Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries by Brian Haughton (beginner reading books for adults txt) 📕

The CAT scan revealed that the fatal arrow had been shot from below and ripped upwards through nerves and major blood vessels before it lodged in the left shoulder blade, paralyzing his left arm. The blood on his coat may indicate that Otzi's companion was also wounded and had to be carried on his shoulder. One scenario which has been suggested is that Otzi and one or two companions were a hunting group who took part in a battle with a rival party, perhaps over territory. The blood on Otzi's weapons graphically illustrates that he must have killed two of the enemy party, removing his valuable arrowhead from one body and then using it again, before receiving his own fatal wound.

Not everyone, however, agrees with this version of events. According to Walter Leitner of the Institute for Ancient and Early History at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, Otzi may have been a Shaman. Leitner believes that, because copper was a scarce material in the Late Neolithic period, only someone of great importance in the community would have owned a copper axe. Shamans are also known to commune with the spirit world in remote locations, such as high mountains. Otzi was probably murdered, Leitner thinks, but not in an argument over territory, but rather by a rival group from the same community who wanted to assume power. By killing the Shaman and claiming he died in an accident, this end may have been achieved. A further alternative hypothesis is a sacrificial death where the victim was ritually hunted down and shot in the back with an arrow. Such ritual killings are recorded by Roman chroniclers as being practiced by the Celts, and there is archaeological evidence from a skeleton discovered in the outer ditch at Stonehenge that this kind of sacrifice took place there (see Stonehenge article).

Photograph by Kogo. (GNU Free Documentation License).

Otzi Memorial, Otztal.

Recently, a startling claim was made by Lorenzo Dal Ri, director of the archaeological office of the Bolzano province. Dal Ri believes that the Ice Man's death may actually have been recorded on an ancient stone stela. The decorated stone, of roughly the same age as the Ice Man, had been used to build the altar of a church in Laces, a town close to the area where the discovery of Otzi was made. One of the many carvings on the stela shows an archer poised to fire an arrow into the back of another unarmed man who appears to be running away. Although there is no direct evidence to link the stone with the murder of the Ice Man, the resemblance between the carved image and the death of Otzi is uncanny.

In February 2006, further light was thrown on the Ice Man when Dr. Franco Rollo (of the University of Camerino in Italy) and colleagues examined mitochondrial DNA (DNA only inherited through the mother) taken from cells in the Ice Man's intestines. The team's conclusion was that

Otzi may have been infertile. Dr. Rollo hypothesized that the social implications of his not being able to father offspring may have been a factor in the circumstances which led to his death.

Since his discovery in 1991, Otzi has achieved such popularity that he even has his own version of the "Curse of Tutankhamun." It has to be admitted that there appears to be a high rate of mortality among the researchers connected with the discovery of the Ice Man. Apparently the latest victim was 63-year-old molecular archaeologist Tom Loy, the discoverer of the human blood on Otzi's clothes and weapons, who died in mysterious circumstances in Australia in October 2005. Two other well-known names connected with Otzi who have passed away recently include Dr. Konrad Spindler, head of the Ice Man investigation team at Innsbruck University, who died in April 2005, apparently from complications arising from multiple sclerosis; and the Iceman's original discoverer, 67-year-old Helmut Simon, who plunged 300 feet to his death in the Austrian Alps, in October 2004. Incidentally Dieter Warnecke, one of the men who found Simon's frozen body, died of a heart attack shortly after Simon's funeral. However, sceptics argue that the death of five or six people associated with

the Ice Man over a 14 year period is not a particularly unusual amount, they also point out that mountaineers naturally have a high rate of mortality due to the dangers of their pursuit.

There are still many unanswered questions about the life and death of Otzi, now on display at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in BozenBolzano, Italy. Hopefully the answers to some of these questions will become apparent when scientists conduct the autopsy to remove the flint arrowhead from the Ice Man's shoulder. It looks like we will have to wait until then for more information on how and why Otzi met his death in the frozen Alps, more than 5,000 years ago.

the History and HlyIh of the Knights Templar

The exterior of the Temple Church, London.

The Knights Templar was a powerful order of crusading warriormonks founded in Jerusalem in A.D. 1118, ostensibly to protect Christian travelers in the Holy Land. For almost two centuries the Templars enjoyed a considerable reputation as ferocious warriors, and became the epitome of the Crusader, with their famous white mantle emblazoned with the red Templar cross. What is perhaps less known about the Templars is that their exploits in the Holy Land were financed by wealth accumulated in

Europe, through the purchase and sale of land, and what was, in effect, the first banking network the world had ever seen. The violent destruction of the Templar Order, probably due to a conspiracy between the French King Philip IV and Pope Clement V, has given the Templars a mythical aura. They have been linked with almost everything mystical, from the establishment of Freemasonry to the quest for the Ark of the Covenant. What is the true story behind their foundation and demise?

Originally. the Templars were a group of nine knights led by Hughes