Recent studies describing how the Bronze Age man known as Otzi or the Iceman died in the Tyrolean Alps some 5300 years ago will be published in an upcoming paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Using multislice computed tomography, a non-invasive computer scanning process used in detecting heart disease, a research team led by Frank Jakobus Rühli at the Swiss Mummy Project at the University of Zurich have discovered a 13-mm tear in an artery in the Iceman's chest. These and other related features of the man's body indicate he suffered a large hematoma and massive bleeding, resulting in death.
The cause of this tear is clear--in 2001 conventional x-rays and computed tomography revealed a stone arrowhead embedded in the man's body beneath an unhealed wound in his left shoulder. The current study also includes support for the notion that the Iceman was sitting in an semi-upright position when he died, and that someone pulled the arrow shaft out of the man's body around the time he died, leaving the arrowpoint still embedded in his chest.
Using multislice computed tomography, a non-invasive computer scanning process used in detecting heart disease, a research team led by Frank Jakobus Rühli at the Swiss Mummy Project at the University of Zurich have discovered a 13-mm tear in an artery in the Iceman's chest. These and other related features of the man's body indicate he suffered a large hematoma and massive bleeding, resulting in death.
The cause of this tear is clear--in 2001 conventional x-rays and computed tomography revealed a stone arrowhead embedded in the man's body beneath an unhealed wound in his left shoulder. The current study also includes support for the notion that the Iceman was sitting in an semi-upright position when he died, and that someone pulled the arrow shaft out of the man's body around the time he died, leaving the arrowpoint still embedded in his chest.
Source
Patrizia Pernter, Paul Gostner, Eduard Egarter Vigl, Frank Jakobus Rühli. [in press]. Radiologic proof for the Iceman's cause of death (ca. 5,300 BP). Journal of Archaeological Science, to be published later this year.
Related Resources: Iceman | Remedello Culture
Comments
I am a radiology technician student and about to graduate and I was wondering if there was a way I could get employeed for a dig if needed a rad. tech.
Thanks mike arnold