Arrow shot remains cause of death
Referring to Science News of 21st April 2017:
On 20 April 2017, the mummy expert and President of the Advisory Board for the Iceman, Prof. Dr. Frank Rühli from the Zurich University, presented a lecture on the Iceman’s cause of death at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in New Orleans.
In his lecture, Rühli does however confirm at any rate the still valid and as yet most reasonable assumption of a violent death caused by lethal haemorrhage due to arrow head injury of the subclavian artery. In his lecture Rühli gave an overview of the results obtained so far from the research project of the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology into the circumstances surrounding the death of Ötzi, the Iceman, which has been carried out in cooperation with case officers from the Munich CID, under the leadership of Alexander Horn.
After close study of the pattern of injury to the body of the mummy, opinion is still divided as to the probable length of time he took to die. How long did the Iceman actually stay alive after being injured by an arrow? Was it a matter of a few minutes, or perhaps longer? When considering this, Rühli does not exclude the possibility that, with a longer time-span, exposure or exposure to the cold might have contributed to his demise. Further investigations are bound to bring some clarity to the matter.
