After several hundred years, the Egyptians lost sight of both these meanings and the picture. 经过了几百年，古埃及人把这两种意义都扔掉了， Here is a picture of a litttle man with a saw, came to stand for a single letter, the let...
Suppose that you were Champollion, and that you were examining a stack of papyrus sheets, all covered with hieroglyphics. 设想你就是商博良，你正在检视着一叠写满了古埃及象形文字的纸莎草纸。 Suddenly you came across a p...
But this particular slab of black basalt was different from anything that had ever been discovered. 与此前发现的别的物件不同的是，这块特别的黑玄武岩石板 It carried three inscriptions. One of these was in Greek. The Greek lan...
Without written documents we would be like cats and dogs, who can only teach their kittens and their puppies a few simple things 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 wh...
Chapter 4 第四章 Hieroglyphics 象形文字 These earliest ancestors of ours who lived in the great European wilderness were rapidly learning many new things. 我们这些最早的祖先生活在欧洲的荒野上，他们迅速学习着许多新事...
Next came the housing problem. 接下来是解决住房的问题。 This was simple. Many animals were in the habit of sleeping in dark caves. 这很简单。许多动物都有睡黑乎乎的山洞的习性。 Man now followed their example, drove th...
When they tried to stay more than a few days there was a terrible battle with claw-like hands and feet and whole families were killed. 当过了几天他们还赖着不走，于是一场可怕的战斗发生了。人们相互撕咬，发疯般地肉搏...
Chapter 3 第三章 Prehistoric man 史前人类 Prehistoric man begins to make things for himself. 史前人类开始为自己制造工具 Early man did not know what time meant. 早期的人类不懂得时间的含义， He kept no records of birth...
In due time he learned that he could use this guttural noise to warn his fellow beings whenever danger threatened and he gave certain little shrieks which came to mean there is a tiger! or here come five elephants. 日子长了，他突然意识到，可...
Once in a while, after a long and patient chase, he would catch a sparrow or a small wild dog or perhaps a rabbit. 运气不错时，经一番漫长而耐心的追逐，他能抓到一只松鼠、小野狗或老鼠什么的，开开荤。 These he wo...
