Ötzi, the Iceman. 1
Summer 1991: a Helmut Simon from Nuremberg in Germany and his wife walked in the Austrian Ötztaler Alps. In 3210 metres altitude, just off the beaten track, they found a body of a man. It proved not to be a mountain climber who'd died in an accident, but it was a freeze-dried mummy whom the scientists gave the nickname Ötzi. Apart from the body, parts of the clothing and the equipment of the Iceman were found.
Research
showed that Ötzi had lived 5300 years ago. The body belonged to a man
who'd lived in the Stone-Age.
Ötzi was approximately 46 years old when he died. He had tattoos on his
back, and worn teeth. He must have suffered from worms in his intestine. A
broken arrow stuck in his back. How do we know? Archeologists and doctors
did research on the body and found bacteria, took x-rays and other pictures
of the man. To verify his age they used the carbon-14 method.
Now ötzi can be seen in the Südtiroler Archeologiemuseum in Bozen/ Bolzano in Italy. The photo in the middle shows Ötzi as he's being preserved in the musuem at a temparature of -6 degrees Celsius. Looking at the body is't as ghastly as it looks on the picture here
What
clothing did the iceman wear? What equipment did he have? On the next page
you'll find some questions with which you'll get to know the Iceman better.
(all images
were taken from ©Südtiroler
Archeologiemuseum in Bozen/ Bolzano or Ötzi
Dorf Umhausen)
The
first picture shows Ötzi how he was found in 1991.
The third picture shows a reconstruction of the Iceman as you can see him
in the museum.
The clothing is composed of a cap, hide coat, grass cloak, leggings, belt,
loincloth and a pair of shoes. It is remarkable that no woven materials were
used, only tanned leather and a grass coat. The stitching threads were made
mainly of animal sinews and only in part of plants, above all grasses and
to a lesser extent bast.
Helmut Simon died in October 2004 in a snowstorm in the Gasteiner Alps (Austria): almost the same way Ötzi died many thousand years before!
Suggestions? N. Zijlstra
Links:
The
official Museum site in english:
http://www.archaeologiemuseum.it/f06_ice_uk.html
Innsbruck University
has a lot of good pictures, videos and articles (site is in German)
http://www2.uibk.ac.at/forschung/alpine_vorzeit/bilder/
Ötzi in 3 D: Many close-ups from the Iceman. Site is in English too. 3D can only be viewed if you wear 3 D glasses.
http://iceman.eurac.edu/
Other
mummies:
Egyptian: The
BBC-site
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/mummies_01.shtml
The
Tollund Man
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/prehistory/human_sacrifice_01.shtml
http://www.silkeborgmuseum.dk/en/tollund.html
dating
using the C-14 method
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/genes/arch/artefacts.shtml