Egyptian mummy's secrets revealed at hi-tech laboratory
高科技实验室揭秘埃及木乃伊
The mummy has a portrait of the buried child placed over its face
这具儿童木乃伊在其脸部绘有死者的画像
Scientists at a leading laboratory in the United States are using a cutting-edge form of X-ray to scan inside an Egyptian mummy that has never been unwrapped since its excavation a century ago.
美国一技术领先的实验室称他们正在使用一种先进的X射线来扫描一具一百年前已被发掘、目前依未深入研究的埃及木乃伊。
This is the first time that such a high intensity synchrotron X-ray will have been used on a mummy, with the aim of producing an extremely detailed three-dimensional analysis of the body and any other objects hidden below the linen bindings.
这是研究者首次在木乃伊研究领域运用高强度同步加速X射线技术。实验目的是为了对木乃伊本身及藏在亚麻绑带内的深层物质进行一次非常精细的3D扫描分析。
This is also an unusual mummy, because not only has the body been preserved, but so too has a portrait of the child's face.
这具木乃伊也有自己的特殊之处：木乃伊的身体被完好的保存了下来，并且这具儿童木乃伊的面部画像也保存了下来。
This mummy, from a collection on the campus of Northwestern University in Chicago, is believed to contain the body of a five-year-old girl, who died about 1,900 years ago.
这具木乃伊属于芝加哥西北大学的收藏品，里面包裹的据说是一名1900年前死亡的5岁女童。
'Mummy portraits'
“木乃伊画像”
Not only was her body mummified, her portrait was painted and placed on top of the cloths wrapped tightly around her.
不仅她的身体被木乃伊化了，她的画像也被放在紧紧包裹自己的布料中。
Researchers want to find out more about an object inside the girl's skull
研究者想要找到女孩头骨中更多的物质
It's one of only about 100 such 'portrait mummies' known to exist intact, with the Egyptian process of mummification being accompanied by the Roman style of portraying the dead.
这是目前现存的100具有该“画像”的木乃伊之一。这些木乃伊既有木乃伊化的制作过程也有死者罗马风格的画像。
The painting provides an unusually intimate image of how the girl once looked - and the scanning project is trying to reveal much more about her life and death, without disturbing any of the layers of cloth around her body.
这次的画像形象的描绘了女童生前的样貌，而这次的扫描希望在不破坏外界包裹布的前提下了解更多该女童生前的生活和她的死因。
Marc Walton, research professor of materials at the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern, told the BBC it's 'quite emotional when one realises how young this child was at the time of her death'.
马克·沃尔顿是美国西北部麦考密克工程学院的研究教授，他告诉BBC：“当人们知道她在如此年幼就夭折后都感到很难过。”
Prof Walton says the investigation so far suggests that she had been 'relatively healthy and that she didn't have any blunt force trauma that could explain her death'.
沃尔顿教授说目前的调查显示“她相对很健康，而且也不是因为受到钝力创伤而死亡。”
He says that the most likely cause of death was a disease such as malaria or measles.
他说最可能的致死原因是类似疟疾或麻疹等的疾病。
Intense light
强烈的光线
The mummy had been excavated in 1911 by the English archaeologist, Sir William Flinders Petrie, in Hawara in Egypt, and was brought the following year to a college in Chicago.
这具木乃伊于1911年被英国考古学家威廉·弗林德斯·皮特里爵士在埃及的哈瓦拉发掘并于次年被运往芝加哥的一所学院。
Since then, the mummy has been put on display and appeared in exhibitions, but has been left intact, unlike many that were cut open.
从那以后，这具木乃伊一直被用于对外展示，她曾出现在很多展览中。但是并没有像其它木乃伊一样被打开，而是一直被完整的保存下来。
The mummy was excavated in 1911 and taken to Chicago
这具木乃伊于1911年被发掘并运往芝加哥
But this year, for the first time, researchers have begun looking inside.
In the summer, the mummy was taken from its current home, the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, on the Northwestern University campus, and brought to a hospital in Chicago for a preliminary CT scan.
但是从今年开始，研究者们开始探索它的内部。今年夏天，这具木乃伊被从自己的家（西北大学加勒特 - 福音派神学院）运出，前往芝加哥的一所医院做基础的CT扫描。
Then last week, the mummy was brought to the Argonne National Laboratory, a top research centre operated by the University of Chicago for the US Department of Energy.
上周，她又被运往芝加哥大学为美国能源部服务的顶级研究中心 - 阿贡国家实验室。
The mummy became the first to be examined using synchrotron X-rays. This process sends narrow beams of intense light to map any structures below the surface.
她是第一具接受同步加速X射线扫描的木乃伊。这种机器发出的细细的、强烈的光束能将内部的任何结构扫描出来。
Medical researchers want to examine the bone tissue and teeth. The investigation is at an early stage, but there are also questions about what seems to be an object inside the skull, presumably after the brain was removed as part of the mummification.
