考古显示中国古代女子遭受残酷的刖刑，脚被砍了下来

Nearly 3,000 years ago, the foot of a Chinese woman was cut off in an amputation — probably not for a medical condition, but as punishment for committing a criminal act, a new study of her bones suggests. It's one of the few times archaeologists have discovered evidence of yue, an ancient Chinese punishment.

一项考古研究表明，近3000年前一名中国女性的一只脚被截肢，通过对骨骼的行研究发现这可能不是医疗原因的截肢，而是对犯罪行为的惩罚。这是考古学家发现的为数不多的刖刑证据之一，刖是中国古代的一种刑罚。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Various clues hint that the woman's foot was cut off as yue: her bones show no signs of any disease that could have made such an amputation necessary; and it seems the injury was roughly made, rather than with the precision of a medical amputation.

种种线索表明，女人的脚是因为刖刑被砍掉的：没有证据表明她的骨头感染了导致她不得不截肢的疾病；截肢伤口很粗糙，而不是医学截肢的那种精确的伤口。

The researchers considered other possibilities for how the woman might have lost her foot, such as from an accident, a war injury or a surgical procedure, study lead author Li Nan, an archaeologist at Peking University in China, told Live Science. But "after careful observation and media discussions, our research team ruled out other possibilities and agreed that punitive amputation is the best interpretation," she told Live Science in an email.

中国北京大学考古学家，研究报告的主要作者李楠在电子邮件中告诉《生活科学(Live Science)》，关于女性如何失去了自己的脚，研究人员也考虑了其他可能性，比如可能因为事故、战争伤害或外科手术。但“经过谨慎的观察和媒体讨论之后，我们的研究团队排除了其他可能性，并一致认为惩罚性截肢是最好的解释。”。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

The yue punishment was common in ancient China for over 1,000 years, until it was abolished in the second century B.C., according to a 2019 study in the Tsinghua China Law Review. At the time the woman was living, up to 500 different offenses could result in having a foot amputated, including rebelling, cheating, stealing and even climbing over certain gates, Li said.

2019年《清华中国法律评论》的报告称，刖刑在中国古代很常见，持续了1000多年，直到公元前2世纪才被废除。李楠介绍，这名女性生活的时代，有500种不同的罪行可以被判刖刑，其中包括叛乱、欺骗、盗窃，甚至爬过特定的门。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

But nothing about the woman's skeleton suggests what she was punished for: "We have no clue what kind of crime she committed," she said.

但是，通过这具女性骨架无法判断出她为什么被判刖刑。“我们不知道她到底犯了什么罪，”她说。

Five punishments
According to historians, yue was one of the "five punishments for slaves" enforced since the second millennium B.C. by emperors of the Xia dynasty, the first dynasty of ancient China.

五种刑法
根据历史学家的解释，刖刑是公元前两千年中国第一个王朝夏朝的皇帝针对奴隶的五种刑罚中的一种。

There is extensive historical evidence of the practice, and a Chinese official in the first millennium B.C. complained of the need to find special shoes for amputees.

历史记录有大量实施刖刑的记录，公元前一千年，一名中国官员就抱怨因为被截肢，只能寻找特制的鞋子。

Minor crimes were punished with beatings, but offenders who committed severe crimes could be sentenced to one of the five punishments: mo, where the face or forehead was tattooed in indelible ink; yi, in which the offender's nose was cut off; yue, the amputation of the feet (some of the worst offenders had both feet cut off); and gōng, a brutally complete castration.

罪行较轻的会挨打，但罪行严重的人可能会被判处五种刑罚: 墨（在面或额上刺字涂墨）、劓（割去犯人的鼻子）、刖（砍掉犯人的脚，一些严重的罪犯还会被砍掉两只脚）、宫（残忍的完全阉割）

The fifth was da pi, a death sentence that could be carried out by beheading, if you were lucky — alternatives included being boiled alive and being torn limb from limb by horses, according to a 1975 study in the Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law.

根据1975年《佐治亚国际法和比较法期刊》的一项研究，第五刑是大辟，也就是死刑，如果幸运的话会被斩首，其他死刑方式包括被活活煮死或被马扯断四肢，

Chinese tradition records that the five punishments were in force until they were abolished in the second century B.C. by the Han dynasty's Emperor Wen, who replaced them with a system of fines, floggings, hard labor and exile; the worst criminals were simply executed.

