Otzi the Iceman Goes Online

Yesterday Eurac (The Institute for mummies and the iceman) completed their project to make available thousands of photos of Otzi the Iceman. The site has gone a online and contains high-resolution images. It's a beautifully designed site and is found here.

This project represents a significant scientific contribution to the study and dissemination of knowledge on the oldest wet and natural mummy in the world. The current preservation conditions of the mummy prevent the wider public from getting close to it. This project, however, will allow an in-depth virtual contact without compromising the sensitive preservation conditions. The objective is to provide an opportunity for the public to discover and study a cultural heritage, unique in the world. In order to ensure the greatest possible access a modern website, which does not require any type of installation or subscription fee, has been set up.

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The thinking behind the site is to ensure the body of Otzi can be preserved whilst still allowing an almost forensic study.


Otzi

It's speculated that he was a warrior due to the tattoos and weapons that were found on his body.

In September 1991 two hikers made a sensational discovery - a frozen body high in the mountains, near the border between Austria and Italy. It turned out to be 5,300 years old, the oldest frozen mummy ever found. Named Ötzi the Iceman after the Ötztal area where he was found, he became a worldwide sensation.

Death of the Iceman

The unfortunate Otzi's remains have undergone a battery of tests as we seek to find out more information about our ancestors. The contents of his stomach, DNA and anthropological aspects like clothing have undergone rigorous study.

Rollo and his colleagues describe in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology how he found two typical mutations common among men with reduced sperm mobility. A high percentage of men with such a condition are sterile, according to the museum that stores Ötzi the iceman. "Insofar as the 'iceman' was found to possess both mutations, the possibility that he was unable to father offspring cannot be eliminated," says the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in the Alpine town of Bolzano. "This not improbable hypothesis raises new questions concerning his social rank within his society," it adds, arguing that the new evidence supports a theory that views the man as a social outcast.

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Otzi has no grave within which to roll but I'm sure he'd die of embarrassment, if he wasn't already dead, by the nature of the research


Tattoos above the ankle.


Remains of his clothes.




The feet, to me, seem somehow symbolic of his final moments on the Alps. I'm left with a peculiar feeling and can't place it...

The cause of his death has been proven to be caused by being struck by an arrow that severed a major artery. He died on the Alps from loss of blood.

Abstract A possible cause of death of the Iceman – a ca. 5’300 BP natural human glacier mummy from the Tyrolean Alps – is an intrathoracic stone arrowhead. The aim of this study was to prove radiologically his enigmatic cause of death. In August 2005, the Iceman underwent his first multislice computed tomography examination. As the main pathologic finding, the left dorsal subclavian artery contures shows a 13 mm-long part where the vessel wall is damaged and a 3 mm-long irregular pseudo-aneurysm – a typical complication of a laceration of the subclavian artery. In the surrounding soft tissue a large haematoma is visible. Historic records highlight the fatal destiny of subclavian artery injuries e.g. due to massive active bleeding and shock-related cardiac arrest. Therefore, the Iceman’s cause of death by an arrowhead lacerating among others the left subclavian artery and leading to a deadly hemorrhagic shock can be now postulated with almost complete certainty, especially when taking the environmental (3’210 meters above sea level) and historic (5’300 BP) settings into account.

Source and Abstract

A recreation of Otzi can be found in the Norsk Museum. It's based on all the evidence available from his remains, although I take exception to the hair...

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Reproduction of his weapon and herbs pouch.

During the course of writing this thread, I'm struck by the personal side to Otzi. He lived in a harsh environment and survived to an estimated age of 45. I'm glad that his remains will now be left in relative peace. I'm not given to superstitions or ritual, but feel like it would now be appropriate to lay the remains to rest. There can't be very much left to discover. I'm further reminded of the North American equivalent, Kwaday Dan Sinchithat was afforded a ritual cremation. Kwaday Dän Sinchí...

remains have already been cremated. This July, during a traditional potlatch feast near the glacier where the remains were found, the Champagne and Aishihik joined with the Tlingit in scattering their ancestor's ashes to the wind.

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Maybe it's Otzi's turn?

reply to post by Kandinsky


Fantastic article Kandinsky! This is what ATS is meant to be about!

I have a feeling that Otzi won't be cremated any time soon. He may still be useful in providing data to tests we can't even fathom at this point. Who knows. Personally, it would be fitting to give him a respectful burial.

I know there are certain 'groups' that have been debating the moral implications of cloning an iceman (possibly Otzi) and what we could learn from him but I honestly fail to see the point. His memories are gone and he can never shed light on his culture. However, I'm sure that is not seen as an obstacle to those who seek the fame and fortune of doing such a thing.

Star & Flag!

IRM

great Post K!!

I have constantly followed up on the iceman.

I will sure now go and visit the site.

S&F

Thanks InfaRedMan and Coredrill. The Otzi story is fascinating on many levels. Science, anthropology, philosophy etc and it contains a human story. I'm looking into haplogroup DNA as it relates to Otzi and Cheddar Man's populations. A couple of links are here and here.

reply to post by Kandinsky


sweet,
thanks for that
otzi's story has alway fascinated me as well.


there have been a quite a few really good papers published about him.

one about the plant and animal matter on and in him, was very very interesting.

it sheds a lot of light on how and where he lived.

Amazing find, star and flag. I can't help but wonder what Otzi would have made of our civilization.

I wonder, when he was a live, if he thought at all about what things would be like a thousand years in the future? My guess is he was more concerned with his own survival, although that didn't exactly pan out too well for him.

