It was in Egypt and Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) that civilization arose, and it is there that we find the earliest examples of that key feature of civilization, writing.

• arise 出现
• key 关键的;主要的
• feature 特征

There examples, in the form of inscribed clay tablets that date to shortly before 3000 B.C.E., have been discovered among the archaeological remains of the Sumerians, a gifted people settled in southern Mesopotamia.

• inscribe 铭刻
• date to 追溯到
• shortly 立刻;马上;不久
• archaeological 考古学的
• remains 遗留物;残骸;遗迹
• gifted 有天赋的
• people 名族
• settled in 居住在
• Mesopotamia 美索不达米亚

The Egyptians were not far behind in developing writing, but we cannot follow the history of their writing in detail because they used a perishable writing material.

• Egyptians 埃及人
• behind 落后
• perishable 易腐烂的

In ancient times the banks of the Nile were lined with papyrus plants, and from the papyrus reeds the Egyptians made a form of paper;

在古代，尼罗河两岸长满了纸莎草，埃及人利用这种草制造了一种纸。

• Nile 尼罗河
• papyrus 纸莎草
• be lined with 排成一列
• reed 芦苇

it was excellent in quality but, like any paper, fragile. Mesopotamia's rivers boasted no such useful reeds, but its land did provide good clay, and as a consequence the clay tablet became the standard material.

• boast 有;拥有;吹嘘
• reeds refer to papyrus plants
• as a consequence 作为结果

Though clumsy and bulky it has a virtue dear to archaeologists: it is durable.

• clumsy 笨拙的
• bulky 笨重的
• dear 珍贵的
• virtue 优点;美德
• archaeologist 考古学家
• durable 耐久的;持久的

Fire, for example, which is death to papyrus paper or other writing materials such as leather and wood, simply bakes it hard, thereby making it even more durable. -

• is death to 对...致命
• bake 烘烤
• hard 坚硬的
• thereby 从而

So when a conqueror set a Mesopotamian palace ablaze, he helped ensure the survival of any clay tablets in it.

所以当征服者把美索不达米亚宫殿烧为灰烬时，反而使得其中的泥板保存了下来

• ablaze 着火的
• set a Mesopotamian palace ablaze 使美索不达米亚人宫殿着火

Clay, moreover, is cheap, and forming it into tablets is easy, factors that helped the clay tablet become the preferred writing material not only throughout Mesopotamia but far outside it as well, in Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, and even for a while in Crete and Greece.

• moreover 此外
• far outside means Syria、Asia Minor...

Excavators have unearthed clay tablets in all these lands. In the Near East they remained in use for more than two and a half millennia, and in certain areas they lasted down to the beginning of the common era until finally yielding, once and for all, to more convenient alternatives.

• excavator 发掘者;挖掘机
• unearth 出土
• millennia 千年
• Near East 近东地区
• lasted 持续
• common era 公元
• yielding 易弯曲的;生产
• once and for all 一劳永逸;彻底地

The Sumerians perfected a style of writing suited to clay. This script consists of simple shapes, basically just wedge shapes and lines that could easily be incised in soft clay with a reed or wooden stylus; scholars have dubbed it cuneiform from the wedge-shaped marks (cunei in Latin) that are its hallmark.

• wedge 楔形
• perfect 完善
• script 文稿
• incise 雕刻
• stylus 尖笔
• dubbed 把...称为
• cuneiform 楔形文
• mark 记号;标记
• cunei 楔叶
• hallmark 特征;标志

Although the ingredients are merely wedges and lines, there are hundreds of combinations of these basic forms that stand for different sounds or words. Learning these complex signs required long training and much practice; inevitably, literacy was largely limited to a small professional class, the scribes.

• ingredient 成分
• inevitably 难免;不可避免地
• literacy 读写能力
• class 阶级
• scribe 抄写员

The Akkadians conquered the Sumerians around the middle of the third millennium B.C.E., and they took over the various cuneiform signs used for writing Sumerian and gave them sound and word values that fit their own language.

• take over 接管;沿用
• value 价值;意义

The Babylonians and Assyrians did the same, and so did peoples in Syria and Asia Minor. The literature of the Sumerians was treasured throughout the Near East, and long after Sumerian ceased to be spoken, the Babylonians and Assyrians and others kept it alive as a literacy language, the way Europeans kept Latin alive after the fall of Rome.

• cease 停止
• fall 跌落;沦陷

For the scribes of these non-Sumerian languages, training was doubly demanding since they had to know the values of the various cuneiform signs for Sumerian as well as for their own language.

• doubly 特别地;加倍地;

The contents of the earliest clay tablets are simple notations of numbers of commodities——animals, jars, baskets, etc.

• notation 标注
• jar 陶土罐

Writing, it would appear, started as a primitive form of bookkeeping. Its use soon widened to document the multitudinous things and acts that are involved in daily life, from simple inventories of commodities to complicated governmental rules and regulations.

• bookkeeping 账簿
• document 记录
• multitudinous 多种的;不计其数的
• inventories 清单
• rules and regulations 规章制度

Archaeologists frequently find clay tablets in batches. The batches, some of which contain thousands of tablets, consist for the most part of documents of the types just mentioned: bills, deliveries, receipts, inventories, loans, marriage contracts, divorce settlements, court judgments, and so on.

• in batches 成批
• frequently 经常地
• consist for 与...一致
• deliveries 交付单据
• receipts 收据
• marriage contracts 婚姻证书
• divorce settlements 离婚协议
• court judgments 法院判决

These records of factual matters were kept in storage to be available for reference——they were, in effect, files, or, to use the term preferred by specialists in the ancient Near East, archives.

• factual matters 事实信息
• in effect 事实上
• term 术语
• archive 档案

Now and then these files include pieces of writing that are of a distinctly different order, writings that do not merely record some matter of fact but involve creative intellectual activity.

• Now and then 时而;不时
• pieces of writing 一些writing
• distinctly 清楚地;显然地

They range from simple textbook material to literature——and they make an appearance very early, even from the third millennium B.C.E.

• B.C.E. before common era
• C.E. common era
• B.C before Christ
• A.D Anno Domini