如果没有文字记录的文献，人类便会像猫狗一样。猫狗只能教下一代一些简单的东西，

　　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.

　　因为它们没有掌握一种方选，能把前面一代代猫狗的经验保存下来，全部传给下一代。

　　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世纪，古罗马人来到埃及。他们发现整个尼罗河谷遍布一种奇怪的小图案，它似乎和这个国家的历史有关。

　　But the Romans were not interested in "anything foreign"

　　可罗马人对任何“外国的”东西都不感兴趣，

　　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.

　　也就没对这些雕刻在神庙和宫殿墙上，或是描画在无数纸莎草纸上的奇怪图案刨根究底。

　　The last of the Egyptian priests who had understood the holy art of making such pictures had died several years before.

　　最后一个懂得这种神圣宗教艺术的埃及祭师，在好几年前就已经死去。

　　Egypt deprived of its independence had become a store-house filled with important historical documents which no one could decipher and which were of no earthly use to either man or beast.

　　失去独立的埃及此时就仿佛是一个充斥着重要历史记录的大仓库，没有人能够破译，也没人想去破译。因为它们对人或兽都没有任何尘世的价值。

　　Seventeen centuries went by and Egypt remained a land of mystery.

　　1700多年过去了，埃及依然是一片神秘的国土。

　　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，一位姓波拿巴的法国将军正好率部路过东非，

　　He did not get beyond the Nile, and his campaign was a failure.

　　准备对英属印度殖民地发动进攻。他还没能越过尼罗河，战役失败了。

　　But, quite accidentally, the famous French expedition solved the problem of the ancient Egyptian picture-language.

　　不过很凑巧的是，法国人这次著名的远征却无意之中解决了古埃及图像文字的难题。

　　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，一位年轻的法国军官，厌倦了罗塞塔河边（尼罗河口）窄小城堡里的单调生活，决定到尼罗河三角洲的古废墟去溜达一番，翻检古文物。

　　And behold! he found a stone which greatly puzzled him. Like everything else in Egypt it was covered with little figures.

　　就这样，他找到了一块让他迷惑不解的石头。像埃及的其它东西一样，它上面刻有许多小图像。