{"id":3889,"date":"2012-03-01T13:22:31","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T20:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3889"},"modified":"2012-03-02T16:35:05","modified_gmt":"2012-03-02T23:35:05","slug":"secrets-of-an-ancient-pagan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3889","title":{"rendered":"Secrets of an Ancient Pagan"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love the permutations of the unfolding story of \u00d6tzi “the iceman<\/a>,” the Neolithic man whose freeze-dried body was found in the Alps on the Austrian-Italian border in 1991.<\/p>\n

At first some people speculated that he had frozen to death in a blizzard or while on a shamanic quest\u2014or even that he was a sacrificial victim. Others thought that he was a luckless hunter. But he had arrows and no bow, so how could he have been hunting? He did have a staff that some archaeologists thought he had been shaping with his copper ax into a new bow. (The apparent bowstring was coiled up in his pouch.)<\/p>\n

One Austrian archaeologist, having considered factors such as pollen in his clothes and the sources of his clothing, staff\/bow, etc., thought that \u00d6tzi was on the run from a settlement down on what is now the Italian side, possibly as the loser in a village feud. Now it is pretty well accepted that he died violently, probably at the spot where he was found.<\/a><\/p>\n

More DNA evidence is being studied<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00d6tzi the ice mummy may have met his death in the Alps some 5300 years ago, but his descendants live on \u2013 on the Mediterranean islands of Corsica and Sardinia. The finding comes from an analysis of \u00d6tzi’s DNA, which also reveals he had brown eyes and hair, and was lactose intolerant.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He lived 5,300 years ago, and his life \u2014 or at least his corpse \u2014 still is being invoked in various ways. I was surprised to learn that he is mentioned in books on diet <\/a>(do they know about the arterial deposits<\/a>?) and in a novel<\/a> that deals with speculated European migration to prehistoric North America. (New archaeological evidence makes a strong circumstantial case for it.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

In fact, Amazon.com shows him appearing in forty different books.<\/a> That is pretty good for someone from five millennia back who was not a famous ruler or religious figure.<\/p>\n

And “Pagan”? I am assuming so, given that whatever religious tradition he followed or was aware of was most likely of a polytheistic-animistic sort. He is already invoked in at least one neo-shamanic book.<\/a><\/p>\n

Also, he was a carrier of Lyme disease.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love the permutations of the unfolding story of \u00d6tzi “the iceman,” the Neolithic man whose freeze-dried body was found in the Alps on the Austrian-Italian border in 1991. At first some people speculated that he had frozen to death in a blizzard or while on a shamanic quest\u2014or even that he was a sacrificial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,11],"class_list":["post-3889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeology","tag-shamanism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-10J","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":915,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=915","url_meta":{"origin":3889,"position":0},"title":"Gallimaufry","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Time to dump some hot links in the stew pot:\u00b6 Crikey! Ambulance Driver has done it again! The man's a bloody bloggin' gawd.\u00b6 I have always been fascinated by Ozti the iceman, whose body was found on an alpine pass between Austria and Italy. I think it was Konrad Spindler,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0195119126","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8223,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8223","url_meta":{"origin":3889,"position":1},"title":"Go Full \u00d6tzi","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 3, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"You want to go full old-time Pagan at the next festival? Rock the full \u00d6tzi, like the original Ice-Ice Man his own self. It\u2019s said that fashion is cyclical, and that the styles of past decades are inevitably revived for new generations. But for a truly original look, trendsters should\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"otzi","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/otzi.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3640,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3640","url_meta":{"origin":3889,"position":2},"title":"The Maskers and the Money","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 31, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Krampus parades, both from Austrian ski resort towns. To what extent they are underwritten by local tourism authorities I do not know. (Thanks to folk musician and writer Andy Letcher.) When I was 16-17 years old, I lived part of each year in Mandeville, Jamaica, up in the hills, during\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Europe\"","block_context":{"text":"Europe","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=europe"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":218,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=218","url_meta":{"origin":3889,"position":3},"title":"Under the Spell of Sulis-3","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 4, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Part 1 Part 2RIGHT: Indigenous Avon skipperThe first evening of the consciousness conference ended with a cruise into the English rain forest, in the company of indigenous shamans. Our boat moved at a stately 5 knots or so down the dark and shimmering Avon, away from the town and into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":614,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=614","url_meta":{"origin":3889,"position":4},"title":"That polytheist infidel with the\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 12, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"That polytheist infidel with the bow and arrowsEmboldened perhaps by the ongoing cartoon jihad, some radical Muslims are once again going after Valentine's Day cards. The women were from the Kashmiri Islamic group Dukhtaran-e-Millat, or Daughters of the Community, Kashmir's only women's separatist group, whose members are also known for\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5982,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5982","url_meta":{"origin":3889,"position":5},"title":"A Pastafarian Prophet","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This recent post on Religion Clause describes the victorious struggle of a Texas Pastafarian for the right to wear the sacred pasta strainer in his driver's license photograph. It caught my attention because I had just finished editing an article by Joe \"Vampires\" Leycock, \"wandering anthropologist of the occult,\"\u00a0 for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"A surrealist and a proto-Pastafarian, SE Portland, Oregon. ","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/pastafarian.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3889"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3891,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3889\/revisions\/3891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}