Most of us couldn't survive a week in his time, and yet the human race has advanced to such a degree that our technology would have seemed like magic to him - things that we all take for granted.

reply to post by Kandinsky

Kandinsky, call me crazy if you want, but i feel some fondness for Ötzi
I recall even the day he was found, national news reported it , interrupting the ordinary programs.
Italian National TV (RAI) aired, not much time ago, a special in which they've told the story about him: it was very detailed, they even re-created the hypotetical environment, the tribe within he has been living, the possible reasons that could have brought him to his fatal conflict.
They said that likely he died after some agony, after having been injured by the arrow that you correctly mentioned, walking for miles and miles, lonely and injured, and likely, desperate. It is incredible the feeling that i have whenever i listen to some account coming from 3200, 3300 years ago. Thanks for sharing this with us

reply to post by internos
Thanks and agreed. Writing the thread made me feel a certain sadness for him. He lived long but died lonely. It's highly subjective of me but I'd like to see him laid to rest in the tradition of his times. I don't know if that's burial, sky burial or cremation. It just seems appropriate and timely now the website is up.

i dont think he died alone, he had companions.

The blood patterns on his clothes, were indicative of him having carried some one.

He was found with an incomplete bow and a quiver full of broken and unfinished arrows.

His companions didnt want him to wander the underworld un prepared so they left with the useless items and took the good stuff.

Thats my opinoin anyway

The remains reveal much about tools and material used in Europe at that time. Leather sewn together with sinews was used for clothing, although a large cloak was woven grass. A cap was made from the fur of a brown bear. The shoes had soles of bear leather and uppers of deerskin; they were stuffed with grass and hay for insulation. Woven grass was also used in place of sinews. His dagger was of flint inserted into a wooden handle and secured with string; it was placed into a woven-grass sheath that had a leather loop to attach the sheath to his belt. Another piece of flint may have been employed as a drill. A bone tool was similar to an awl. His arrowheads were also flint. The axe is the oldest complete one known. The flanged axe head was of copper and was attached to the wooden handle by strips of leather and birch pitch. A birch-bark box contained charcoal wrapped in maple leaves (possibly a method of carrying smoldering coals to start a fire, since no fire-starting flint was found). Two lumps of birch fungus are thought to have been carried as a first-aid kit for use as medicine.

Content taken from www.answers.com...

I always thought the tools and technology he possed at his day and age was truely remarkable. Who knows what types of medicinal plants and herbs he knew about.

Google Video Link

Google video: Documentary

I've always failed to ad google vids. Still, it's a good video to bring Otzi to life

When the iceman was found on Italian territory close to the Austrian border,
the Italians, fearing Oetzi to be a murder-case of the not too distant past,
did not want to get involved in the red tape of solving that case and there-
fore claimed that the body was lying (after displacing the body a little bit ?)
on Austrian ground.
The Italians were happy when the Austrians took over the body and the
responsibility for the case until the moment, when the world realized what
a treasure they had let go.
So they sought a court ruling which finally in 2003 (?) made Oetzi come home.
A German couple, the finders of the remains, received € 150,000 from the
Tyrolean Archeological Museum, also after a lengthy procedure in court.

I don't want to bring any attention to myself, but as an anthropology major, otzi has always been a fascination for me. His time period is the most fascinating to me in anthropology. As a fan of tattoos, i felt it necessary to get some of his tattoos on my body.

Heres a picture of me from last night in my buddys dorm.

s&f and Otzi always deserves a good bump IMO

I haven't had a good look at the links provided yet but will do later

reply to post by Kandinsky



I don't think it was murder - I think he was killed by a vigilante mob for something HE did, and left to waste.

The Historian has a good thread going on also and I followed your link.
www.abovetopsecret.com...&flagit=667664

Why didn't his killer take his ax?
They didn't know he had it? Might had fallen out of sight.
Someone inexperienced might have been ordered to fetch the arrow and they missed it.

Arrowhead left in him/no shaft found.
Theorized the killer did not want to be identified and so left the ax and took the arrow.

He had in his quiver unfinished arrows. If these arrows were his own retrieved from those he killed, (my first thought) there would be blood of his victim on them.


Brain hemorrhaged or at least signs of hemotoma.

From Sardinia 40 yrs old.

Lyme disease

Heart disease

Lactose intolerant

A balanced meal of meat and grain.

He ate just before dying. Full stomach.

Soft hands.

Romanticized in a blind kind of way.

I think this guy was a thief and stole the axe.

According to the pollen spores layered he went up the mountain, then down briefly and then up again. Being chased by more than one person or he would have made it down, it was as if he was trying... to get down and was blocked, prevented by his pursuers, the posse.

One shoe...again he had no choice, he was being chased.
I think the sliced thumb and hit on the head he got by killing someone (they were defense injuries) and stole the last meal and the ax.

It should be a great movie, as the Otzi the Iceman has a great story

a reply to: Kandinsky

Here is a Very Interesting Video on the Life and Times of Otzi the Iceman


Video Chapters

00:00 Ötzi the Iceman
03:26 Sponsorship
04:30 Who was Ötzi?
05:07 Ötzi's Clothing
06:16 Ötzi's Gear
07:45 How old was Ötzi?
07:55 How big was Ötzi?
09:00 Ötzi's Diet
10:18 Ötzi's Medical Conditions
11:17 Ötzi's Tattoos
11:54 Ötzi's Health
14:05 What did Ötzi look like?
16:31 Was Ötzi a metalworker?
20:22 Was Ötzi a shepherd?
22:36 Was Ötzi vegetarian?
22:55 The Neolithic diet
24:37 Was Ötzi a hunter?
26:16 Was Ötzi a warrior?
27:50 Copper Age Europe
29:31 Where did Ötzi live?
31:00 What culture did Ötzi come from?
34:24 Ötzi's DNA
35:07 Copper use in Neolithic Europe
36:06 the Oldest Wheels in the World
36:52 Ötzi's relatives
37:47 Ötzi's last hours - what actually happened?