Whack to Head, Not Arrow, Killed Iceman

A final blow to the head, not an arrow wound, killed Ötzi, the 5,000-year-old Iceman found in the Italian Alps, says a new study on the world's oldest and best-preserved mummy.
Presented at the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman at the European Academy in Bolzano, a new research center launched in July, the study re-examines forensic data, various CT scans, and focuses on the unnatural position in which the mummy was found.

"The Iceman's body doesn’t only feature the already known arrowhead wound on the shoulder and wounds on the hand. There is also a traumatic cerebral lesion caused by a frontal attack," the academy said in a statement. Found in Ötzi's left shoulder in 2001, the stone arrowhead was thought to have caused the prehistoric man’s death, fatally severing his left subclavian artery. Now a team of researchers which include prehistory professor Andreas Lippert from the University of Vienna, radiologists Paul Gostner and Patrizia Pernter from the Bolzano regional hospital, and Eduard Egarter Vigl, Ötzi's official caretaker at the South Tyrol Archaeological Museum in Bolzano, have reopened the debate.

They believe that blood loss from the arrow wound would have only made Ötzi lose consciousness. According to the researchers, death came from a violent blow to the head. Either the man’s killer gave Ötzi the final whack, possibly by hitting him with a stone, or he could have fallen over backward and hit his head on a rock.

Whatever the scenario, "death was caused by a cerebral trauma," the researchers concluded. Egarter and colleagues believe they have also solved another long-standing mystery: Ötzi’s unnatural posture in death. When the Iceman was found by accident in 1991 in a melting glacier in the Ötztal Alps ­— hence the Ötzi name — his frozen body was face down, with the left arm bent across the chest. It was thought that the position of the left arm was due to Ötzi’s effort to stop the hemorrhage or the acute pain.

by www.thesupernaturalworld.co.uk

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Could a Child's Imaginary Friend Actually be a Ghost?

Does your child have an imaginary friend?
Maybe you had an imaginary friend yourself when you were a child. Psychologists will tell you that there are several reasons why a young one may concoct an imaginary friend. Sometimes a young child just needs to have a special friend.

Their imagination is very vivid and can seem almost real to them. Sometimes they create an imaginary friend to keep them company and share their thoughts, someone who will always listen to them. In most cases psychologists are probably correct in their explanations. Could it be possible that some children's imaginary friends may be more than just products of their own imagination? What if a supernatural entity such as a ghost somehow made contact with a child? Especially if very young a child would not think anything out of the ordinary.

They would see the entity as being real and in most cases would be unafraid. Since the adults would most likely not be open to recognizing or perceiving the ghostly entity it would be assumed that the child simply had a vivid imagination. Believe it or not there have been cases where an imaginary friend did in fact turn out to be something more. What would you think if your child met an imaginary friend soon after you moved into an old house? Your daughter has a name for her imaginary friend and can even tell you things about them like where they died. I am sure that you would be a little concerned about her ascribing a death to her friend though she claims to see them and talk with them daily.

She may even bring them to the dinner table. Now, lets say that you become concerned enough by some of the statements that your child makes about her friend that you decide to ask questions around the neighborhood. One of the neighbors informs you that a child by that name did live in that very house but that she had died years ago. When the circumstances surrounding her death is explained to you, you realize that your daughter had real information from somewhere about what had occurred.

As amazing as it my seem to many of us there can be no doubt that something much more than imagination was at play here. If her friend was truly a product of her own imagination how did she know the name? How did she come to know other aspects about the girl's life and her death?

by www.thesupernaturalworld.co.uk

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Tutankhamun died in a hunting accident

The mystery behind the sudden death of Tutankhamun, the boy king who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago, may have been finally solved by scientists who believe that he fell from a fast-moving chariot while out hunting in the desert.
Speculation surrounding Tutankhamun's death has been rife since his tomb was broken into in 1922 by archaeologist Howard Carter. X-rays of the mummy taken in 1968 indicated a swelling at the base of the skull, suggesting "King Tut" was killed by a blow to the head.More recent studies using a CT medical scanner, however, revealed he suffered a badly broken leg, just above his knee just before he died. That in turn probably led to lethal blood poisoning.

Now further evidence has come to light suggesting that he suffered the fracture while hunting game from a chariot.The new findings are still circumstantial but one of Egypt's leading experts on Tutankhamun will say in a television documentary to be screened this week that he believes the case is now solved on how the boy king met his sudden and unexpected end.

"He was not murdered as many people thought. He had an accident when he was hunting in the desert. Falling from a chariot made this fracture in his left leg and this really is in my opinion how he died," said Zahi Hawass, general secretary of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. Until now, many historians had assumed that he was treated as a rather fragile child who was cosseted and protected from physical danger. However, Nadia Lokma of the Cairo Museum said that a recent analysis of the chariots found in the tombs of the pharaohs indicated that they were not merely ceremonial but show signs of wear and tear. Hundreds of arrows recovered from the tomb also show evidence of having been fired and recovered.

"These chariots are hunting chariots, not war chariots. You can see from the wear on them that they were actually used in life," Dr Lokma said. A cache of clothing found in Tutankhamun's tomb, which was stored in the vaults of the Cairo Museum, suggest that he was accustomed to riding these chariots himself. They include a specially-adapted corset which would have protected the wearer's abdominal organs from any damage from an accident or the heavy jostling of a chariot ride.

by www.thesupernaturalworld.co.uk

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