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There were ceramic vessels and there were murals too.
有陶器 也有壁畫
And out of the Mayan delight in making pictures
瑪雅人以繪畫為樂 并由此發明了
developed a fully-fledged script.
一套非常成熟的文字體系
Writing made up of glyphs or word pictures.
用象形文字[文字圖片]來書寫
They were brushed onto paper made from wild fig tree bark,
然后畫到用野無花果樹樹皮制成的紙上
painted onto beautiful ceramic pottery
或是精美的陶器上
or, like this one, carved into limestone.
亦或是像這種 雕刻在石灰巖上
They were everywhere in Maya city states.
它們在瑪雅城邦中隨處可見
The Maya were the wordiest of all ancient cultures.
瑪雅文化是所有古代文化中最富文字表達的文化
So that this,
所以這個
which looks like something purely decorative, ornamental,
看起來像是單純的裝飾品
a bestiary with all these animals,
是一部包含所有這些動物的寓言集
there's a monkey,
這有一只猴子
there's a magnificently complacent frog,
這有一只洋洋自得的青蛙
there in the middle is an extremely scary killer rabbit,
在中間有一只非常可怕的殺手兔子
in fact, all these are words which make a text.
事實上 所有的這些都是表意文字
Each glyph is not a single word, but it's a syllable, in fact,
每個象形文字不是獨立的字詞 而是一個音節
and you put them together and you have a sentence, a paragraph.
把它們合在一起 就成為一個句子 一段話
