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Even if we can't yet read their writing, we can learn a lot about the Olmecs from the buildings and the cities that have recently been uncovered.
尽管还不能解读文字，但最近发现的建筑与城市却能让我们了解奥尔梅克的很多信息。
Major cities such as La Venta, near the Gulf of Mexico, had impressive step-pyramids with temple monuments for the worship of the gods and the burials of the kings.
拉本塔是一座靠近墨西哥湾的大型城市，城里有宏伟的阶梯式金字塔，以及敬拜神灵和举办国王葬礼的庙宇。
These would have formed the centre of the city.
这些建筑是城市的中心。
The pyramid itself was often topped by a temple, just as at the same time the Parthenon was built overlooking Athens.
金字塔的顶端常建有庙宇，就像同一时期的希腊人，将帕台农神庙建在髙处，俯视整个雅典。
But whereas the Parthenon stood on the naturally formed rock of the Acropolis,
但帕台农神庙是建在卫城自然形成的岩石之上的。
the Olmecs built artificial mountains-platforms is far too mild a word-on which to put their temples to overlook the city.
而奥尔梅克人要先建造人工山丘—用平台一词实在无法形容—在此之上再修建俯瞰全城的庙宇。
The layout of the city, and its placing in an ordered landscape, typified not just Olmec, but most later Central American urban centres-like the Mayas and the Aztecs.
城市的布局及景观安排不仅是典型奥尔梅克式的，也是后来大多数中美洲城市，如玛雅和阿兹特克城市的原型。
All were a variation of the Olmec model of a temple overlooking an open square, flanked by smaller temples and palaces.
一座神庙俯视着一片开阔的广场，周围散布着较小的庙宇和宫殿—后世的城市规划只不过是奥尔梅克建筑模式的不同变体。
By 400 BC La Venta, along with all the other Olmec centres, was abandoned.
公元前四百年，拉本塔和其他所有的奥尔梅克中心城市都被废弃了。
It's a pattern that occurs with disconcerting frequency in Central America-great population centres are suddenly, mysteriously, abandoned.
这样的情况在中美洲历史上频繁出现，令人困惑。人口众多的大型城市，突然神秘地被废弃了。
In the case of the Olmecs, it could have been the overpopulation of this fragile tropical river valley, or a shift in the earth's tectonic plates making rivers change their course, the eruption of one of the local volcanoes, or a temporary climate change caused by the shifting patterns of the El Nio ocean current-all of them are possibilities.
对奥尔梅克而言，原因可能是脆弱的热带河谷无法承受日益增多的人口，或是地壳运动让河流改道，也可能是当地的某座火山喷发，或厄尔尼诺洋流带来的短期气候变化。
