埃及学家长期以来一直在争论第一王朝最早的法老是否与各种仆人和官员一同下葬，以便在来世为他们服务——这是一种人祭形式。
Egyptologists have long debated whether the earliest pharoahs of the First Dynasty were buried with various servants and officials to serve them in the afterlife—a form of human sacrifice.
但由于许多最早的埃及墓葬被盗掘和/或匆忙发掘，可用的考古证据非常少。
But there is very little archaeological evidence available, given that many of the earliest Egyptian tombs were plundered and/or hastily excavated.
一篇发表在《环境考古学前沿》期刊上的新论文重新评估了20世纪20年代从墓葬中发掘出的一批头骨，并得出结论：其中三分之一以上显示出钝器外伤的证据。这表明他们可能是所谓‘陪葬牺牲’的受害者。
A new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology reassesses a collection of skulls excavated from tombs in the 1920s and concludes that over one-third show evidence of blunt force trauma. This suggests that they may have been victims of so-called "retainer sacrifice."
作者罗瑟琳·坎贝尔是普渡大学的一名生物考古学家，长期以来对人祭历史着迷。
Author Roselyn Campbell is a bioarchaeologist at Purdue University who has long been fascinated with the history of human sacrifice.
坎贝尔告诉Ars："我对我们人类如何决定哪些类型的暴力是可以接受的、哪些是不可接受的，以及我们如何定义暴力感兴趣。" "这非常依赖于具体语境。
"I'm interested in how we as human beings decide which types of violence are okay and which are not, and how we even define violence," Campbell told Ars. "It's very context specific.
我们必须小心，不要将我们自己关于什么是暴力以及暴力如何被使用的观念强加给其他文化。"
We have to be careful not to extend our own ideas about what violence is and how it's used into other cultures.
"对于埃及，我们有着悠久的欧洲和殖民考古学历史；他们带着对这种文化非常具体的成见而来。你真的必须努力将我们拥有的遗留数据置于具体语境中。"
With Egypt, we have such a long history of European and colonial archeology; they came in with very specific ideas about what this culture was. You really have to make an effort to contextualize the legacy data we have."
很自然地，她发现关于古埃及人是否实行陪葬牺牲的争论与她的研究兴趣密切相关。
Naturally she found the debate over whether ancient Egyptians practiced retainer sacrifice pertinent to her interests.
坎贝尔说："人们倾向于分成两派：要么坚定认为陪葬牺牲肯定发生过，讨论结束；要么坚定认为绝对没有发生过，讨论结束。但很长一段时间以来，没人真正研究过这些骨骼。"
"People tend to fall into one of two camps," said Campbell. "Either retainer sacrifice definitely happened, end of discussion, or it definitely didn't happen, end of discussion. But nobody's actually looked at the bones in a very long time."
法医科学在过去一个世纪取得了显著进步，因此重新分析可能会有用。
Forensic science has advanced considerably over the last century, so re-analysis could be useful.
使问题复杂化的是，较早的遗骸往往不完整和/或为了保存而被修改，这一过程破坏了关键的法医信息。
Complicating matters is the fact that older sets of remains are often incomplete and/or modified for preservation, destroying vital forensic information in the process.