章节正文
文章总共2页
human race.
The Egyptians have taught us many things. They were
excellent farmers. They knew all about irrigation. They built
temples which were afterwards copied by the Greeks and which
served as the earliest models for the churches in which we worship
nowadays. They had invented a calendar which proved
such a useful instrument for the purpose of measuring time
that it has survived with a few changes until today. But most
important of all, the Egyptians had learned how to preserve
speech for the benefit of future generations. They had invented
the art of writing.
We are so accustomed to newspapers and books and magazines
that we take it for granted that the world has always been
able to read and write. As a matter of fact, writing, the most
important of all inventions, is quite new. Without written
documents we would be like cats and dogs, who can only teach
their kittens and their puppies a few simple things 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.
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. But the Romans were not interested in ``anything
foreign'' 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. The last of the Egyptian priests who had
understood the holy art of making such pictures had died several
years before. 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become a store-house filled with important historical documents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.
Seventeen centuries went by and Egypt remained a land
of mystery. 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. He did
not get beyond the Nile, and his campaign was a failure. But,
quite accidentally, the famous French expedition solved the
problem of the ancient Egyptian picture-language.
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. And behold! he found a stone
which greatly puzzled him. Like everything else in Egypt
it was covered with little figures. But this particular slab of
black basalt was different from anything that had ever been
discovered. It carried three inscriptions. One of these was
in Greek. The Greek language was known. ``All that is
necessary,'' so he reasoned, ``is to compare the Greek text with
the Egyptian figures, and they will at once tell their secrets.''
The plan sounded simple enough but it took more than
twenty years to solve the riddle. In the year 1802 a French
professor by the name of Champollion began to compare the
Greek and the Egyptian texts of the famous Rosetta stone. In
the year 1823 he announced that he had discovered the meaning
of fourteen little figures. A short time later he died from
overwork, but the main principles of Egyptian writing had
become known. Today the story of the valley of the Nile is
better known to us than the story of the Mississippi River.
We possess a written record which covers four thousand years
of chronicled history.
As the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics (the word means
``sacred writing'') have played such a very great role in
history, (a few of them in modified form have even found their
way into our own alphabet,) you ought to know something
about the ingenioussystem which was used fifty centuries ago
to preserve the spoken word for the benefit of the coming
generations.
Of course, you know what a sign language is. Every
Indian story of our western plains has a chapter devoted to
strange messages writter{sic} in the form of little pictures which
tell how many buffaloes were killed and how many hunters
there were in a certain party. As a rule it is not difficult to
understand the meaning of such messages.
Ancient Egyptian, however, was not a sign language. The
clever people of the Nile had passed beyond that stage long
before. Their pictures meant a great deal more than the object
which they represented, as I shall try to explain to you now.
Suppose that you were Champollion, and that you were
examining a stack of papyrus sheets, all covered with hieroglyphics.
Suddenly you came across a picture of a man with
a saw. ``Very well,'' you would say, ``that means of course that
a farmer went out to cut down a tree.'' Then you take another
papyrus. It tells the story of a queen who had died at the age
of eighty-two. In the midst of a sentence appears the picture
of the man with the saw. Queens of eighty-two do not handle
saws. The picture therefore must mean something else. But
what?
That is the riddle which the Frenchman finally solved.
He discovered that the Egyptians were the first to use what
we now call ``phonetic writing''--a system of characters which
reproduce the ``sound'' (or phone) of the spoken word and
which make it possible for us to translate all our spoken words
into a written form, with the help of only a few dots and dashes
and pothooks.
Let us return for a moment to the little fellow with the saw.
The word ``saw'' either means a certain tool which you will find
in a carpenter's shop, or it means the past tense of the verb
``to see.''
This is what had happened to the word during the course
of centuries. First of all it had meant only the particular tool
which it represented. Then that meaning had been lost and it
had become the past participle of a verb. After several hundred
years, the Egyptians lost sight of both these meanings and
the picture {illust.} came to stand for a single letter, the
letter S. A short sentence will show you what I mean. Here
is a modern English sentence as it would have been written in
hieroglyphics. {illust.}
The {illust.} either means one of these two round objects
in your head, which allow you to see or it means ``I,'' the person
who is talking.
