Ötzi: The Afterlife of the Oldest Glacial Mummy

Makeover required:  analysis in 2023 revealed    that his skin tone was much darker and he was likely almost bald when he died unlike the replicate figures of him
Makeover required: analysis in 2023 revealed that his skin tone was much darker and he was likely almost bald when he died unlike the replicate figures of him

On a sunny Thursday afternoon, September 19, 1991, on the extra day they’d added to their hiking in the Ötztal Alps near the Austrian/Italian border, Erika and Helmut Simon took a shortcut.

At 3120 metres above sea level on the east ridge of Finail peak, protruding from the glacier gully they saw a leathery skull and skeletal shoulders, the lower half of the body embedded in ice. 

With only one photo left on his roll of film, Helmut clicked the shutter before the couple descended to Similaun hut and shared the news of thier discovery. Likely the unfortunate victim of a mountaineering accident, they thought. Logical, as three weeks earlier, the bodies of a man and woman who hadn’t returned from a hiking trip in 1934 had been found.

With a sudden onslaught of bad weather on the mountain, it took four days of digging with ski poles and pneumatic hammers to to free the corpse. The authorities helicoptered the cadaver to Vent where it was laid in a coffin. Suspecting foul play, the police delivered the corpse to the Forensic Medicine department at Innsbruck University.

By Tuesday, the discovery headlined news reports around the world.

Austrian archeologist Konrad Spindler investigated the well-preserved corpse, and the personal belongings on him and those found nearby. Ötzi had been a tribal leader, evidenced by his fur and leather clothing, calf-leather belt pouch yew longbow, chamois hide quiver, copper-bladed ax, flint dagger in a wicker sheath, birchbark containers, larch frame and cords for a backpack and an ornament (a tassel with a marble bead). Konrad estimated Ötzi to be at least four thousand years old!

Wisely, unprecedented conservation measures began immediately. Ötzi, as a journalist named him, was stored in a cold cell at -6 °C and 99% humidity.

Excavation of the gully the next summer led to the recovery of a few more artifacts. Research exploded, papers were published, books were printed, conferences were attended.

More news: carbon dating catapulted Konrad’s findings to a new level.

Before the pyramids rose at Giza, before Stonehenge circled Salisbury Plain, before the images of bulls decorated Minoan palaces, Ötzi traversed the Alps—5,300 years ago—in 3,250 BC.

That makes Ötzi the world’s oldest glacial mummy.

Plus, the clothes he wore and the equipment he carried are the only surviving organic material from the Copper Age.

Originally, it was believed Ötzi, a shepherd, was alone on an autumn hunting trip, froze to death in the gully, was blanketed by snow and ice and then encased in a glacier until melting out in 1991. (Farmers from the Italian Vinschgau still herd their sheep over the Alps to the high pastures of the Ötztal Valley in Austria where they retain grazing rights.)

Later on, scientists determined that a few days before his death, Ötzi had suffered a deep cut to his right hand (down to the bone) and a blow to the head. They also found blood from at least one other individual on his clothing.

The world’s oldest-known murder wasn’t confirmed until 10 years after the find. (To be fair, glacial archeology is a young field. The term didn’t appear in print until 1968 in Europe, and it took Ötzi’s find for it to be known in North America.) In 2001, a CT scan revealed that a two-centimetre arrowhead had shattered Ötzi’s left shoulder blade. Given this new information, archeologists surmised that Ötzi bled to death after being shot from about 30 metres behind.

According to research conducted by Detective Inspector Alexander Horn of the Munich Police Department, published in 2017 with the great title “Cracking the World’s Oldest Cold Case”, Ötzi won a fight, his murderer followed him into the mountains and “leaving the ax suggested the killer might have wanted to cover his tracks, and not attract attention by bringing such an unusual weapon back to the village. Like most homicides today, Horn noted, the crime likely had a personal motive behind it.

(Ötzi was also carrying a Copper Age first-aid kit: two pieces of birch fungus, useful for treating parasites and stanching bleeding—maybe it helped his hand, but it didn’t work on his wounded shoulder.)

