世界小史 第28章:彩色畫像

Next to these brightly colored paintings you often see lots of tiny pictures of all sorts of things,

在這一排排彩色畫像的旁邊，你往往會看到許多畫著各種各樣的東西的小畫像，

such as owls and little people, flags, flowers, tents, beetles and vases, together withzigzag lines and spirals, all jumbled up together.

比如貓頭鷹、小人、旗子、花、帳篷、甲蟲和花瓶，被鋸齒形線和螺旋線連接，互相緊密并排。

Whatever can they be?

這會是什么呢?

They aren't pictures, they are hieroglyphs - or 'sacred signs' - the Egyptian form of writing.

它們不是圖畫，它們是象形文字--或"神圣的符號"--古埃及人的書寫形式。

The Egyptians were immensely proud of their writing - indeed, they were almost in aweof it.

埃及人為他們的文字感到非常自豪--確實，他們幾乎敬畏它。

And of all professions, that of scribe was the most highly esteemed.

在所有行業(yè)中，書寫員是最最受尊重的。