医学研究者想要检查她的骨骼组织和牙齿。这项调查目前也处于初级阶段。而且木乃伊头骨中的一个物质也引发了大家的疑问，很多人认为这是制作木乃伊时大脑内组织被掏空后的一种处理方式。
Analysing ancient bone
古代骨骼分析
Prof Walton says it seems to be 'pooled resin from the embalming process' which has settled in the back of the skull.
沃尔顿教授说木乃伊头骨后部的物质看起来很像防腐处理时使用的树脂。
The researchers are hoping that this will tell them something about the positioning of the body and the process of mummification.
研究者们说他们很希望这能帮助他们了解有关尸体的造型和木乃伊化的信息。
The CT scan shows the skeleton and the pattern of the linen wrappings
CT扫描显示出了骨骼和亚麻裹布的包裹形式
There are also signs of some kind of wire around the head and feet.
But Prof Walton suggests these might be modern pins, rather than ancient artefacts, perhaps inserted after or during the excavation in 1911.
扫描也显示在头部和脚部有一些缠绕的线。但是沃尔顿教授说这有可能是现代的针而不是文物。有可能是在1911年发掘的时候订进去的。
'We are still trying to understand their exact purpose in holding together the wrappings,' he says.
“我们依旧在努力弄明白他们将裹布系在一起的原因。”他说。
The synchrotron X-rays will allow researchers to look at the interior structure of anything inside the mummy in a much more detailed way than other forms of scanning, says Prof Walton.
沃尔顿教授说，相比其他扫描方法，同步加速X射线技术能使研究者看到木乃伊内部更精细的结构。
The US Department of Energy says the 'ultra-bright, high-energy' X-ray beams, produced at its laboratory, can examine structures and materials at a nanotechnology level 'where scale is measured in billionths of a metre'.
美国能源部称实验室研制出的这种“超高亮、高能量”的X射线光束能以纳米级（规模是以十亿分之一米）的水平检查物体的结构和材料。
'The thing that is of interest to me most personally is the bone that is present,' said Prof Stuart Stock from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.
“对于我个人来讲最有意思的是它呈现的骨骼图像，”斯图尔特教授说道，他来自西北大学范伯格医学院。
'Paint the eyes softer'
“将眼睛画的更柔和些”
'This is the mummy of a five-year-old child. We're interested from a medical perspective in the quality of the bone. Has this bone changed with time? We can start to build up a database of how ancient bone compares to modern bone,' said Prof Stock.
“这具木乃伊包裹的是一名五岁的儿童。站在医学的角度，我们对于她的骨骼质量非常感兴趣。我们想知道这些骨骼随着时间的流逝是否有变化。我们也能据此建立古代人骨骼与现代人骨骼的对比数据库。”斯图尔特教授说道。
The 1,900-year-old mummy will be the first to be examined using an advanced form of X-ray
这具1900岁的木乃伊将成为第一具接受先进X射线检测的木乃伊。
He is hoping to find much more than from a conventional CT scan. 'We want to know what materials are present and this will tell us something about the processes used to prepare the mummy, and things that had been done later to stabilise the mummy.'
他希望能比传统的CT扫描获得更多的信息。“我们想知道都使用了哪些材料，这有助于了解制作木乃伊的工序及稍后使木乃伊状态稳定下来的方法。”
They also want to know more about the young child below all of these historical layers.
他们也想知道在这层层的包裹下的孩子的情况。
Taco Terpstra, assistant professor of history at Northwestern, says about half of children at that time did not live to their 10th birthday.
Prof Walton says that the girl's portrait and a 'relatively lavish burial' suggests that 'she must have had an elite status within the village'.
塔科 特普斯特拉是西北大学历史系教授助理，她说在那个时代，一半的孩子都活不过10岁。沃尔顿教授说这个女孩的画像及其“相对豪华的葬礼”表明“她在村子中一定拥有高贵的身份”。
He is curating an exhibition at the Block Museum at the university showing these lifelike mummy portraits.
他正在大学的Block博物馆中展示这些栩栩如生的木乃伊画像。
It's called, Paint the Eyes Softer: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt, with the title taken from an instruction written in Greek on the back of one of these pictures, that told the artist to 'paint the eyes softer'.
展览的名字叫做《画出温和的眼睛：罗马埃及的木乃伊画像》。名字取自希腊画像背面的文字说明，要求画师将“眼睛画的更温和些”。
Now this young, solemn face, looking back from an ancient civilisation, is being investigated by the most ultra-modern technology.
现在，这个从古代文明中回望的年轻、严肃的面孔正在被最现代化的技术所研究。
安娜译
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