A {illust.} is either an insect which gathers honey, or it
represents the verb ``to be'' which means to exist. Again, it
may be the first part of a verb like ``be-come'' or ``be-have.''
In this particular instance it is followed by {illust.} which
means a ``leaf'' or ``leave'' or ``lieve'' (the sound of all three
words is the same).
The ``eye'' you know all about.
Finally you get the picture of a {illust.}. It is a giraffe
It is part of the old sign-language out of which the hieroglyphics
developed.
You can now read that sentence without much difficulty.
``I believe I saw a giraffe.''
Having invented this system the Egyptians developed it
during thousands of years until they could write anything they
wanted, and they used these ``canned words'' to send messages
to friends, to keep business accounts and to keep a record of the
history of their country, that future generations might benefit
by the mistakes of the past.
THE NILE VALLEY
THE BEGINNING OF CIVILISATION IN THE
VALLEY OF THE NILE
THE history of man is the record of a hungry creature in
search of food. Wherever food was plentiful, thither man has
travelled to make his home.
The fame of the Valley of the Nile must have spread at
an early date. From the interior of Africa and from the desert
of Arabia and from the western part of Asia people had
flocked to Egypt to claim their share of the rich farms.
Together these invaders had formed a new race which called
itself ``Remi'' or ``the Men'' just as we sometimes call America
``God's own country.'' They had good reason to be grateful
to a Fate which had carried them to this narrow strip of land.
In the summer of each year the Nile turned the valley into a
shallow lake and when the waters receded all the grainfields
and the pastures were covered with several inches of the most
fertile clay.
In Egypt a kindly river did the work of a million men and
made it possible to feed the teeming population of the first
large cities of which we have any record. It is true that all
the arable land was not in the valley. But a complicated
system of small canals and well-sweeps carried water from
the river-level to the top of the highest banks and an even
more intricatesystem of irrigation trenches spread it throughout
the land.
While man of the prehistoric age had been obliged to spend
sixteen hours out of every twenty-four gathering food for himself
and the members of his tribe, the Egyptian peasant or the
inhabitant of the Egyptian city found himself possessed of a
certain leisure. He used this spare time to make himself many
things that were merely ornamental and not in the least bit
useful.
More than that. One day he discovered that his brain was
capable of thinking all kinds of thoughts which had nothing
to do with the problems of eating and sleeping and finding a
home for the children. The Egyptian began to speculate upon
many strange problems that confronted him. Where did the
The Egyptians have taught us many things. They were
excellent farmers. They knew all about irrigation. They built
temples which were afterwards copied by the Greeks and which
served as the earliest models for the churches in which we worship
nowadays. They had invented a calendar which proved
such a useful instrument for the purpose of measuring time
that it has survived with a few changes until today. But most
important of all, the Egyptians had learned how to preserve
speech for the benefit of future generations. They had invented
the art of writing.
We are so accustomed to newspapers and books and magazines
that we take it for granted that the world has always been
able to read and write. As a matter of fact, writing, the most
important of all inventions, is quite new. Without written
documents we would be like cats and dogs, who can only teach
their kittens and their puppies a few simple things 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.
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. But the Romans were not interested in ``anything
foreign'' 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. The last of the Egyptian priests who had
understood the holy art of making such pictures had died several
years before. 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.
Seventeen centuries went by and Egypt remained a land
of mystery. 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. He did
not get beyond the Nile, and his campaign was a failure. But,
quite accidentally, the famous French expedition solved the
problem of the ancient Egyptian picture-language.
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. And behold! he found a stone
which greatly puzzled him. Like everything else in Egypt
it was covered with little figures. But this particular slab of
black basalt was different from anything that had ever been
discovered. It carried three inscriptions. One of these was
in Greek. The Greek language was known. ``All that is
necessary,'' so he reasoned, ``is to compare the Greek text with
the Egyptian figures, and they will at once tell their secrets.''