中国的传统记录显示，这五种刑罚一直有效，直到公元前2世纪被汉朝的文帝废除，取而代之的是罚款、鞭打、苦役和流放。最恶劣的罪犯被处决。

Historical writings and art attest to the yue punishment in ancient China, including these bronzes from the first millennium B.C. that show people who had lost a leg or a foot as punishment; they were traditionally employed as gatekeepers.

历史文献和艺术都证实了中国古代的刖刑，包括这些公元前一千年的青铜器，这些青铜器就是那些因刖刑而失去一条腿或一只脚的人;传统上，他们被雇佣为守门人。

Li said the woman's skeleton was found in a tomb at the Zhouyuan site in China's northwestern Shaanxi province in 1999. The tomb dates from between 2,800 and 3,000 years ago, when Zhouyuan was the region's largest and most important city.

李说，这具女性骨架是1999年在中国西北陕西省的周原遗址的墓里发现的。这座墓的时间在大概2800到3000年前，当时周该原是地区最大最重要的城市。

The skeleton's missing foot was largely overlooked initially, but a new examination of the remains reveals more about the woman's life, Li said.

刚开始这具骨架消失的脚被忽略了，李说，但是对骨架的新检查揭秘了这名女子更多的生活细节。

An anatomical analysis revealed that the woman was between 30 and 35 years old when she died, and that — apart from her missing foot — she was in good health. She seems to have suffered no disease after the amputation, which suggests that she was cared for; and the growth of the remaining leg bones indicate the woman lived for about another five years before she died.

解剖分析显示，这名女子死时年龄在30岁至35岁之间，除了失去了一只脚之外，她的健康状况良好。脚被砍掉后，她似乎没有患任何疾病，这表明她得到很好的照顾;剩余腿骨的生长表明这名女子在遭受刖刑后又活了大约五年。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

Only a few shells were found in her tomb, which might indicate that she lived in poverty, and she was probably buried by members of her family, Li said.

在她的坟墓里只发现了几枚贝壳，这可能表明她生活贫困，她死后可能是由家人埋葬的。

The woman's bones didn't show signs of any diseases that might have made a foot amputation necessary, such as diabetes, leprosy or cancer; and there was no evidence of frostbite or burns.

这名女子的骨架没有显示出她曾经身患任何可能导致截肢的疾病，如糖尿病、麻风病或癌症;也没有冻伤或烧伤的证据。

In addition, there seem to be few good explanations of how it could have happened by accident. "If she was attacked or fell from a high place, it didn't make sense that she only lost her right foot without other injuries," Li said.

此外，似乎也没有很好的解释这是意外导致的。“如果她受到攻击或从高处坠落，只失去了右脚而没有地方其他受伤，这不合理，”李说。

A critical clue was that the amputation seems to have been the result of an inexpert or perhaps remorseless action — something that can be seen in the bones that remain, including what's left of the tibia, or shinbone.

一个重要的线索是，通过残留的骨头，包括胫骨剩余部分判断，截肢似乎进行的并不专业，亦或是冷酷的动作造成的。

"The cutting surface of her right tibia was not smooth and marked malunx [a badly-healed fracture] was observed," Li said. "A surgical amputation could do much better at that time."

“她的右胫骨切割面不平整，而且能观察到明显的畸形愈合(骨折愈合不良)，”李说，“在那个时候，截肢手术可以做得更好。”

The Zhouyuan amputation is the earliest evidence of yue yet found. But researchers have reported seeing mutilated skeletons with similar injuries in ancient graves, and it’s possible that older examples will be identified, Li said: "The point is not finding, but identifying."

周原遗址的这具骸骨截肢是迄今发现的最早的刖刑的证据。但曾经有研究人员报告，在古代坟墓中看到过带有类似损伤的残缺骨架，以后有可能会发现年代更久远的例子。李说，“问题的关键不是发现，而是识别。”

The study was published earlier this month in the journal Acta Anthropologica Sinica.

这项研究发表在本月早些时候的《人类学学报》。

原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处