7　修建坟墓的人

古埃及人相信，他们死后，灵魂还会留在自己的尸体附近。所以一个人死后，人们就会把他生前所用的东西全都放进他的墓穴里，比如吃的、喝的、家具、碗碟、玩具、器物，等等。他们认为，在最后审判日，灵魂还会回到自己的躯体里。他们希望自己的尸体不会腐烂，直到审判日来临，以便届时灵魂能够回到自己的躯体之中。因此，他们会将死者的尸体浸泡在一种叫作“泡碱”的矿物质里，然后用一根绑带似的长布将尸体一圈又一圈地包裹起来进行保存。用这种方法处理过的一具尸体，就叫作“木乃伊”。几千年之后，我们还看得到古埃及人制作的这些木乃伊呢。然而，其中的大部分木乃伊，都不再待在它们最初下葬的坟墓里了。它们已经被搬到了博物馆里；如果我们去博物馆的话，可能就会看到。它们尽管如今已经发黄变干，但看上去却仍然像是

一个个皮包骨头

的矮小老头

At first only kings or important people of the highest classes were made mummies,but after a while all the classes,except perhaps the lowest,were treated in the same way. Sacred animals from beetles to cows were also made into mummies.

When an Egyptian died,his friends heaped up a few stones over his body just to cover it up decently and keep it from being stolen or destroyed by those wild animals that fed on dead bodies. But a king or a rich man wanted a bigger pile of stones over his body than just ordinary people had.To make sure that his pile would be big enough,a king built it for himself before he died.Each king tried to make his pile larger than anyone else's until at last the pile of stones became so big it was a hill of rocks and called a pyramid.The pyramids therefore were tombs of the kings,who built them while they were alive,to be monuments to themselves when they were dead.In fact a king was much more interested in building a home for his dead body than he was in a home for his live body.So,instead of palaces,kings built pyramids.There are many of these pyramids built along the bank of the Nile,and most of them were built,we think,just after 3000 B.C.

In Nubia,up the Nile farther south in Africa,in what is now the modern nation of Sudan,kings also built pyramids for themselves. This is not surprising since Egyptians and Nubians shared many of the same religious beliefs.

一开始的时候，只有国王和上等阶层的重要人物死后才会被制成木乃伊；但过了一段时间之后，所有等级的人（或许最低等级的人除外）死后便都开始这样处理了。而从金龟子到母牛之类的圣兽，也都被制成了木乃伊。

一名古埃及人死后，亲友们只会用不多的石块将他的尸体草草掩埋起来，目的只是防止尸体被盗或者被食尸动物咬坏。可国王或者富人们却希望，自己死后尸体上会有比普通人更大的一堆石头。为了确保掩埋自己尸体的石堆足够大，一位国王会在生前就开始为自己建造坟墓。每位国王都尽力让自己的坟堆比其他人的大；最后，这种由石头堆砌而成的坟堆便变得大如一座石山了，人们则称之为“金字塔”。因此，金字塔其实就是国王的坟墓；它们都由国王生前所建，而这些国王死后，它们就成了他们的纪念碑。事实上，相比于给生前的自己建造房子，古埃及的国王们更热衷于给自己的尸体建造容身之所。因此，他们建的不是宫殿，而是金字塔。尼罗河沿岸有许多这样的金字塔；我们认为，其中绝大多数都建于公元前3000年以后。

When a building is being put up nowadays,men use derricks and cranes and engines to haul and raise heavy stones and beams. But the Egyptians had no such machinery,and though they used huge stones to build the pyramids,they had to drag these stones for many miles and raise them into place simply by pushing and pulling them.The three biggest of all the pyramids are near the city of Cairo.The largest one of them,which is called the Great Pyramid,was built by a king named Cheops.That name is pronounced just like KEY ops.Here is his date：

Cheops……2900 B. C.

It is said that one hundred thousand men worked twenty years to build his pyramid. It is one of the largest buildings in the world,and some of the blocks of stone themselves are as big as a small house.I have been to the top if it,and it is like climbing a steep mountain with rocky sides.I have also been far inside to the cavelike room in the center where Cheops's mummy was placed.There is nothing in there now,however,except bats that fly about in the darkness,for the mummy has disappeared—been stolen,perhaps.

Near the Pyramid of Cheops is the Sphinx. It is a huge statue of a lion with a man's head.Although it is big,it was carved out of one single rock.The Sphinx is a statue of the god of the morning,and the head is that of one of the Egyptian pharaohs who built a pyramid near that of Cheops.The desert sand has covered the paws and most of the body.Though the sand has been dug away from time to time,the wind quickly covers the body with sand again.

