Modern technology can be very rewarding. This
is certainly the case when the bones of this soldier from Philip’s army were
examined by X-ray.
An American anthropologist specialized in
surgical treatment in Macedonian times and with knowledge of different types of
weapon wounds discovered that the shaft of an arrow and most of the arrowhead
had been removed from this soldiers' arm by a field surgeon after the fight. Yet
a small section, probably the barb, had been left in place after unsuccessful
attempts to remove it. We simply have no idea how skilled doctors and surgeon
were in antiquity!
It appears that the veteran survived the
surgery to the blessed age of 58-62 years, although he must have lived in
constant pain. Amazingly, the bone shows no sign of immediate infection but
Professor Argie Agelarakis established that the warrior must have been disabled
in his arm movement or in getting a strong grip with his hand.
As part of a larger interdisciplinary study,
a reconstruction of the barbed arrowhead and a facial reconstruction
of the skull were made. As a whole, the project is meant to shed more light on the
warfare in eastern Macedonia
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