去獨立的埃及此時就仿佛是一個充斥著重要歷史記錄的大倉庫，沒有人能夠破譯，也沒人想去破譯。因為它們對人或獸都沒有任何塵世的價值。
Seventeen centuries went by and Egypt remained a land of mystery.
1700多年過去了，埃及依然是一片神秘的國土。
But in the year 1798 a French general by the name of Bonaparte happened to visit eastern Africa to prepare for an attack upon the British Indian Colonies.
到1789年，一位姓波拿巴的法國將軍正好率部路過東非，
He did not get beyond the Nile, and his campaign was a failure.
準(zhǔn)備對英屬印度殖民地發(fā)動進(jìn)攻。他還沒能越過尼羅河，戰(zhàn)役失敗了。
But, quite accidentally, the famous French expedition solved the problem of the ancient Egyptian picture-language.
不過很湊巧的是，法國人這次著名的遠(yuǎn)征卻無意之中解決了古埃及圖像文字的難題。
One day a young French officer, much bored by the dreary life of his little fortress on the Rosetta river (a mouth of the Nile) decided to spend a few idle hours rummaging among the ruins of the Nile Delta.
一天，一位年輕的法國軍官，厭倦了羅塞塔河邊（尼羅河口）窄小城堡里的單調(diào)生活，決定到尼羅河三角洲的古廢墟去溜達(dá)一番，翻檢古文物。
And behold! he found a stone which greatly puzzled him. Like everything else in Egypt it was covered with little figures.
就這樣，他找到了一塊讓他迷惑不解的石頭。像埃及的其它東西一樣，它上面刻有許多小圖像。
