罗马妓女被迫杀死自己的孩子并把他们埋在英国“妓院”的万人坑里
2011-09-10 yuyuliuxiahui 译言网
The babies of Roman prostitutes were regularly murdered by their mothers, archaeologists have found.
考古学家发现，罗马妓女的孩子通常被她们亲手杀死了。
A farmer\'s field in Hambleden, Buckinghamshire, yielded the grisly secret after a mass grave containing the remains of 97 babies - who all died around the same age - was uncovered.
在白金汉郡汗布尔登村庄一个农民的田间发现了一个埋有97名婴儿遗骸——差不多死于同一年龄——的大墓坑，向世人昭示了一个耸人听闻的惊天秘密。
Following a close study of the plot, experts have decided it was the site of an ancient brothel and terrible infanticides took place there.
随着这一事件的密切研究，专家已确认那里曾是一家古老的妓院，那里曾发生过可怕的杀婴行为。
\"\"
The Yewden Villa excavations at Hambleden in 1912. Archaeologists at the site have found the remains of 97 babies they believe were killed by their prostitute mothers
1912年，汗布尔登村庄Yewden别墅的开挖现场。考古学家在现场发现了97名婴儿的遗骸，他们认为这些婴儿是身为妓女的母亲杀死的。
With little or no effective contraception available to the Romans, who also considered infanticide less shocking than it is today, they may have simply murdered the children as soon as they were born.
由于那时候的罗马人很少采用避孕措施或者缺乏有效的避孕措施，那时候的杀婴行为也不像今天这样骇人听闻，一等孩子降生，她们就杀死了这些婴儿。
Archaeologists say locals may have systematically killed and buried the helpless youngsters on the site.
考古学家说当地人可能系统地杀害并埋葬了这些无助的孩子。
Measurements of their bones at the site in Hambleden show all the babies died at around 40 weeks gestation, suggesting very soon after birth. If they had died from natural causes, they would have been different ages.
根据汗布尔登遗址骨头的测量发现，所有这些婴儿均死于40周妊娠期前后，也就是出生后不久。如果他们是死于自然原因，应该处于不同年龄层才对。
Archaeologist Dr Jill Eyers, who lives locally, has been interested in the site for many years. She put together a team to excavate the site and is writing a book about her findings.
住在当地的考古学家吉尔•艾尔斯博士已经关注这一遗址很多年了。她召集了一个团队对遗址进行开挖并把发现撰写进了书里。
She said: \'Re-finding the remains gave me nightmares for three nights.
她说：“这些遗骸的重现让我做了三夜的噩梦。
\'It made me feel dreadful. I kept thinking about how the poor little things died. The human part of the tale is awful.
“它让我感到毛骨悚然。我一直在想这些可怜的小孩子是怎么死掉的。故事中人类的行为太残忍了。
‘There were equal numbers of girls and boys. Some of the babies were related as they showed a congenital bone defect on their knee bones, which is a very rare gene.
“男孩和女孩的遗骸一样多。一些孩子还是血脉相连的，因为他们的膝盖骨上都有一种先天性的骨质缺损，这种遗传基因是非常罕见的。
\'It would account for the same woman or sisters giving birth to the children as a result of the brothel.\'
“这就解释了深陷勾栏的同一个女人或同为姊妹的女人生下了这些孩子。”
\"\"
One of the infant skeletons found during the dig. Scientists believe the site was used to dump the bodies of prostitutes\' babies because of a lack of contraception
挖掘中发现的一例婴儿骨架。科学家认为该遗址地区由于缺乏避孕术习惯了抛弃妓女的孩子。
The Yewden villa at Hambleden was excavated 100 years ago and identified as a high status Roman settlement.
一百年前，汗布尔登的Yewden别墅被开挖了出来并被鉴定为一个高层罗马人的居留地。
It is now covered by a wheat field, but meticulous records were left by Alfred Heneage Cocks, a naturalist and archaeologist, who reported his findings in 1921.
如今麦田覆盖了这片遗址，但博物学者和考古学家阿尔弗雷德•赫尼奇•考克斯一丝不苟的记录遗留了下来。他在1921年对自己的发现进行了报道。
He gave precise locations for the infant bodies, which were hidden under walls or buried under courtyards close to each other.
