美国学生人类历史第26期:苏美尔人(1)

 　　Chapter 08

　　第八章

　　The Sumerians

　　苏美尔人

　　The Sumerian Nall Writers, Whose Clay Tablets Tell us the story of Assyria and Babylonia The Great Semitic Melting Pot

　　苏美尔人用刻在泥版上的楔形文字给我们讲述了闪米特人的大熔炉--亚述和巴比伦王国的故事

　　The fifteenth century was an age of great discoveries.

　　15世纪是一个地理大发现的世纪。

　　Columbus tried to find a way to the island of Kathay and stumbled¹ upon a new and unsuspected continent.

　　哥伦布想要找到一条通往香料群岛的水路，却意料之外地来到了美洲新大陆。

　　An Austrian bishop² equipped an expedition which was to travel eastward³ and find the home of the Grand Duke of Muscovy, a voyage which led to complete failure,

　　一位奥地利主教出资装备了一支探险队，向东方去探寻莫斯科大公的家园，却无功而返。

　　for Moscow was not visited by western men until a generation later.

　　直到一代人之后，西方人才首次造访了莫斯科。

　　Meanwhile a certain Venetian by the name of Barbero had explored the ruins of western Asia and had brought back reports of a most curious language

　　与此同时，一个名为巴贝罗的威尼斯人考察了西亚的古迹，并带回有关一种神秘文字的报告。

　　which he had found carved in the rocks of the temples of Shiraz and engraved⁴ upon endless pieces of baked clay.

　　这种神秘的文字有的刻在伊朗谢拉兹地区许多庙宇的石壁上，更多的是刻在无数烘干的泥版上。

　　But Europe was busy with many other things

　　不过，此时的欧洲正忙于许多别的事情。

　　and it was not until the end of the eighteenth century that the first "cuneiform inscriptions⁵" (socalled because the letters were wedge⁶-shaped and wedge is called "Cuneus"in Latin) were brought to Europe by a Danish surveyor, named Niebuhr.

　　直到18世纪末，第一批"楔形文字"泥版（所以如此称呼，是因为该文字的字母呈楔状）才由一个叫尼布尔的丹麦勘测员带回欧洲。

　　Then it took thirty years before a patient German school-master by the name of Grotefend had deciphered the first four letters, the D, the A, the R and the SH, the name of the Persian King Darius.

　　极富耐心的德国教师格罗特芬德花了30年时间，破译了前面的四个字母，分别是d，a，r及sh，合起来正是波斯国王大流士的名字。

1 stumbled   

v.（不顺畅地）说( stumble的过去式和过去分词 )；跌跌撞撞地走；绊脚；（说话、演奏等）出错

参考例句：

• I stumbled and sprained my ankle. 我摔了一跤，把脚脖子扭了。
• The child stumbled and fell. 孩子绊了一下，摔倒了。

2 bishop   

n.主教，（国际象棋）象

参考例句：

• He was a bishop who was held in reverence by all.他是一位被大家都尊敬的主教。
• Two years after his death the bishop was canonised.主教逝世两年后被正式封为圣者。

3 eastward   

adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部

参考例句：

• The river here tends eastward.这条河从这里向东流。
• The crowd is heading eastward,believing that they can find gold there.人群正在向东移去，他们认为在那里可以找到黄金。

4 engraved   

v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中）

参考例句：

• The silver cup was engraved with his name. 银杯上刻有他的名字。
• It was prettily engraved with flowers on the back. 此件雕刻精美，背面有花饰图案。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 inscriptions   

（作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记

参考例句：

• Centuries of wind and rain had worn away the inscriptions on the gravestones. 几个世纪的风雨已磨损了墓碑上的碑文。
• The inscriptions on the stone tablet have become blurred with the passage of time. 年代久了，石碑上的字迹已经模糊了。

6 wedge   

n.楔子，楔形物；vt.楔住，嵌，挤进；vi.被卡住

参考例句：

• Put a wedge under the door so that it will stay open.在门下面插个楔，好让门开着。
• The box won't wedge into such a narrow space.那盒无法塞进那么小的地方去。