The plan sounded simple enough but it took more than
twenty years to solve the riddle. In the year 1802 a French
professor by the name of Champollion began to compare the
Greek and the Egyptian texts of the famous Rosetta stone. In
the year 1823 he announced that he had discovered the meaning
of fourteen little figures. A short time later he died from
overwork, but the main principles of Egyptian writing had
become known. Today the story of the valley of the Nile is
better known to us than the story of the Mississippi River.
We possess a written record which covers four thousand years
of chronicled history.
As the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics (the word means
``sacred writing'') have played such a very great role in
history, (a few of them in modified form have even found their
way into our own alphabet,) you ought to know something
about the ingenioussystem which was used fifty centuries ago
to preserve the spoken word for the benefit of the coming
generations.
Of course, you know what a sign language is. Every
Indian story of our western plains has a chapter devoted to
strange messages writter{sic} in the form of little pictures which
tell how many buffaloes were killed and how many hunters
there were in a certain party. As a rule it is not difficult to
understand the meaning of such messages.
Ancient Egyptian, however, was not a sign language. The
clever people of the Nile had passed beyond that stage long
before. Their pictures meant a great deal more than the object
which they represented, as I shall try to explain to you now.
Suppose that you were Champollion, and that you were
examining a stack of papyrus sheets, all covered with hieroglyphics.
Suddenly you came across a picture of a man with
a saw. ``Very well,'' you would say, ``that means of course that
a farmer went out to cut down a tree.'' Then you take another
papyrus. It tells the story of a queen who had died at the age
of eighty-two. In the midst of a sentence appears the picture
of the man with the saw. Queens of eighty-two do not handle
saws. The picture therefore must mean something else. But
what?
That is the riddle which the Frenchman finally solved.
He discovered that the Egyptians were the first to use what
we now call ``phonetic writing''--a system of characters which
reproduce the ``sound'' (or phone) of the spoken word and
which make it possible for us to translate all our spoken words
into a written form, with the help of only a few dots and dashes
and pothooks.
Let us return for a moment to the little fellow with the saw.
The word ``saw'' either means a certain tool which you will find
in a carpenter's shop, or it means the past tense of the verb
``to see.''
This is what had happened to the word during the course
of centuries. First of all it had meant only the particular tool
which it represented. Then that meaning had been lost and it
had become the past participle of a verb. After several hundred
years, the Egyptians lost sight of both these meanings and
the picture {illust.} came to stand for a single letter, the
letter S. A short sentence will show you what I mean. Here
is a modern English sentence as it would have been written in
hieroglyphics. {illust.}
The {illust.} either means one of these two round objects
in your head, which allow you to see or it means ``I,'' the person
who is talking.
A {illust.} is either an insect which gathers honey, or it
represents the verb ``to be'' which means to exist. Again, it
may be the first part of a verb like ``be-come'' or ``be-have.''
In this particular instance it is followed by {illust.} which
means a ``leaf'' or ``leave'' or ``lieve'' (the sound of all three
words is the same).
The ``eye'' you know all about.
Finally you get the picture of a {illust.}. It is a giraffe
It is part of the old sign-language out of which the hieroglyphics
developed.
You can now read that sentence without much difficulty.
``I believe I saw a giraffe.''
Having invented this system the Egyptians developed it
during thousands of years until they could write anything they
wanted, and they used these ``canned words'' to send messages
to friends, to keep business accounts and to keep a record of the
history of their country, that future generations might benefit
by the mistakes of the past.
THE NILE VALLEY
THE BEGINNING OF CIVILISATION IN THE
VALLEY OF THE NILE
THE history of man is the record of a hungry creature in
search of food. Wherever food was plentiful, thither man has
travelled to make his home.
The fame of the Valley of the Nile must have spread at
an early date. From the interior of Africa and from the desert
of Arabia and from the western part of Asia people had
flocked to Egypt to claim their share of the rich farms.
