美国国家公共电台 NPR A Blue Clue In Medieval Teeth May Bespeak A Woman's Artistry Circa A.D. 1000

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Centuries ago in the Middle Ages, religious scribes labored¹ over lavishly² illustrated³ books. Most of these illuminated⁴ manuscripts were made by anonymous⁵ artists. Now scientists say they have a new kind of evidence that could reveal who made these sacred texts. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports that the researchers found this evidence by accident in a medieval woman's teeth.

NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE⁶: There is some hard stuff that forms on teeth - maybe even your teeth - called tartar.

CHRISTINA WARINNER: It's the thing you go to the dentist to have cleaned off of your teeth, but it's really an extraordinary material.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Christina Warinner is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany. She says sticky plaque⁷ traps microscopic⁸ bits of food, bacteria, even pollen⁹. All of that is preserved as the plaque mineralizes and hardens into tartar.

WARINNER: It's actually the only part of your body that fossilizes while you're still alive.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Recently, she was studying teeth from a medieval cemetery¹⁰ in Germany. The cemetery was pretty much all that remained of a small religious community of women.

WARINNER: There's no books that survived. There is no art that survives. It's known only from a handful of scraps¹¹ of text that mention it in passing.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: The research she was doing had nothing to do with art or books. She was interested in oral health during this historical period. Her colleague, Anita Radini, was analyzing¹² dental samples under the microscope and spotted¹³ something blue. She showed Warinner, who was floored.

WARINNER: It was absolutely unbelievable. It almost looked like there were robins¹⁴' eggs in the (laughter) - on the microscope slide. They were such vibrant¹⁵, blue particles.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Warinner joked that maybe they'd found an artist who painted with lapis lazuli, a stone that was ground up in the Middle Ages to produce a vivid, blue pigment¹⁶.

WARINNER: And I just sort of threw that out there because I knew it was an absurd supposition.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: After all, lapis lazuli was rare. Back then, it came from only one place in Afghanistan and was as precious as gold. To solve the mystery, the researchers looked at the particles' composition and mineral structure.

WARINNER: And ultimately, we did find that it was indeed lapis lazuli, which was really, really surprising.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: In the journal Science Advances, the researchers say this woman was likely a scribe and an artist. Alison Beach is a professor of medieval history at Ohio State University. She hopes this find will make historians think twice about old assumptions.

ALISON BEACH: There's quite a bit of evidence of female contributions to book production, and it's gotten more attention in the past 20 years. But I still think that image of the monk¹⁷ as the producer of books is very central and very resilient.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Only a tiny fraction of the scribes who put their name on a book were female, but most scribes did not sign their name.

BEACH: Was anonymous a man or a woman? And we really just don't know for most of them.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: The new find has impressed Cynthia Cyrus of Vanderbilt University. She's studied medieval scribes associated with women's convents. She notes that the lapis lazuli residue¹⁸ seemed to be concentrated in this woman's front teeth, suggesting that the artist put her brush into her mouth.

CYNTHIA CYRUS: As you put the tip of the brush into your mouth to bring it to a point, a little bit of the pigment residue then makes its way into the dental structure. And that would explain the differential between back of mouth and front of mouth.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: She says this looks like a new way of telling who was a scribe and who was not. And historians will now be on the lookout¹⁹. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.

1 labored   

adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转

参考例句：

• I was close enough to the elk to hear its labored breathing. 我离那头麋鹿非常近，能听见它吃力的呼吸声。 来自辞典例句
• They have labored to complete the job. 他们努力完成这一工作。 来自辞典例句

2 lavishly   

adv.慷慨地，大方地

参考例句：

• His house was lavishly adorned.他的屋子装饰得很华丽。
• The book is lavishly illustrated in full colour.这本书里有大量全彩插图。

3 illustrated   

adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• His lecture was illustrated with slides taken during the expedition. 他在讲演中使用了探险时拍摄到的幻灯片。
• The manufacturing Methods: Will be illustrated in the next chapter. 制作方法将在下一章说明。

4 illuminated   

adj.被照明的；受启迪的

参考例句：

• Floodlights illuminated the stadium. 泛光灯照亮了体育场。
• the illuminated city at night 夜幕中万家灯火的城市

5 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

6 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

7 plaque   

n.饰板，匾，(医)血小板

参考例句：

• There is a commemorative plaque to the artist in the village hall.村公所里有一块纪念该艺术家的牌匾。
• Some Latin words were engraved on the plaque. 牌匾上刻着些拉丁文。

8 microscopic   

adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的

参考例句：

• It's impossible to read his microscopic handwriting.不可能看清他那极小的书写字迹。
• A plant's lungs are the microscopic pores in its leaves.植物的肺就是其叶片上微细的气孔。

9 pollen   

n.[植]花粉

参考例句：

• Hummingbirds have discovered that nectar and pollen are very nutritious.蜂鸟发现花蜜和花粉是很有营养的。
• He developed an allergy to pollen.他对花粉过敏。

10 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

11 scraps   

油渣

参考例句：

• Don't litter up the floor with scraps of paper. 不要在地板上乱扔纸屑。
• A patchwork quilt is a good way of using up scraps of material. 做杂拼花布棉被是利用零碎布料的好办法。

12 analyzing   

v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析

参考例句：

• Analyzing the date of some socialist countries presents even greater problem s. 分析某些社会主义国家的统计数据，暴露出的问题甚至更大。 来自辞典例句
• He undoubtedly was not far off the mark in analyzing its predictions. 当然，他对其预测所作的分析倒也八九不离十。 来自辞典例句

13 spotted   

adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的

参考例句：

• The milkman selected the spotted cows,from among a herd of two hundred.牛奶商从一群200头牛中选出有斑点的牛。
• Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.山姆的商店屯积了有斑点的短袜。

14 robins   

n.知更鸟，鸫( robin的名词复数 )；（签名者不分先后，以避免受责的）圆形签名抗议书（或请愿书）

参考例句：

• The robins occupied their former nest. 那些知更鸟占了它们的老窝。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Benjamin Robins then entered the fray with articles and a book. 而后，Benjamin Robins以他的几篇专论和一本书参加争论。 来自辞典例句

15 vibrant   

adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的

参考例句：

• He always uses vibrant colours in his paintings. 他在画中总是使用鲜明的色彩。
• She gave a vibrant performance in the leading role in the school play.她在学校表演中生气盎然地扮演了主角。

16 pigment   

n.天然色素，干粉颜料

参考例句：

• The Romans used natural pigments on their fabrics and walls.古罗马人在织物和墙壁上使用天然颜料。
• Who thought he might know what the skin pigment phenomenon meant.他自认为可能知道皮肤色素出现这种现象到底是怎么回事。

17 monk   

n.和尚，僧侣，修道士

参考例句：

• The man was a monk from Emei Mountain.那人是峨眉山下来的和尚。
• Buddhist monk sat with folded palms.和尚合掌打坐。

18 residue   

n.残余，剩余，残渣

参考例句：

• Mary scraped the residue of food from the plates before putting them under water.玛丽在把盘子放入水之前先刮去上面的食物残渣。
• Pesticide persistence beyond the critical period for control leads to residue problems.农药一旦超过控制的临界期，就会导致残留问题。

19 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。