Ötzi,
the Iceman. 4
What weapons and equipment did the Iceman carry?
He was able to take good care after himself, far away from the villages in the valleys. The Iceman was fully and efficiently equipped for his last trip into the high mountains. This enabled him to look after himself for a long time while he was away from home. He was also in a position to repair or replace by himself any piece of equipment which got damaged. In particular, the rationality and functionality of his equipment are worth emphasising.
The
axe:
The most impressive piece of the Iceman's equipment is the completely preserved axe. The carefully smoothed elbow-shaped yew-wood haft is approximately 60 cm long. The axe blade is 99.7% copper. The Iceman's axe is the only totally preserved prehistoric axe in the world.
The dagger:
It consists of
a small triangular flint blade and an ash wood handle. Its triangular sheath-like
scabbard is made of bast. A leather eyelet on the side presumably allowed the
sheath to be attached to the belt, so that the dagger could always be drawn
easily.
De retoucher:
The retoucher
is one of the most unusual objects in the Iceman's equipment. It is made of
a piece of stripped lime-tree branch and stag-antler splinter insert. The tool
was used for the precision work in the production of the flint implements which
the Iceman carried in his belt pouch.
The backpack:
A number of pieces of wood were found deposited on a rocky ledge along with the axe and bow. These included a nearly 2 m long hazel rod bent into a U-shape and two narrow wooden slats. The overall find indicates that the pieces of wood form the frame of a backpack. Numerous bits of hide and clumps of hair suggest that a leather bag was fastened onto the carrying frame.
The net:
The rough mesh was made of lengths of grass and the net was probably used to catch birds. Nets were successfully used in prehistoric times also to catch hares, as shown in pictorial representations on bronze vessels of the later Iron Age (5th century BC).
Het birch-bark container:
The 2 birch bark containers were perfectly suited for his expedition into the high mountains since - unlike ceramic vessels - they were much lighter and certainly not so liable to break. In one of the two containers were maple leaves and, embedded in these, spruce and juniper needles as well as charcoal fragments. This proves that the Iceman always carried the embers from his last fire with him on his way up into the high mountains.
The quiver and contents:
The quiver consists
of a rectangular, elongated chamois hide bag with a hazel reinforcement.
It contained two arrows ready for shooting and twelve unfinished shafts. The
two finished arrows have flint heads embedded in their notch, glued with birch
tar and bound on with string.
The remains of a three-part radial fletching made of feathers which had been
fixed with birch tar and a fine thread were also preserved. In the quiver were
also four tips of stag-antlers tied together, two animal sinews and a string
made of vegetable fibres wound into a ball. The string must have been up to
2 m long and could have been the string of the bow.
The bow:
The largest piece of equipment belonging to the Iceman is a perfectly preserved 1.82 m long bow-stave made of yew-wood . The bow bears signs of being worked on and is clearly an unfinished, not yet functional piece. Neither the grip nor the necessary elements at the bow ends to attach the loops of the string are present.
His first-aid kit:
The Iceman also
carried a modest medical kit. Attached to his clothing were two strips of hide
onto which two round fragments with a hole in the middle were strung.
Tests have shown that they were cut out of the flesh of birch polyporus. They
most probably served a medicinal purpose. It is a well-known fact that birch
polyporus has antibiotic and styptic properties.
