A flawless sting in the abdominal artery and a violently twisted cervical spine: In scientific sleuthing, researchers have uncovered the course of deadly crimes from about a thousand years ago. They examined South American mummies in 3D computed tomography (CT) – and showed that the people were brutally murdered.
For their study, an international team used the special X-ray method to examine three mummies from pre-Columbian South America that have been kept in European museums since the late 1800s. The recordings show that the two male mummies have fatal injuries, reports Andreas Nerlich, co-author and chief of pathology at the Bogenhausen Clinic in Munich. The woman is believed to have died of natural causes.
The mummy from the “Museum Anatomicum” of the Philipps University of Marburg is a young man, about 20 to 25 years old. The scientists reconstructed the sequence of events as follows: an attacker hit the victim on the head with full force, the same or a second attacker stabbed the man who was still standing or knelt in the back with a kind of dagger. He flawlessly hit the abdominal artery and let the victim bleed out.
Perpetrator had anatomical knowledge
“The sting, the way it was performed, shows that the perpetrator must have had a high level of knowledge of the anatomy and the effect,” says Nerlich. It is a procedure “as is known from the ritual slaughter of animals”. This is the first time a South American mummy has been killed in this way.
The perpetrator also had anatomical knowledge of the second man – the mummy, like that of the woman, came from the Delémont Historical Museum in Switzerland: the victim’s neck was literally “wrapped” and the spinal cord was torn off by massive displacement of the cervical vertebrae.
Ritual murder cannot be ruled out
“The types of injuries we found would have been undetectable if these human remains were just skeletons,” Nerlich said. The CT scans with the option of 3D reconstruction offer unique insights into the body. Previously, such an examination required the destruction of the mummy; With conventional X-rays or older CT scans, such a detailed diagnosis is not possible.
Nerlich didn’t rule out ritual murders—especially since both men had been buried with grave goods. However, the perpetrators and motives are groping in the dark. The question after that may be clarified by further finds.
A thousand years ago, violence was apparently the order of the day in South America. Another recent study found that one in five men had a head injury.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
