The most internationally famous person from Südtirol is Ötzi the Iceman, a five thousand year old mummy named for the place where he was discovered in 1991 by hikers in the Ötztal Alps between Austria and Italy. The specific conditions in the mountain had perfectly preserved his body, clothing and possessions. There are very few places you can find five thousand year old shoes. He was found so close to the border that there was a dispute which country he belonged to. The Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano on the Italian side ending up winning the custody battle, and I finally visited in February. I’d wanted to visit for years, but never had a reason to go to Bolzano.
Here’s the man himself. There’s a lot of debate about how to display human bodies in museums, or whether to do it at all. Ötzi is probably the only one I can think of who has pretty much a whole museum devoted to him.
He is believed to have lived between 3350 and 3105 BC, in the Copper Age just before the Bronze Age really got going, and died after being shot with arrows. He was around forty five years old, about 5ft 3 (160cm) tall, and had arthritis and a worm infestation, which were treated with over sixty tiny tattoos over acupuncture pressure points. Scientific testing found that he grew up in the local region, and that he was genetically related to the Early European farmers who brought agriculture to Europe, most similar in DNA to modern day Sardinians.
His stomach was full of venison and bread, and he wore a cloak woven of grass, leather clothes made from domesticated sheep rather than wild animals, and a bearskin hat and boots. Here’s the remains of his framed backpack, which isn’t all that different from modern hiking equipment.
He was armed with a bow, a copper axe and a stone knife. From the wear on his bones, and chemicals found in them, it has been speculated that he was a high altitude shepherd, and that he was also involved in copper smelting. His metal axe was certainly a high status item, and his clothes were skilfully made.
When researchers made replicas of these hiking boots, they found they were extremely comfortable. The woven mesh cradles the feet tightly to the grippy leather sole, and then the grass stuffing and leather uppers keeps them warm. The bottom of the trousers had a flap to tuck in to make the whole leg waterproof.
He also had a tinderbox and some medicinal mushrooms in his bag. These birch polypore mushrooms are used in traditional medicine as an antiseptic. Ötzi having worms is perhaps why he was taking the mushrooms. An advantage of modern life is that you rarely get worms. Chemicals in the mushroom also stop bleeding, which is also a handy reason to carry them.
They had a section teaching you bronze age life skills.
Here they’re teaching you how to make lime-tree bast, the material the cords in Ötzi’s shoes and backpack were made of.
Here’s the string-weaving tutorial.
Here’s my bronze-age string I wove.
Birch tar was also an important material in the Alps for waterproofing, and required a laborious process to make.
In an era before writing we don’t know much else about him though. What was his name? Who shot him? Why? We can’t find out without a time machine.
There was a wall where you could leave a note with your theory to solve the crime. A French visitor didn’t dispel any national stereotypes here by writing “He was assassinated for the love of a woman named Ötza. An amour fou, an act of degradation, the first crime of passion in human history”
Here’s a replica of the man himself.
Ötzi wasn’t just walking around the Alps in his fur assless chaps, he had a stylish striped fur coat to wear over the top. You can see his acupuncture tattoos here as well.
Museum staff showing the coat.
Some ancient socks also found in the area.
The museum had their own knock-off Dorling Kindersley book for sale. I wanted one, but they were too expensive.
There were also lots of dioramas of houses and villages from Ötzi’s time.
Leave a Reply