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But this particular slab of black basalt was different from anything that had ever been discovered.
與此前發現的別的物件不同的是，這塊特別的黑玄武巖石板
It carried three inscriptions. One of these was in Greek. The Greek language was known.
上面刻有三種文字的碑文，其中之一是人們知道的希臘文。
"All that is necessary," so he reasoned, "is to compare the Greek text with the Egyptian figures, and they will at once tell their secrets."
“只要把希臘文的意思和埃及圖像加以比較，””他推論道，“馬上就能揭開這些埃及小圖像的秘密?！?/div>
The plan sounded simple enough but it took more than twenty years to solve the riddle.
這辦祛聽起來簡單，可要完全揭開這個謎底，是20年過后的事情。
In the year 1802 a French professor by the name of Champollion began to compare the Greek and the Egyptian texts of the famous Rosetta stone.
1802年，一位叫商博良的法國教授開始對著名的羅塞塔石碑上的希臘和埃及文字進行比較。
In the year 1823 he announced that he had discovered the meaning of fourteen little figures.
到 1823年，他宣布自己破譯了石碑上14個小圖像的含義。
A short time later he died from overwork, but the main principles of Egyptian writing had become known.
不久，商搏良因為勞累過度而死，可埃及文字的主要法則此時已大白于天下了。
Today the story of the valley of the Nile is better known to us than the story of the Mississippi River.
今天，我們了解的尼羅河流域的歷史要比密西西比河的清楚得多，
We possess a written record which covers four thousand years of chronicled history.
因為我們擁有了整整4000年的文字記錄。
As the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics (the word means "sacred writing") have played such a very great role in history,
古埃及的象形文字（這個字眼的原義為“神圣的書寫”）在歷史上扮演了一個異常重要的角色，
a few of them in modified form have even found their way into our own alphabet,
其中幾個字歷經變動還融入了我們現代的字母中。
you ought to know something about the ingenious system which was used fifty centuries ago to preserve the spoken word for the benefit of the coming generations.
所以，你應該稍微了解一下這個5000年前使用的極富天才的文字體系，
Of course, you know what a sign language is.
要知道，是它首次為后人保留了前人說過的口語。
Every Indian story of our western plains has a chapter devoted to strange messages written in the form of little pictures
當然，你是知道圖像語言的。我們西方流傳的每一個印地安故事都有專門的一章，用以介紹印地安人使用的奇怪小圖案。
which tell how many buffaloes were killed and how many hunters there were in a certain party.
它們傳遞著諸如有多少野牛被殺或者有多少獵手參加某一次圍獵之類的信息。
As a rule it is not difficult to understand the meaning of such messages.
一般來說，理解這些信息是不難的。
Ancient Egyptian, however, was not a sign language.
不過，古埃及文字可不是簡單的圖像語言。
The clever people of the Nile had passed beyond that stage long before.
尼羅河畔的人民早就聰明地跨越了這一原始的階段。
Their pictures meant a great deal more than the object which they represented, as I shall try to explain to you now.
他們的小圖像代表著比圖案本身更多的意思?，F在，我將試著給你們解釋一下。