Together these invaders had formed a new race which called
itself ``Remi'' or ``the Men'' just as we sometimes call America
``God's own country.'' They had good reason to be grateful
to a Fate which had carried them to this narrow strip of land.
In the summer of each year the Nile turned the valley into a
shallow lake and when the waters receded all the grainfields
and the pastures were covered with several inches of the most
fertile clay.
In Egypt a kindly river did the work of a million men and
made it possible to feed the teeming population of the first
large cities of which we have any record. It is true that all
the arable land was not in the valley. But a complicated
system of small canals and well-sweeps carried water from
the river-level to the top of the highest banks and an even
more intricatesystem of irrigation trenches spread it throughout
the land.
While man of the prehistoric age had been obliged to spend
sixteen hours out of every twenty-four gathering food for himself
and the members of his tribe, the Egyptian peasant or the
inhabitant of the Egyptian city found himself possessed of a
certain leisure. He used this spare time to make himself many
things that were merely ornamental and not in the least bit
useful.
More than that. One day he discovered that his brain was
capable of thinking all kinds of thoughts which had nothing
to do with the problems of eating and sleeping and finding a
home for the children. The Egyptian began to speculate upon
many strange problems that confronted him. Where did the
- climate [´klaimit]
n.气候；特殊气候地带 (初中英语单词) - whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- unlike [,ʌn´laik] a.不同的 prep.不象… (初中英语单词)
- female [´fi:meil] a.女(性)的 n.女人 (初中英语单词)
- survive [sə´vaiv] vt.幸存；残存 (初中英语单词)
- procession [prə´seʃən] n.队伍 v.列队行进 (初中英语单词)
- ability [ə´biliti] n.(办事)能力；才干 (初中英语单词)
- monkey [´mʌŋki] n.猴子 v.乱弄；胡闹 (初中英语单词)
- hunter [´hʌntə] n.猎人；猎狗；猎马 (初中英语单词)
- coarse [kɔ:s] a.粗(糙)的；粗鲁的 (初中英语单词)
- forehead [´fɔrid] n.额，前部 (初中英语单词)
- hunger [´hʌŋgə] n.饥饿；渴望 (初中英语单词)
- sparrow [´spærəu] n.麻雀 (初中英语单词)
- primitive [´primitiv] a.原始的 n.原始人 (初中英语单词)
- freeze [fri:z] v.结冰；凝固；冷淡 (初中英语单词)
- whenever [wen´evə] conj.&ad.无论何时 (初中英语单词)
- origin [´ɔridʒin] n.起源；由来；出身 (初中英语单词)
- wedding [´wediŋ] n.婚礼，结婚 (初中英语单词)
- unusual [ʌn´ju:ʒuəl] a.不平常的；异常的 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- underneath [,ʌndə´ni:θ] ad.&prep.在底下 (初中英语单词)
- valley [´væli] n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词)
- sleeping [´sli:piŋ] n.&a.睡着(的) (初中英语单词)
- severe [si´viə] a.严厉的；苛刻的 (初中英语单词)
- invent [in´vent] vt.发明；捏造 (初中英语单词)
- wilderness [´wildənis] n.荒地，荒野 (初中英语单词)
- learning [´lə:niŋ] n.学习；学问；知识 (初中英语单词)
- european [juərə´pi:ən] a.欧洲的 n.欧洲人 (初中英语单词)