他描述了这些婴儿遗骸的精确位置，或隐藏在墙根下，或掩埋在院子里，紧紧地靠着。
However, the matter was not investigated further until now. Cocks\' original report was recently rediscovered, along with 300 boxes of photographs, artefacts, pottery and bones, at Buckinghamshire County Museum.
然而，关于该事件至今都没有展开进一步的调查。近来在白金汉郡博物馆里重新发现了考克斯先生报告的原稿，还有300箱照片、人工制品、陶器和骨骼。
Dr Eyers was suspicious that the infants were systematically killed because they were unwanted births - a suspicion which has been confirmed by Simon Mays, a palaeontologist who has spent the past year measuring the bones.
艾尔斯博士怀疑这些婴儿是被系统地杀害的，因为他们是多余的诞生物——这一怀疑已被古生物学家西蒙•梅斯证实，过去的一年里他一直在测量这些骨骼。
\"\"
Distressing: Part of one of the baby\'s skulls which was found at the site
让人痛苦不已的照片：现场发现的一个婴儿的部分头骨
Dr Eyers said \'He proved without doubt that all the infants were new-born. They were all killed at birth and all at the gestation period of between 38 and 40 weeks.
艾尔斯博士说：“他确定无疑地证明了这些婴儿都是新生儿。他们都在出生时、38至40周妊娠期间被杀害了。
‘There are still little bits of the jigsaw to be pieced together. We want to see final figures of boys and girls and the relations to ascertain what sort of group we have here.
“现在还有一些碎片需要拼接起来。我们要看看男孩和女孩完整的样子以及他门之间的关系，从而确定他们究竟属于哪个群体。
‘We also found a family of five buried in a well. Did they die in a fire or were they murdered?
“我们还在水井中发现了一个五口之家的遗体。他们是死于火灾还是谋杀？
‘There is another site about a mile down the river which we know nothing about but I think there must be a connection.\'
“河流下面约一米深处还有另一处遗址，虽然我们对它一无所知，但我想两个地方之间一定存在联系。”
The find has been compared to the discovery of the skeletons of 100 Roman- era babies in a sewer beneath a bath house in Ashkelon, southern Israel, in 1988.
有人把该发现与1988年以色列南部的发现进行了对比。当时，在阿什克伦（古巴基斯坦城市）一个澡堂下面的下水道里发现了100个罗马时期婴儿的骨架。
2011-09-10 yuyuliuxiahui 译言网
The babies of Roman prostitutes were regularly murdered by their mothers, archaeologists have found.
考古学家发现，罗马妓女的孩子通常被她们亲手杀死了。
A farmer\'s field in Hambleden, Buckinghamshire, yielded the grisly secret after a mass grave containing the remains of 97 babies - who all died around the same age - was uncovered.
在白金汉郡汗布尔登村庄一个农民的田间发现了一个埋有97名婴儿遗骸——差不多死于同一年龄——的大墓坑，向世人昭示了一个耸人听闻的惊天秘密。
Following a close study of the plot, experts have decided it was the site of an ancient brothel and terrible infanticides took place there.
随着这一事件的密切研究，专家已确认那里曾是一家古老的妓院，那里曾发生过可怕的杀婴行为。
\"\"
The Yewden Villa excavations at Hambleden in 1912. Archaeologists at the site have found the remains of 97 babies they believe were killed by their prostitute mothers
1912年，汗布尔登村庄Yewden别墅的开挖现场。考古学家在现场发现了97名婴儿的遗骸，他们认为这些婴儿是身为妓女的母亲杀死的。
With little or no effective contraception available to the Romans, who also considered infanticide less shocking than it is today, they may have simply murdered the children as soon as they were born.
由于那时候的罗马人很少采用避孕措施或者缺乏有效的避孕措施，那时候的杀婴行为也不像今天这样骇人听闻，一等孩子降生，她们就杀死了这些婴儿。
Archaeologists say locals may have systematically killed and buried the helpless youngsters on the site.
考古学家说当地人可能系统地杀害并埋葬了这些无助的孩子。
Measurements of their bones at the site in Hambleden show all the babies died at around 40 weeks gestation, suggesting very soon after birth. If they had died from natural causes, they would have been different ages.
根据汗布尔登遗址骨头的测量发现，所有这些婴儿均死于40周妊娠期前后，也就是出生后不久。如果他们是死于自然原因，应该处于不同年龄层才对。
Archaeologist Dr Jill Eyers, who lives locally, has been interested in the site for many years. She put together a team to excavate the site and is writing a book about her findings.
