Otzi:The IcemanWhat does he tell us?

Imagine you were hiking in the Alps

and you came across this. What

immediate thoughts/questions would pop into

your mind?

Otzi the IcemanWhat does he tell us?

The DiscoveryThursday, September 19, 1991 – 1.30

Ötztal Alps (South Tyrol, Italy)

• 2 hikers, Erika and Helmut Simon, from Nuremberg in Germany, were walking in the Ötztal Alps.

They left the footpath, walked past a rocky gully and noticed something brown on the gully bed.

Was it rubbish???

They had discovered a human corpse.

CHANCE FIND

What did they see?Only the back of the head, the bare shoulders and part of his back jutted out of the ice and meltwater.

The corpse lay with its chest against a flat rock and its face obscured.

Beside the corpse the two hikers noticed several pieces of rolled-up birch bark.

Before leaving the scene, they took a photograph of what they thought to be the unfortunate victim of a mountaineering accident a few years back.

• The story of a 20th century archaeological sensation was about to unfold.

The Recover

y

Pneumatic Drill

The Day AfterFriday, September 20, 1991

Austrian team undertook the first attempt to remove the man from the ice.

Weather had taken a turn for the worse.

Using a pneumatic drill, police officer Anton Koler and the mountain refuge keeper Markus Pirpamer tried to free the corpse.

Constant flow of meltwater, the two men were obliged to work virtually under water, resulting in damage to the corpse’s left hip. With the weather worsening by the minute and lacking the necessary tools, the team were forced to abandon their work.

Ice Axe

Ice Pick

Ski Poles

The following days....Saturday, September 21, 1991The next day: Problems! No helicopters were available. Mountaineers Hans Kammerlander and Reinhold Messner happened to be on the scene. They observed the first details of the dead man’s clothing and equipment.

Sunday, September 22, 1991Rescue team leader Alois Pirpamer and Franz Gurschler prepared the corpse for recovery the following day. They collected the strewn objects and packed them in a plastic rubbish bag. The very same day Alois Pirpamer returned to his hotel in Vent with the sack slung over his shoulder.

Excavating Otzi!Monday, September 23, 1991Otzi extracted from the ice. Snow had fallen overnight, the temperature had dropped, and the corpse was once again frozen solid in ice.

The recovery was carried out under the leadership of Rainer Henn. As no archaeologist was present, the filmed footage proved to be an important record.

Using ice picks and ski poles, the team managed to free the mummy fully from the ice. From the meltwater emerged numerous pieces of leather and hide, string, straps and clumps of hay, which were placed in a pile beside the corpse.

The corpse was packed in a body bag along with the latest finds and flown by helicopter to the town of Vent in the Austrian Ötz Valley.

In Vent the mummy and the finds were placed in a wooden coffin. At the request of the public prosecutor, the corpse was taken by hearse to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck.

SCENE OF THE DISCOVERY

Was discovered in a 40 m-long, 2.5- to 3 m-deep and 5- to 8 m-wide rocky gully surrounded by steep stone walls at an altitude of 3210 m above sea level.

The bed of the gully is strewn with large boulders.

The mummy lay on a large light-coloured granite slab at the western end of the rock formation.

This formation protected the find from the enormous forces of the ice, which slowly built up above it. At the time the border was drawn in 1922, this area – now free of ice – was covered by a 20 m-thick layer of snow.