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And another twenty years had to go by until a British officer, Henry Rawlinson, who found the famous inscription of Behistun, gave us a workable key to the nail-writing of western Asia.
又過了20年，英國官員羅林森發(fā)現(xiàn)了著名的貝希通巖壁換形文字，這才為我們打開了譯解這種西亞文字的大門。
Compared to the problem of deciphering these nail-writings, the job of Champollion had been an easy one.
與破譯楔形文字的難題相比，商博良的工作還算是輕松的。
The Egyptians used pictures. But the Sumerians, the earliest inhabitants of Mesopotamia, who had hit upon the idea of scratching their words in tablets of clay,
古埃及人至少運(yùn)用了圖像。可美索不達(dá)米亞最早的居民蘇美爾人，他們想出了把文字刻在泥版上的主意，
had discarded pictures entirely and had evolved a system of V-shaped figures which showed little connection with the pictures out of which they had been developed.
決定完全放棄象形文字的路子，逐漸發(fā)展出一種全新的v形文字系統(tǒng)。相較之下，你很難看出它與象形文字之間有任何聯(lián)系。
A few examples will show you what I mean.
我舉幾個簡單的例子，你就能明白我說的意思。
In the beginning a star, when drawn with a nail into a brick looked as follows:
最初，將一顆"星星"用釘子刻在磚上，它的形狀如下：
(Here is a picture of a star)This sign however was too cumbersome
不過，這個圖案太繁瑣了。
and after a short while when the meaning of "heaven" was added to that of star the picture was simplified in this way which made it even more of a puzzle.
不久之后，當(dāng)把"天空"的意思加在"星星"上時，該圖案便被簡化成：它當(dāng)然更難讓人看明白了。
In the same way an ox changed from (here you see a small picture of a ox's head) into(here is another picture ,it is several lines and trangiles)
同樣，一頭牛的寫法從(這兒你能看到一張畫著一個牛腦子的小圖片）變?yōu)椋ㄒ粡埉嬛鴰讞l線和三角形的圖片），
and a fish changed from(here is a picture of a fish) into(here is a picture with small lines and trangils representing a fish).
一條魚從變成（一張畫著幾條線和幾個三角形的圖片，它們代表著魚）。
