The Iceman lived for several hours after he was wounded, the experts believed. Then, late last year, X-rays of the body, now kept in a refrigerated viewing chamber at a museum in Bolzano, northern Italy, revealed that Otzi had been shot in the back.Īn arrowhead was found embedded under his left shoulder, its path through his flesh traced on his bones. The precise circumstances would probably never be known, they believed. Perhaps he had been metal prospecting, hunting, or communing with his gods, archaeologists said. The iceman had probably frozen to death 10,500ft up.

Once experts examined the corpse, it became clear it was at least 5,300 years old. When the body was discovered in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991, it was so well preserved that the two German hikers who spotted it thought they had stumbled across a dead skier or rock climber. He was probably led to his death by priests who convinced him he was going to serve his deities. Now an altogether more sinister explanation is beginning to emerge.įor in an enigma dating back 5,300 years it seems Otzi, as he has been named, may have been the victim of a savage human sacrifice.ĭr Johan Reinhard, a leading archaeologist with the American National Geographic Society, believes the iceman was an offering to gods then thought to inhabit the mountain peaks.

His final agonising hours high on an Alpine glacier are one of the mysteries of modern archaeology.īitterly cold, alone and miles from home, the Stone Age warrior found entombed in ice ten years ago had slowly bled to death.Īt first experts believed he may simply have been caught in an unseasonal storm.

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