2021年经济学人 南美洲的一个葬礼面具引发了有趣的问题（在线收听）

Science and Technology

科技版块

Funerary rituals

葬礼仪式

Blood not so simple

血不是那么简单

A South American funeral mask raises intriguing questions

南美洲的一个葬礼面具引发了有趣的问题

A funeral mask, photographed by Yoshii Yutaka of the Sicán Archaeological Project, in Peru, was discovered 30 years ago, 800km to the north of Lima.

这幅丧葬面具由秘鲁西坎考古项目的吉井丰拍摄的，30年前在利马以北800公里处发现的。

The Sicán were a group who flourished around 500 years before the arrival, in the 1500s, of Europeans.

西坎人是大约500年前，在16世纪欧洲人到来之前就已经繁荣昌盛的一个群体。

The red paint adorning the mask is made of cinnabar, a compound of mercury and sulphur.

面具上的红色颜料是由朱砂制成的，朱砂是汞和硫的化合物。

But turning cinnabar into paint requires a binding agent—and in this case it must have been a good one, to keep the paint attached to the mask for so long.

但是把朱砂变成颜料需要一种粘合剂，在这种情况下，必定是一种很好的粘合剂，才能让颜料附着在面具上这么长时间。

Luciana da Costa Carvalho of Oxford University therefore set out to discover what it was.

因此，牛津大学的卢西亚娜·达·科斯塔·卡瓦略开始探索这种粘合剂到底是什么。

Initial mass spectroscopy suggested proteins were involved, but shed no light on which.

最初的质谱分析表明涉及蛋白质，但并没有阐明具体是哪种。

A follow-up study, however, produced the astonishing suggestion that the binder in question was chimpanzee blood—astonishing because chimps are African, not American animals.

然而，一项后续研究得出了一个令人咋舌的结论，即所讨论的粘合剂是黑猩猩的血液，令人惊讶的是，黑猩猩是非洲动物，而不是美洲动物。

Further investigation revealed the mistake.

进一步调查发现了这个错误。

The blood was actually from chimps' close relatives, Homo sapiens.

这些血液实际上来自黑猩猩的近亲——智人。

Human blood is sticky when it clots, and would certainly bind cinnabar to gold for a millennium—but so would that of many other species.

人类血液凝结时是粘性的，可以将朱砂和黄金粘合长达一千年，但许多其他物种的血液也是如此。

This suggests human blood in particular was chosen for another, presumably ritual, reason.

这表明，特别选择了人类的血液，大概是仪式原因。

Being picked as the donor of this blood may well have been an honour, though that is impossible to tell.

尽管这很难说明白，但是被选为这种血液的捐献者可能是一种荣誉。

But given many pre-Columbian peoples' proclivity for human sacrifice, rather than mere bloodletting, it might not have been an honour that was highly sought after.

但考虑到许多前哥伦布时代，人们倾向于活人献祭，而不仅仅是放血，这可能不是一项备受追捧的荣誉。