In this episode of Radiolab, Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad interview Jim Dickson and Albert Zinc, who tell us the story of Ötzi. Ötzi was discovered in 1991 by two German hikers about 10,500 feet up in the Alps. These two hikers had decided to head off the trail, moving away some 100 yards from the beaten track. This decision led them to discover Ötzi, a frozen corps lying face down high up in the Alps. The hikers' first thoughts were that they stumbled on a man who recently had a mountaineering accident. The body was extraordinarily well-preserved. As producer Andy Mills explains, Ötzi's body looked like „a school boy falling asleep on his arm“ (Radiolab). The cops showed up and began to remove the ice, trying to get to the body. They soon noticed that there were all these things near and on the frozen corpse. They found moccasins ostensibly made from ox skin, a cap made of bear skin, a copper-headed axe, a small pouch filled with medicinal tree fungus, a longbow and some arrows, grass socks, and a stone dagger (Radiolab). Upon seeing all these artifacts, the cops realized that the body didn't belong to some unfortunate tourist who wandered off trail. It was eventually found that Ötzi was 5,300 years old.
We first began to find out about Ötzi's life and death when radiologist Paul Gostner, while looking at Ötzi's CT scan, saw an arrowhead lodged in his shoulder blade. This led the researchers to believe that Ötzi was murdered, shot with an arrow. The corpse was then subjected to a higher resolution, full-body CT scan which showed that it had severe abdominal wounds, rib fractures, orbital fracture of the skull and a deep cut in his right palm (Radiolab). It was hypothesized that Ötzi got this cut while trying to defend himself and found that he got it 3-4 days prior to his death. At this point, researchers were trying to figure out what happened to Ötzi during his last days.
They solved this puzzle by looking at the contents of his intestines. Dickson describes intestines as a map and a diary by which the last few meals of the deceased can be deduced. The first things researchers discovered in the intestines were two kinds of pollen. The first kind grew in the valleys, while the second one could be found on the mountains. The first type of pollen was found sandwiched in his gut by the second kind, which suggested that he spent his last few days first on the mountain, then in his village in the valley, then again on the mountain. The researchers believe that something went wrong at the time Ötzi was in his village. He got attacked and his right hand was deeply cut. He tried to treat this cut with bog moss, which is a mild antiseptic. Ötzi then decided to head back up the mountain, probably pursued by his attacker(s). He ran over 12 miles getting up 10,000 feet above the sea level. Unfortunately, he didn't manage to escape his pursuer, who ultimately hit him with the fatal arrow. According to further research, Ötzi's attacker then proceeded to bash his head in with a big stone, ending Ötzi's life (Radiolab).
The Greatest Hits of Ancient Garbage
The episode takes a look at garbage, examining what it can tell us about our past. This time, Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad interview Dirk Obink, Director of research and professor of papyrology and classics at Oxford, who shares with us the stories told by ancient garbage. The story begins with two Oxford graduates, who in 1898, in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, discovered a huge circle of undisturbed rubbish mounds that had built up over the period of 10 centuries. This trash included a lot of ancient paper that was of great interest to the researchers.
In fact, one of the first scrolls they pulled out turned out to be the lost sayings of Jesus that are not included in the canonical books of Bible. Jad describes Jesus to whom these sayings are attributed as being different form the one in the Bible. His tone is reminiscent of eastern religions, saying that the kingdom of Heaven is here on Earth, that we would see it if we just opened our eyes. This papyrus is known today as the Logia fragment (Radiolab). The researches took this paper, along with half a million others, and moved them to Oxford, where they are working on deciphering them. This proves to be a painstaking task, as even now – a hundred years after the discovery, they have managed to figure out only 1% of the collected fragments (Radiolab)
One interesting finding was a piece of papyrus that proved to be a copy of a passage in the New Testament that informs us about the number of the beast – 666. Traditionally, it was believed that this number was used either to summon the beast or to keep it away without saying its name. The found fragment turned out to be the oldest copy of the passage we have. What is so interesting about it is that the number written on it is not 666, but 616 instead. This means that number of the beast had different versions, with 616 possibly being the original one. This finding will appear as a footnote in the next edition of the New Testament (Radiolab).
Thanks to the modern technology, namely the special digital camera that uses infra-red filters to make readable the text that can't be seen with naked eye, researchers found out about an ancient poem that recounts a version of Trojan War quite different from the one Homer wrote. The poem was supposedly written as a response to Homer. Unlike his version, this one describes Greeks as the ones who got defeated and had to retreat. While Homer would describe retreat as unheroic, the poem celebrates it as something to be proud of (Radiolab).
Finally, the last thing we learned from trash is that the first century reading habits didn't differ much from those of 21st. Versions of dirty, pornographic satire turned up enough times both on this and other dumps for it to be considered as something of a „best seller“.
If anything, these stories prove that studying the past is more than a worthwhile endeavor. How else could we find out why we are where we are, why are culture is the way it is and why we behave the way we do if not by studying what came before us.
Works Cited
Dickson, Jim, and Albert Zinc. "An Ice-Cold Case." Interview by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. Audio blog post. Radiolab. N.p., 19 Nov. 2013. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
Obink, Dirk. "The Greatest Hits of Ancient Garbage." Interview by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. Audio blog post. Radiolab. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.