Always interested in food, I found this detail interesting. Ötzi’s stomach wasn’t found until 2009—it had been pushed up under his ribs—and it was completely full. The ice mummy’s last supper? Dried ibex meat and fat, einkorn wheat and bracken, a common fern.

The story changed again around 2013. Italian researchers, including Klaus Oeggl, claimed that Ötzi died in the valley in the spring and was transported and buried on a stone-platform near the find spot that autumn. They also believed the naturally recurring processes of thawing and re-freezing had moved his body and artifacts.

That story gained credence in 2016. Pollen from the hop hornbeam tree that flowers only in spring was found in Ötzi’s last supper. The theory that his tribe buried their leader on the mountain peak could explain all the extraneous equipment he carried that a sheepherder wouldn’t need.

That’s pretty much the story Magellan, Lynn, Ward and I got on a sunny afternoon on September 28, 2023, when we visited the South Tyrol Museum, a history that’s repeated in the excellent book we bought at the museum.

(The museum does not allow photos, but with accreditation you can use theirs, which are superb, as you can see.)

Ötzi was about 45 years old at the time of his death. He was approximately 1.6 metres tall and weighed roughly 50 kilograms—although when found, he’d shrunk to only 13 kilograms. He had brown eyes and sported 61 tattoos, which research shows were a type of acupuncture for arthritis, not body decoration.

At the museum we saw two versions of Ötzi, a full-size replication and his actual physical remains.

One person at a time is allowed to look through a small window at his body, which rests on a glass shelf in a special freezing chamber. He lies face up, although you can’t quite see his face. (Did I even want to?) His body is regularly sprayed with sterile water to prevent moisture loss.

What an afterlife.

An asteroid has been named after him, Ötzi, Asteroid No.5803, and here on earth, Suzuki named a car after him, The Vitara Ötzi.

His story continues to unfold. In 2022, here’s what glacial archeologist Lars Pilø wrote in his blogpost Secrets of the Ice:

Ötzi was not buried in the ice for 5300 years like in a time capsule. After being encased in the ice in the gully, he was intermittently exposed during melting incidents. This led to some damage to his body and the artefacts. The intermittent exposure of the gully led to the introduction of younger material to the finds assemblage, in addition to material already present here before Ötzi died. 

Based on the available evidence, Ötzi died in late spring or early summer, and lay on the snow where he died for a period. This allowed the body to freeze-dry, saving it for posterity…Snow and ice re-covered the gully. A field of non-moving ice covered Ötzi, not a basally sliding glacier. Some of the equipment broke and was displaced due to natural processes on the site…

Looking at the Ötzi find this way, it is no longer an anomaly in the world of glacial archaeology, quite the contrary…

This new story is obviously not the appealing and clear narrative provided by Spindler’s original Ötzi story, which combined a series of serendipitous circumstances to preserve a unique moment of the past. Maybe this is why the original story is still told, even after new scientific evidence proved that it was unlikely. However, the litmus test is this: If Ötzi had been found now, with all that we have learned about glacial archaeology in the last decades, would glacial archaeologists have suggested Spindler’s explanation for the preservation of the find? The short answer to that is no…

This is actually very good news. It means that the chances of finding another ice mummy are higher than previously believed, since a string of special circumstances are not needed for the preservation of this type of find. There may be more Ötzis out there waiting to be discovered!

The melting of glaciated mountain passes is ongoing. Let us see what happens.

Navigation

Arie, Sophie. “‘Iceman’ discoverer joins his find in Alpine grave.” The Guardian. October 24, 2004. In foul weather on October 15,2004, sixty-seven-year-old Helmut Simon (who had taken to calling Ötzi his brother) set off alone up the 2,134m Gamskarkogel peak near the spot where he’d discovered the iceman. His wife, Erika, who usually hiked with him, didn’t go. He died “weeks before his lawyers were due to launch a case for him to receive a €250,000 reward from Italian authorities for his discovery. Rumours in the villages around the Austro-Italian border suggested Simon may have walked deliberately to his death. Other locals fear Otzi – like Tutankhamen – claimed Simon’s life in revenge for disturbing the mummy’s peace.”  (Five of the men who worked on Ötzi’s body met unfortunate ends: car crash, brain tumour, swept away by an avalanche while hiking…) In September 2008, it was announced that the Bolzano provincial government and Erika had reached an agreement; she received €150,000 in recognition of the couple’s discovery of Ötzi and the tourist income it attracts.

