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Funerary rituals
葬禮儀式
Blood not so simple
血不是那么簡單
A South American funeral mask raises intriguing questions
南美洲的一個葬禮面具引發了有趣的問題
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.
這幅喪葬面具由秘魯西坎考古項目的吉井豐拍攝的，30年前在利馬以北800公里處發現的。
The Sicán were a group who flourished around 500 years before the arrival, in the 1500s, of Europeans.
西坎人是大約500年前，在16世紀歐洲人到來之前就已經繁榮昌盛的一個群體。
The red paint adorning the mask is made of cinnabar, a compound of mercury and sulphur.
面具上的紅色顏料是由朱砂制成的，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.
但是把朱砂變成顏料需要一種粘合劑，在這種情況下，必定是一種很好的粘合劑，才能讓顏料附著在面具上這么長時間。
Luciana da Costa Carvalho of Oxford University therefore set out to discover what it was.
因此，牛津大學的盧西亞娜·達·科斯塔·卡瓦略開始探索這種粘合劑到底是什么。
Initial mass spectroscopy suggested proteins were involved, but shed no light on which.
最初的質譜分析表明涉及蛋白質，但并沒有闡明具體是哪種。
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，一項后續研究得出了一個令人咋舌的結論，即所討論的粘合劑是黑猩猩的血液，令人驚訝的是，黑猩猩是非洲動物，而不是美洲動物。
Further investigation revealed the mistake.
進一步調查發現了這個錯誤。
The blood was actually from chimps' close relatives, Homo sapiens.
這些血液實際上來自黑猩猩的近親——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.
人類血液凝結時是粘性的，可以將朱砂和黃金粘合長達一千年，但許多其他物種的血液也是如此。
This suggests human blood in particular was chosen for another, presumably ritual, reason.
這表明，特別選擇了人類的血液，大概是儀式原因。
Being picked as the donor of this blood may well have been an honour, though that is impossible to tell.
盡管這很難說明白，但是被選為這種血液的捐獻者可能是一種榮譽。
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.
但考慮到許多前哥倫布時代，人們傾向于活人獻祭，而不僅僅是放血，這可能不是一項備受追捧的榮譽。
