{"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<\/div>","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":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,11],"class_list":["post-3889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeology","tag-shamanism"],"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":388,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=388","url_meta":{"origin":3889,"position":2},"title":"Diffusionists, Rejoice?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Diffusionists, rejoice! I blogged it, so now I needed to watch it, if only for the llamas. Turned off by poor reviews, I had passed over Troy, until I learned that it made a case for Bronze Age trade between Anatolia and Peru. How else did there come to be\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":3},"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":[]},{"id":317,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=317","url_meta":{"origin":3889,"position":4},"title":"Blog Stew 1. A University\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Blog Stew 1. A University of Texas study suggests that the nutritional value of American vegetables has declined over the past 50 years (from Science Blog via MacRaven). Yesterday two of my students, both living at about the poverty line while attending university, were complaining about how hard it is\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8041,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8041","url_meta":{"origin":3889,"position":5},"title":"Normal for Glastonbury, Normal for Boulder","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I love snarky local blogs. Unfortunately, the one for my little mountain county seems mostly devoted these days to attacking one county commissioner candidate, so I will spare you that. But thanks to a Facebook friend, I was introduced to Normal for Glastonbury, which contains such nuggets as these about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_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}]}}