在努比亚，沿着尼罗河上游深入非洲南部后，在现代的苏丹这个国家境内，古时的国王们也给自己建造了许多的金字塔。这并不奇怪，因为埃及人和努比亚人有着许多共同的宗教信仰。

如今在建造房屋时，人们会利用起重机、吊车和发动机来拖拉并吊起大石和梁柱。可古埃及人并没有这样的机械设备，因此，尽管他们是用巨石来建造金字塔的，但他们必须仅凭人力推拉，从数英里外将这些巨石拖过来，然后再将它们安放就位。在所有的金字塔中，最大的三座都距开罗[2]不远。其中最大的一座，被称为“大金字塔”；它是由一个叫作基奥普斯的国王建造起来的。这个名字，读音就像“鸡—阿普斯”。他所处的年代是：

基奥普斯……公元前2900年

据说，他的这座金字塔，是十万人用了二十年的时间才建成的呢。它是世界上最大的建筑之一，其中一些巨石本身就有一小座房子那么大。我曾经到过这座金字塔的塔顶，感觉就像是在爬一座两侧都是崖壁的陡峭山峰一样。我还去过金字塔的里面，到达了中心那个像是洞穴一般、摆放基奥普斯那具木乃伊的房间。然而，如今那个房间里什么也没有了，只有在黑暗中飞来飞去的蝙蝠；因为基奥普斯的木乃伊已经不见了，没准是被人偷走了呢。

The Egyptians carved other large statues of men and women out of rock. These figures are usually many times bigger than life-size,and sit or stand stiffly erect with both feet flat on the ground and hands close to the body in the position some children take when they sit for their photograph.

They built huge houses for their gods. These were called temples.These temples had gigantic—that's the way it is spelled,though it means giant-ic—columns and pillars.Ordinary people standing beside them look like dwarfs.

Here is one of these temples,and you can see how different it is from a church.

They decorated their temples and pyramids,and the cases in which the mummies were put,with paintings.They did not try to make these paintings look real,however.For example,when they wanted to make a picture of water,they simply made zigzag lines to represent waves and colored them blue-green.When they wanted to draw a row of men behind a row in front,they put those in back on top of those in front.To show that a man

基奥普斯金字塔的附近，就是“斯芬克斯”。这是一座巨大的狮身人面雕像。尽管硕大无比，它却是用一整块石头雕刻出来的。斯芬克斯是黎明之神的雕像；而它的头部，却是一位埃及法老的形象，这位法老在基奥普斯金字塔的不远处也建了一座金字塔。大漠里的滚滚黄沙，已经掩埋了斯芬克斯的脚爪和身体的大部分。尽管人们不断地将沙土刨走，但大风很快又裹携着黄沙，将狮身人面像的身体再次掩埋起来了。

古埃及人还用岩石雕刻出了其他一些大型的男女雕像。这些雕像通常都要比真人大上好多倍；它们或坐或站，都是呆板生硬地立着，双脚平踩在地上，两手则紧贴着身体，就像一些小朋友坐着拍照时的那种姿势。

他们还为诸神建造了一座座巨大的房子。这些房子，被称为神庙。在这些神庙里，都有许多硕大的圆柱和梁墩；注意“硕大”一词的英文就是这样写的：gigantic，尽管它指的是“巨人一般”（giant-ic）。一般的人站在这些柱子旁边，看上去就像侏儒那样矮小呢。

下页图就是这些神庙当中的一座；你们都看得出，它与一座教堂完全不同呢。

古埃及人会在神庙、金字塔以及放置木乃伊的棺木上画画。然而，他们并没有尽量让这些画看上去像真的一样。比如说，假如想要画的是水，他们只会用数根参差不齐的曲线来代表波浪，然后再把这些曲线描成青绿色。倘若想要画的是一排人在前、另一排人在后，那他们就会把后排的人画在前排人的头顶上。如果要表明一

was a king,they made him larger than the other men in the picture.

The Egyptians used bright colors in their pictures. They used a lot of red,yellow,and brown.You can see in their pictures that some people had dark skin and some had light tan skin.At first people from southern Egypt had darker skin,and people from near the Mediterranean had lighter skin.Over the years,people moved all over Egypt and then you could no longer tell where a person came from by the color of his or her skin.

个人是国王的话，他们就会将国王画得比画面上其他的人都要大。

古埃及人绘画时，用的都是很亮丽的颜色。他们大量使用红色、黄色和褐色。你们可以看到，他们的图画中有些人皮肤黝黑，有些人的肤色则是浅褐色。起初的时候，来自埃及以南的人皮肤较黑，而来自地中海附近的人则肤色较浅。而随着岁月流逝，由于人们在整个埃及境内四处迁徙，所以后来我们就无法再根据肤色来判断出一个人来自何处了。