- continent [´kɔntinənt] n.大陆，陆地 (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- instrument [´instrumənt] n.仪器；手段；乐器 (初中英语单词)
- writing [´raitiŋ] n.书写；写作；书法 (初中英语单词)
- egyptian [i´dʒipʃən] n.埃及人a.埃及的 (初中英语单词)
- independence [,indi´pendəns] n.独立，自主，自立 (初中英语单词)
- mystery [´mistəri] n.神秘；秘密；故弄玄虚 (初中英语单词)
- indian [´indiən] a.印度的 n.印度人 (初中英语单词)
- failure [´feiljə] n.失败；衰竭；破产 (初中英语单词)
- expedition [,ekspi´diʃən] n.远征；探险；迅速 (初中英语单词)
- mississippi [,misi´sipi] n.密西西比(河) (初中英语单词)
- system [´sistəm] n.系统，体系，制度 (初中英语单词)
- preserve [pri´zə:v] v.保藏 n.保藏物 (初中英语单词)
- spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- western [´westən] a.西的；西方的 (初中英语单词)
- sentence [´sentəns] n.判决 vt.宣判；处刑 (初中英语单词)
- frenchman [´frentʃmən] n.法国人 (初中英语单词)
- insect [´insekt] n.昆虫 (初中英语单词)
- instance [´instəns] n.例子，实例，例证 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- wherever [weər´evə] conj.无论在哪里 (初中英语单词)
- thither [´ðiðə] ad.到那里 a.那边的 (初中英语单词)
- interior [in´tiəriə] n.&a.内部地(的) (初中英语单词)
- peasant [´pezənt] n.农民；庄稼人 (初中英语单词)
- gigantic [dʒai´gæntik] a.巨大的 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- surpass [sə´pɑ:s] vt.超过，胜过 (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- invariably [in´veəriəbli] ad.不变地；永恒地 (高中英语单词)
- granite [´grænit] n.花岗岩 (高中英语单词)
- sharpen [´ʃɑ:pən] v.削尖，(使)锐利 (高中英语单词)
- mediterranean [,meditə´reiniən] n.地中海 a.地中海的 (高中英语单词)
- calendar [´kælində] n.日历；月历；历法 (高中英语单词)
- historical [his´tɔrikəl] a.历史(上)的 (高中英语单词)
- earthly [´ə:θli] a.地球的；世俗的 (高中英语单词)
- campaign [kæm´pein] n.战役；行动 vi.从军 (高中英语单词)
- fortress [´fɔ:tris] n.堡垒，要塞 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- riddle [´ridl] n.谜(语) v.解(谜等) (高中英语单词)
- ingenious [in´dʒi:niəs] a.富于创新的；巧妙的 (高中英语单词)
- translate [trænz´leit, træns-] v.翻译；解释；说明 (高中英语单词)
- plentiful [´plentifəl] a.丰富的；多的 (高中英语单词)
- leisure [´leʒə] n.空闲；悠闲；安定 (高中英语单词)
- finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
- wherefore [´weəfɔ:] ad.为什么；因此 (英语四级单词)
- parting [´pɑ:tiŋ] a.&n.分离(的) (英语四级单词)
- amidst [ə´midst] prep.=amid (英语四级单词)
- blackness [´blæknis] n.黑色；阴险 (英语四级单词)
- glacier [´glæsiə] n.冰河，冰川 (英语四级单词)
- irrigation [,iri´geiʃən] n.灌溉；水利 (英语四级单词)
- devoted [di´vəutid] a.献身…的，忠实的 (英语四级单词)
- arabia [ə´reibiə] n.阿拉伯 (英语四级单词)
- intricate [´intrikit] a.错综复杂的；难懂的 (英语四级单词)
- gathering [´gæðəriŋ] n.集会，聚集 (英语四级单词)
- ornamental [,ɔ:nə´mentəl] a.装饰的 n.装饰品 (英语四级单词)
- parachute [´pærəʃu:t] n.降落伞 v.伞投；跳伞 (英语六级单词)
- mammal [´mæməl] n.哺乳动物 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- reconstruct [,ri:kən´strʌkt] vt.修复；使再现 (英语六级单词)
- ferocious [fə´rəuʃəs] a.凶猛的；残忍的 (英语六级单词)
- greenish [´gri:niʃ] a.带绿色的 (英语六级单词)
- isolation [,aisə´leiʃən] n.隔离，孤立 (英语六级单词)
- accidentally [,æksi´dentəli] ad.偶然地 (英语六级单词)
- prehistoric [,pri:hi´stɔrik] a.史前的 (英语六级单词)
- speculate [´spekjuleit] vi.思索；推测；投机 (英语六级单词)
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