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       2020考研英语阅读水平想要提升较快，并不容易!需要2020考研者每天有良好的英语阅读习惯，久而久之慢慢进步!接下来，北京文都考研网为助力学子们备考英语，分享了考研英语双语经济学人:玛雅文明的祭祀之谜，供考生参考。

2020考研英语双语经济学人:玛雅文明的祭祀之谜

The Sacred Cenote , a sink hole in the limestone of the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico, pictured above, looks beautiful. But it holds a dark secret. Between about 600 and 900AD the Mayan inhabitants of the nearby city of Chichén Itzá, believing it to be a gateway to the underworld, filled the pool with sacrificial riches to the gods: gold, jade, incense, pottery—and people.

“圣井”虽然景色宜人，但它有着一个不为人知的秘密。在大约公元600年至900年间，居住在奇琴伊察城附近的玛雅人认为它是通向地狱之门，于是井中便塞满了他们献给神灵的各种祭品：黄金、翡翠、熏香、陶器，甚至还有活人。

Those victims, judging by their bones, were often young (half being under 18), and, though more often male than female, were well representative of both sexes. On the assumption that few of those sacrificed were volunteers, their origin has long been a matter of interest to archaeologists.

从这些受害者的骨骼来看，他们大都很年轻(有一半的人不到18岁)，并且，虽然男性多于女性，但两者的差别并不大。长期以来，考古学家一直对这些祭品的来源颇有兴趣，他们假设的是，很少有人会自愿献祭的。

Some suggest they would have come from afar, perhaps being war captives (as was usually the case with sacrificial victims of the later, Aztec civilisation) or tribute of some sort from conquered lands. Others hypothesise that they were plucked from the local population, perhaps being slaves sold for the purpose by their owners.

有些人认为，他们或来自遥远的地方、或是战俘(后来的阿兹特克文明的牺牲者往往就是这种情况)，亦或是被玛雅人征服之地献上的贡品。其他人则猜想，他们是被抓捕的当地居民，有可能是因某些原因被主人卖掉的奴隶。

To try to shed some light on the matter, Douglas Price of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, looked at 40 human teeth recovered from different people cast into the Sacred Cenote. He and his colleagues have just published their results in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

为了揭开这一谜团，威斯康辛大学麦迪逊分校的道格拉斯·普莱斯对被扔进“圣井”中的40个人的牙齿做了研究，他和他的同事刚刚将他们的研究结果发表在《美国体质人类学》杂志上。

The researchers’ interest was in the isotopic ratios, in the teeth under investigation, of two chemical elements: oxygen and strontium. Isotopes of an element are chemically identical, but their different weights mean the physical properties of molecules containing them may differ.

研究人员感兴趣的是牙齿中两种化学元素的同位素比例:氧和锶。元素的同位素具有相同的化学性质，但质量的不同意味着含有同位素的分子的物理性质可能会有所不同。

For instance, because 18O is heavier than 16O, water containing it tends to fall as rain sooner as storms move inland from the sea, so it accumulates preferentially in freshwater sources near coastlines. This means people dwelling near coastlines imbibe more 18O in their water than do those living inland. 例如，由于18O比16O重，所以当来自海洋的风暴向陆地移动时，含有18O的水往往能更快的以降雨的形式落下，因此海岸线附近淡水中的18O更多。这就意味着住在海岸线附近的人比住在内陆的人能在水中摄取到更多的18O。

Similarly, different rocks, because of the details of their formation, contain different mixtures of strontium isotopes, and these are reflected in the soil which forms from those rocks, and thus in the plants (including crops) which emerge from that soil.

同样，由于形成过程中的细节存在差异，不同的岩石含有不同比例的锶同位素，其比例同样会存在于由岩石形成的土壤中，同样也存在于在土壤中生长而出的植物(包括农作物)中。

The upshot is that as children grow, and their teeth grow in them, the enamel of those teeth is built from materials reflecting local isotopic ratios. These ratios are sufficiently well known for different parts of Mexico and its neighbours as to permit Dr Price to work out where the owners of the teeth grew up.

其结果是，伴随着孩子的成长，牙齿也在生长，而牙齿中的牙釉质则会反映出当地环境中的同位素比例构成。墨西哥及其邻国不同地区的氧元素和锶元素的同位素比例是广为人知的，由此普莱斯能够计算出这些牙齿的主人是从哪里长大的。

Unfortunately for those hoping for a clear-cut answer to the question of whether people cast into the Sacred Cenote were the spoils of distant wars or locals who had drawn the shortest of short straws, the answer to the question, “Where did they come from?” is, “Anywhere and everywhere”.

那些被扔进圣井的人究竟是远方的战俘还是命运多舛的当地百姓，遗憾的是，对于那些想就这一问题得到一个明确答案的人来说，“他们从何而来?”的答案是“从任何地方而来。”

Dr Price and his team could discern no pattern whatsoever. Their analysis suggested that half of the 40 were locals, around a quarter had come from somewhat farther afield, and the remainder from places hundreds of kilometres away, in what are now western Honduras and Mexico’s central highlands. Nor was there an association between birthplace and age. Children were neither more nor less likely than adults to have been locals.

普莱斯和他的团队没有找出任何规律。他们的分析显示，40人中有一半的人是当地人，大约四分之一的人来自稍远一些的地方，其余的人则来自于数百公里之外的地方(即现洪都拉斯西部地区以及墨西哥中部高地一带)。出生地和年龄之间也没有任何关联。来自当地的儿童和成年人的比例也相当。

A disappointment, then, for those who like their history neat and tidy. How the priests of Chichén Itzá came by victims remains a mystery. All that can be said for sure is that the gods inhabiting the Sacred Cenote were not choosy. Men, women, adults, children, strangers and locals. All seem to have been equally acceptable to sate their lust for blood.

对于那些渴望看到清晰明了的历史的人来说，这无疑让人感到失望。奇琴伊察的祭司们是如何挑选祭品的，这仍然是一个谜。但可以肯定的是，住在“圣井”里的神灵并不挑剔。男人和女人、成年人和小孩、外地人和当地人，似乎所有人都能满足他们对鲜血的渴望。

 

【重难点词汇】

underworld ['ʌndɚ'wɝld] n. 黑社会;地狱;下层社会;尘世

sacrificial [,sækrɪ'fɪʃl] adj. 牺牲的;献祭的

captive ['kæptɪv] adj. 被俘虏的;被迷住的 n. 俘虏;迷恋者

isotopic [,aisəu'tɔpik] adj. 同位素的;同位旋的

enamel [ɪ'næml] n. 搪瓷;珐琅;瓷釉;指甲油 vt. 彩饰;涂以瓷釉

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