Ötzi the Iceman: The 5,300-Year-Old Mummy of the Alps

Ötzi the Iceman is the naturally mummified body of a man who died high in the Ötztal Alps between about 3350 and 3105 BC, during the Copper Age. Found by hikers on 19 September 1991 near the border between Italy and Austria, he is Europe’s oldest known natural human mummy, preserved together with his clothes, weapons and tools. Decades of scientific study have made him one of the most closely examined human beings who ever lived, offering an intimate view of life, health and violence in prehistoric Europe.

Discovery on the Tisenjoch

On 19 September 1991, Erika and Helmut Simon, a couple from Nuremberg in Germany, were hiking in the Ötztal Alps when they came across a brown body emerging from melting ice in a rocky hollow on the Tisenjoch, at an altitude of about 3,210 metres. Assuming they had found a mountaineer who had died recently, they reported it to the authorities.

The recovery was hasty and damaged both the body and some of the objects with it: a pneumatic chisel tore the hip, and ice axes and ski poles were used to free it. Only when the archaeologist Konrad Spindler of the University of Innsbruck examined the copper axe found beside him did it become clear that the man was thousands of years old.

The body was first taken to Innsbruck in Austria. A survey later showed that the find site lay about 92 metres inside Italian territory, in the province of South Tyrol. After years of research in Innsbruck, the Iceman was moved in 1998 to the newly established South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, where he remains. The Viennese journalist Karl Wendl coined the nickname Ötzi, after the Ötztal valley, and it quickly stuck.

Who was Ötzi?

Ötzi was about 1.60 metres tall, weighed perhaps 50 kilograms and was around 45 years old when he died, a mature age for the time. His teeth were worn and he had tooth decay and gum disease. He had hardened arteries, arthritis in several joints and gallstones, and traces of whipworm, an intestinal parasite.

Analyses of isotopes in his teeth and bones suggest that he grew up in the valleys of South Tyrol, probably in the area of the Eisack valley, and later lived in the Vinschgau valley, not far from where he died. His hair contained high levels of copper and arsenic, which some researchers think may indicate contact with copper smelting.

Genetic studies have added further detail. A genome study in 2012 found that he was lactose intolerant and had a genetic predisposition to heart disease. A higher-quality analysis published in 2023 showed that most of his ancestry came from early farmers whose ancestors had migrated from Anatolia, with very little of the steppe ancestry that would later spread through Europe. It also suggested he had darker skin than earlier reconstructions showed, and that he was probably balding.

The world Ötzi lived in

Ötzi lived during the Copper Age, or Chalcolithic, a period when farming communities across Europe began to use metal alongside stone tools. Farming itself had reached the Alpine region more than two thousand years earlier, as part of the spread of farming into Europe. People in the valleys of South Tyrol grew cereals such as einkorn and barley, kept sheep, goats and cattle, and still hunted wild animals such as ibex and red deer.

His copper axe closely resembles axes from the Remedello culture of northern Italy, and analysis suggests the copper came from ore deposits in southern Tuscany, showing that metal travelled considerable distances. The flint for his tools came from the Lessini mountains near Lake Garda. High Alpine passes such as the Tisenjoch were used for hunting and for moving herds between valleys and summer pastures, a practice still followed in the area today.

Some key figures about the Iceman and his find are summarised below.

Clothing and equipment

Ötzi’s equipment is the most complete set of everyday Copper Age gear ever found. His clothing included:

• a coat made from strips of sheep and goat hide sewn together;
• leggings of goat leather and a loincloth of sheep leather;
• a cap of brown bear fur with a chin strap;
• shoes with bearskin soles and deer-hide uppers, stuffed with grass for insulation;
• a woven mat of grass, possibly worn as a cape or used as a mat.

His tools and weapons were equally revealing:

• an axe with a blade of almost pure copper, fixed in a haft of yew wood;
• a small flint dagger with an ash-wood handle and a woven grass sheath;
• an unfinished longbow of yew, about 1.82 metres long;
• a deer-hide quiver containing 14 arrows, only two of them finished and fitted with flint points;
• a backpack frame of hazel and larch, two birch-bark containers, one of which had held embers wrapped in maple leaves;
• a retoucher for sharpening flint, a belt pouch with a scraper, a drill, a flint flake and tinder fungus;
• two pieces of birch polypore fungus threaded on strips of leather, possibly used as medicine.

