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Every day I walk through the Egyptian sculpture gallery at the British Museum, and every day there are tour guides, speaking every imaginable language, addressing groups of visitors who are craning to see the object that I will be talking about in this programme.
每天，我走过大英博物馆的埃及雕像厅时，总有操着各国语言的导游带领着一团团游客在那里参观。游客们都伸长了脖子观看这件展品。
It is on every visitor's itinerary and, with the mummies, it is the most popular object in the British Museum.
每一位游客的游览计划里都有它。它和木乃伊是大英博物馆内最受欢迎的藏品。
Why? To look at, it is decidedly dull - it is a grey stone, about the size of one of those large suitcases you see people trundling around on wheels at airports, and the rough edges show that it's been broken from a larger stone, with the fractures cutting across the text that covers one side.
为什么？它的外表毫无特色，只是一块灰色的石头，大小如同机场常见的人们拖在手里的带轮大行李箱。粗糙的边缘表明，它只是一块更大的石头的碎片。石片的一面布满文字，
And when you read that text, it's pretty dull too-it's mostly bureaucratic jargon about tax concessions.
但如果你驻足阅读，便会发现那文字的内容也很乏味：
But, as so often in the British Museum, appearances are deceiving, because this dreary bit of broken granite has played a starring role in three fascinating and different stories:
是一份关于税收优惠的官方文件。但光看外表是不行的，博物馆中的很多物品都是如此。这块外表沉闷的花岗岩碎片在三个精彩的故事中都扮演了重要角色：
the story of the Greek kings who ruled in Alexandria after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt;
亚历山大大征服埃及后，统治亚历山大港的历任希腊国王的故事；
the story of the French and British imperial competition across the Middle East after Napoleon invaded Egypt;
拿破仑入侵埃及后，英法争夺中东的故事；
and the extraordinary but peaceful scholarly contest that led to the most famous decipherment in history-the cracking of hieroglyphics.
以及学者们和平竞争、破解埃及象形文字的故事。