Baldwin, Eric. “Snøhetta Designs a New Home for Ötzi the Iceman.” ArchDaily. February 27, 2019. Sonhetta was asked to design a new home for Ötzi, although we’re not sure if it’s going ahead. Snøhetta’s Kjetil Thorsen says, “Visitors can meet Ötzi the Iceman, one of the most important archaeological discoveries, on top of the Virgl mountain – a place with a historic atmosphere. They will literally slip under the skin of the mountain, entering it to see the Iceman. In addition, the new Virg cable car system and the Museum Quarter will provide spaces of cultural significance and recreational value next to the city center of Bolzano”. The study concluded in 2022.

Campbell, Nancy. The Library of Ice. London: Scribner, 2018.

“Death of the Iceman”. BBC: February 7, 2002.

Deem, James M. “Information about Ötzi the Iceman of the Alps.”

Fleckinger, Angelika. Ötzi, the Iceman. Europe: Folio Vienna/Bolzano, and the South Tyrol Museum of Archeology, Bolzano, sixth updated edition 2020.

Holden. Constance. “Ice Man Was Killed From Behind.” Science. July 26, 2001.

Hotel Grawand. You can stay here, not far from where the Iceman was found.

“Ötzi Peak 3251m reaching the peak.” NOA.

Pilø, Lars. “Ötzi – a new understanding of the holy grail of glacial archaeology.” Secrets of the Ice. November 7, 2022.

Pruitt, Sarah. “Cracking the World’s Oldest Cold Case.” History. May 31, 2017, updated in 2023.

Vudale, M.; Bondioli, L.; Frayer D.W.; Gallinaro, M.; and Vanzetti A.” Ötzi the Iceman Examining New Evidence from the Famous Copper Age Mummy.” Expedition Magazine, Penn Museum. 2016.

Wei-Haas, Maya. “5,300 Years Ago, Ötzi the Iceman Died. Now We Know His Last Meal.”National Geographic. July 12, 2018.

6 Responses

  1. Well your story is timed perfectly as we enter day 3 on another Saskatchewan winter, -38 to -40 this morning following a snow fall of 18 to 24 inchs of snow that blew itself in on Thursday in true blizzard fashion. Possibly more icemen hidden right here in Saskatchewan between Alberta and Manitoba as we all got hammered by the same storm, strange that it gave all 3 provinces the same blizzard treatment.
    Indeed a historical find and Mother Nature has insured the remains, remain protected by using natural forces such as snow and ice. Nice that the story has evolved and such detail has been updated over time. Great coverage of the story by our hosts Magellan and Spice. ⛄️⛄️⛄️⛄️🧩🧩🧩🧩

    1. Looks like a great exhibit. I noticed online that they say, “Before showing the mummy of a child in a glazed cold chamber, the museum explicitly tells the public to move on if they do not want to see it.” Did you find it disconcerting? (I didn’t pause long at the window into Ötzi’s resting place…)

  2. Very interesting article…lots of researching….looking at his clothing and tools, we really aren’t that advanced in 4000 years.

    1. You’re right about the research. Every new discovery led to more questions. Like why didn’t Ötzi’s murderer steal his ax? Agree, his clothing design is pretty awesome!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Besseggen Ridge
Destinations
Magellan

Besseggen Ridge

It was all my fault. “Besseggen Ridge” reads my diary entry, “the most spectacular (and difficult) hike we’ve ever done.”

Read More »
Art & Architecture
Spice

Lightscapes

The sun and the movement of the earth—the oldest phenomena our naked eyes can see. Imagine an artist whose life’s quest is to show us

Read More »
Art & Architecture
Magellan

“All the Ideas in My Head”

When Martin Luque and Francisco (Pancho) Gilardi in 1975 asked Luis Barragán to design a studio space and party house for the advertising agency they

Read More »
Camping in Oman
Destinations
Magellan

Above the Food Chain

What was one of my biggest fears in venturing off-road by ourselves through the wadis, beaches and deserts of Oman? Scorpions and camel spiders! I

Read More »