纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 015早期的写字板(4)

What's amazing for me is of course this is a society where the economy is in its first stages, there is no money, there is no currency.

这是一个经济处于最初级阶段的社会，没有钞票或其他通货。

So how do they get around that?

他们怎么办？

Well, the symbols tell us that they've used beer-beer glorious beer.

这些符号告诉我们，他们用啤酒来付款，

I think that's absolutely tremendous; no liquidity crisis here,they are coming up with a different way of getting around the problem of the absence of a currency and, at the same time, sorting out how to have a functioning state.

我想这非常伟大，不会出现清偿危机。他们找到了别的途径来解决没有货币的问题，同时也找出了运作国家的办法。

And, as this society develops, you can see that this will become more and more important.

随着社会的发展，这一方式会变得越来越有用。

And the ability to keep track, to write things down, which is a crucial element of the modern state-that we know how much money we're spending, and we know what we are getting for it-that is starting to emerge.

记录和书写的能力，这些现代国家的关键要素，开始逐渐出现。它能让你了解你花了多少钱,又换来了什么。

And this tablet for me is the first ever equivalent of the cabinet secretary's notebook-it's that important.

这块写字板对我来说就 相当于这世界上出现的第一本内阁秘书的记事本：它就有那么重要。

Writing confers such power, that it inevitably became the subject of magic and myth.

当文字进入全面发展，表音符号逐渐代替了象形文字，

A later Mesopotamian epic poem gives us one version of how it all began:

书记员的生活一定十分快乐。

Because the messenger's mouth was heavy and he couldn't repeat the message,the Lord of Kullab patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet. Until then, there had been no putting words on clay.

因为信使的嘴笨拙异常,他不能重复消息,耶和华就拍了一些粘土放了些单词在上面,就像这块写字板。在此之前,还没有人把单词放在粘土上。