The copper axe was a valuable object and suggests that Ötzi had some status in his community. Copper metallurgy had been known in south-eastern Europe for well over a thousand years by his time, following developments such as early copper smelting in the Balkans.

Tattoos and medicine

Ötzi’s skin bears 61 tattoos, made by rubbing charcoal into fine cuts or punctures. They form groups of short parallel lines and a few small crosses, mostly on his lower back, knees, ankles and wrists. Many lie over points where he suffered from joint wear and pain, leading researchers to suggest that they were a form of therapy rather than decoration. They are among the oldest known tattoos in the world.

His last days and death

Food remains in his stomach and intestines show that Ötzi ate several meals in his last day and a half. A study published in 2018 found that his final meal included ibex meat and fat, red deer, einkorn wheat and traces of bracken, a toxic fern that may have been used to wrap food or as medicine. The high fat content suggests a well-planned diet for high mountain travel.

Pollen of hop-hornbeam in his gut indicates that he died in spring or early summer, not in autumn as first assumed. Pollen sequences also show that he climbed from lower valleys to high altitude in his last hours.

In 2001 the radiologist Paul Gostner noticed on X-rays a flint arrowhead lodged in Ötzi’s left shoulder. The arrow had damaged the subclavian artery, causing massive blood loss that would have killed him within a short time. He also had a deep cut on his right hand, a defensive-type wound that was a few days old, and an injury to the head.

The shaft of the arrow had been pulled out, and the attacker apparently left his valuable copper axe behind. This has led researchers to suggest that the killing was personal rather than a robbery. Who killed him and why remains unknown.

Preservation and research

Ötzi was preserved because he died in a sheltered rocky hollow that was soon covered by snow and ice. The glacier above moved over the hollow without dragging the body away, and cold, dry conditions dried his tissues naturally.

At the museum in Bolzano he is kept at about minus 6 degrees Celsius and very high humidity, conditions designed to imitate the glacier. Scientists periodically spray him with sterile water to form a protective layer of ice. Researchers from many countries have studied him using CT scanning, DNA sequencing, microbiology and isotope analysis, and new techniques continue to produce discoveries.

In 2010 a long dispute over a finder’s reward ended when the provincial government of South Tyrol agreed to pay the Simon family 150,000 euros.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Ötzi died alone in a snowstorm. Early theories proposed that he froze to death while crossing the mountains. The arrowhead found in 2001 shows that he was killed by another person.
• Myth: the curse of Ötzi. Media reports linked the deaths of several people involved in the discovery, including Helmut Simon, who died in a mountain fall in 2004, to a curse. There is no evidence for this; deaths among the hundreds of people involved are not statistically unusual.
• Fact: he was found in Italy. Despite the Austrian name of the valley and his first years in Innsbruck, the find site lies just inside Italy.

Timeline

• c. 3350–3105 BC: Ötzi dies on the Tisenjoch after being shot with an arrow.
• 19 September 1991: Erika and Helmut Simon discover the body.
• Late September 1991: The body is recovered, taken to Innsbruck and recognised as prehistoric.
• Autumn 1991: A survey confirms that the find site lies in Italy.
• 1998: Ötzi is moved to and put on display at the new South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano.
• 2001: X-rays reveal the arrowhead in his shoulder.
• 2012: Publication of his first full genome.
• 2023: A new genome study revises his ancestry and appearance.

Why it matters

Ötzi offers a rare direct encounter with an individual from prehistoric Europe, along with the objects he carried on the day he died. His clothing, tools, diet, illnesses and violent death bring detail to a period otherwise known mainly from graves and settlements, such as the prehistoric pile dwellings of the Alps. He also shows how the Alps were crossed and used by Copper Age communities, and how modern science can extract a life story from a single body.