The face of Otzi

Okay this is not breaking news but it is something that certainly interests me!

Otzi the Iceman was killed about 5300 years ago while trekking up the Schnalstal glacier in the Italian Alps.

Hit on the head with a heavy cudgel and wounded in the side by an arrow, he collapsed into the snow and was mummified by the cold and dry air. He lay undiscovered until 1991, when Erika and Helmut Simon stumbled across the corpse near the Italian city of Bolzano.

Now, according to the Telegraph, Dutch forensic experts Alfons and Adrie Kennis have painstakingly created the first image of Otzi, relying on 3D images of the mummy's skull and infrared and tomographic images.

Their reconstruction reveals Otzi to be an older man, with deep wrinkles in his face and shaggy, unkempt hair parted on the side.His sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes make him appear tired, and older than scientists believed him to have been at the age of his death - around 45.They placed him at 5ft 3ins tall and had him weighing in at 2lbs under eight stone.

The new model of him will go on display from March 1 until January next year at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano.

Fascinating.I used to enjoy the programme Meet the Ancestors which endeeavoured to put a face on ancient (and not so ancient) skeletons. It is wonderful to see the face of Otzi

How Otzi died?

Archaeologists believe that they have worked out how Otzi the iceman died: an arrow wound to his shoulder caused him to bleed to death. Despite several scientific tests since he was found in the Italian Alps in 1991, archaeologists had previously been unable to agree whether he died from an arrow wound, a sudden fall or freezing while climbing the high mountains.

Frank Ruehli, of the University of Zurich was able to construct a three-dimensional image of Otzi using high-resolution computer tomography. He found that an arrow had torn a hole in an artery beneath Otzi's left collarbone, leading to massive loss of blood and shock and causing him to suffer a heart attack. His analysis is published online in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Dr Ruehli said the arrow being pulled out before death might have also contributed to the injury. A large haematoma could also be seen in the surrounding tissue, and the iceman probably died shortly after the lesion was caused.

Archaeologists believe Otzi may have been a hunter or warrior killed in a skirmish with a rival tribe. Previous research showed he had killed at least four other people in his final battle. An analysis of traces of blood found on his clothes and weapons, carried out by Australian biologists, revealed four different types of DNA, none of them Otzi's.