住在当地的考古学家吉尔•艾尔斯博士已经关注这一遗址很多年了。她召集了一个团队对遗址进行开挖并把发现撰写进了书里。
She said: \'Re-finding the remains gave me nightmares for three nights.
她说：“这些遗骸的重现让我做了三夜的噩梦。
\'It made me feel dreadful. I kept thinking about how the poor little things died. The human part of the tale is awful.
“它让我感到毛骨悚然。我一直在想这些可怜的小孩子是怎么死掉的。故事中人类的行为太残忍了。
‘There were equal numbers of girls and boys. Some of the babies were related as they showed a congenital bone defect on their knee bones, which is a very rare gene.
“男孩和女孩的遗骸一样多。一些孩子还是血脉相连的，因为他们的膝盖骨上都有一种先天性的骨质缺损，这种遗传基因是非常罕见的。
\'It would account for the same woman or sisters giving birth to the children as a result of the brothel.\'
“这就解释了深陷勾栏的同一个女人或同为姊妹的女人生下了这些孩子。”
\"\"
One of the infant skeletons found during the dig. Scientists believe the site was used to dump the bodies of prostitutes\' babies because of a lack of contraception
挖掘中发现的一例婴儿骨架。科学家认为该遗址地区由于缺乏避孕术习惯了抛弃妓女的孩子。
The Yewden villa at Hambleden was excavated 100 years ago and identified as a high status Roman settlement.
一百年前，汗布尔登的Yewden别墅被开挖了出来并被鉴定为一个高层罗马人的居留地。
It is now covered by a wheat field, but meticulous records were left by Alfred Heneage Cocks, a naturalist and archaeologist, who reported his findings in 1921.
如今麦田覆盖了这片遗址，但博物学者和考古学家阿尔弗雷德•赫尼奇•考克斯一丝不苟的记录遗留了下来。他在1921年对自己的发现进行了报道。
He gave precise locations for the infant bodies, which were hidden under walls or buried under courtyards close to each other.
他描述了这些婴儿遗骸的精确位置，或隐藏在墙根下，或掩埋在院子里，紧紧地靠着。
However, the matter was not investigated further until now. Cocks\' original report was recently rediscovered, along with 300 boxes of photographs, artefacts, pottery and bones, at Buckinghamshire County Museum.
然而，关于该事件至今都没有展开进一步的调查。近来在白金汉郡博物馆里重新发现了考克斯先生报告的原稿，还有300箱照片、人工制品、陶器和骨骼。
Dr Eyers was suspicious that the infants were systematically killed because they were unwanted births - a suspicion which has been confirmed by Simon Mays, a palaeontologist who has spent the past year measuring the bones.
艾尔斯博士怀疑这些婴儿是被系统地杀害的，因为他们是多余的诞生物——这一怀疑已被古生物学家西蒙•梅斯证实，过去的一年里他一直在测量这些骨骼。
\"\"
Distressing: Part of one of the baby\'s skulls which was found at the site
让人痛苦不已的照片：现场发现的一个婴儿的部分头骨
Dr Eyers said \'He proved without doubt that all the infants were new-born. They were all killed at birth and all at the gestation period of between 38 and 40 weeks.
艾尔斯博士说：“他确定无疑地证明了这些婴儿都是新生儿。他们都在出生时、38至40周妊娠期间被杀害了。
‘There are still little bits of the jigsaw to be pieced together. We want to see final figures of boys and girls and the relations to ascertain what sort of group we have here.
“现在还有一些碎片需要拼接起来。我们要看看男孩和女孩完整的样子以及他门之间的关系，从而确定他们究竟属于哪个群体。
‘We also found a family of five buried in a well. Did they die in a fire or were they murdered?
“我们还在水井中发现了一个五口之家的遗体。他们是死于火灾还是谋杀？
‘There is another site about a mile down the river which we know nothing about but I think there must be a connection.\'
“河流下面约一米深处还有另一处遗址，虽然我们对它一无所知，但我想两个地方之间一定存在联系。”
The find has been compared to the discovery of the skeletons of 100 Roman- era babies in a sewer beneath a bath house in Ashkelon, southern Israel, in 1988.
有人把该发现与1988年以色列南部的发现进行了对比。当时，在阿什克伦（古巴基斯坦城市）一个澡堂下面的下水道里发现了100个罗马时期婴儿的骨架。
