PAST CRIMESAt first, everyone believed that this 45 year old man had fallen victim to a
storm or an accident in the mountains. He had evidence of a number of medical
conditions– osteoarthritis and hardening of his arteries, and ridges on his
fingernails (known as ‘Beau’s lines’) showed that he had only recently
recovered from another bout of illness, one of three in six months. Bouts of
illness during childhood show up on Xrays of teeth and bones as lines of
denser material, which occur when normal development is slowed or arrested
by disease. These marks rest permanently in the body even when the person has
grown up. However, fingernails keep growing throughout our lives, and can
reveal much more recent events. Their growth is also affected by disease, but in
this case, the illness may only have occurred a few weeks prior to death. Of
course, it is extremely rare to find fingernails on ancient bodies, as they usually
decay quite rapidly in the ground. The man in the ice had apparently resorted to
a shaman or healer for help with the arthritis, having acquired a number of
tattoos which in some societies were used as a form of acupuncture treatment.
Because of the problems involved in preservingŐtzi’s body, which would
have decayed very quickly if it had been allowed to thaw, further
investigations into his health and cause of death were delayed while suitable
low temperature accommodation was prepared. This took longer to establish
permanently than it might have done as there was doubt about which side of
the Austrian/Italian border his remains were actually found, which had to be
sorted out at a high political level.
Finally, it was agreed that his body had rested on the Italian side of the
border, and a special chamber was constructed for his preservation at the
South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano. The finds were moved to
their permanent home there in January 1998. Attention had originally
focussed on the wealth of artefacts that had been found with the frozen body.
His clothing had survived – awoven grass cape, a goat hide coat sewn with
dark and light stripes of hair, a round bearskin cap that tied under the chin,
and goat hide leggings, one for each leg, with ties to attach them to a belt and
roundhis shoes. Below these he wore a goat leather loincloth. On his feet
were shoes; the inner part was made of woven grass netting, fastened to a
deerskin upper and a bearskin sole with leather ties. More grass stuffed into
the shoes would have made them warm to wear, and quite comfortable as
long as they stayed dry. There was also a calf’s leather belt and a leather
pouch in which he carried some of his equipment, including some flint tools
and a bone awl. He also carried a firemaking kit in his pouch–tinder in the
form of a dried fungus, and a piece of iron pyrite, which when struck against
a flint, would have produced a spark.