OTZI - the man from the ice
5,000 years ago, a man ventured onto the icy heights of the Val Senales glaciers, where he died. In 1991, he was discovered by chance, along with his clothes and equipment, mummified, frozen, a sensational event for archaeology and an exceptional snapshot, which captured a person from the Copper Age traveling at high altitude.
His body was naturally preserved in the glacier. Older than the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge, it is the result of a series of incredible coincidences. Ötzi lived in the Copper Age, a period that can be placed in the final phase of the Neolithic. He still used stone objects, but he also already possessed an innovative and precious copper axe. The technical knowledge relating to the extraction and processing of metals had recently arrived in Europe from Asia Minor. With copper, the first Metal Age began.
The person who re-emerged from a 5,300-year glacial sleep was immediately affectionately nicknamed Ötzi, from the name of the valley bordering the place where he was found. He weighed 15 kilograms and was 1.60 meters tall. Next to him were found remains of his shoes, cloak, quiver, trousers and, among other things, the extraordinary axe, first cast and then welded, an object that perhaps first allowed a vague dating of the illustrious ancestor.
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Riproduzione di OTZI. Immagine presa dal sito https://www.iceman.it/
Why is OTZI so famous?
Not only because it is the mummy of a human being, male, who lived over 5,200 years ago, but above all because the body has been perfectly preserved, complete with clothing and complete equipment. An exceptional fact, due to the particular climatic conditions inside the glacier where it was found.
The point where Ötzi was found is on the Giogo di Tisa, at 3210 m above sea level, under the Punta di Finale. The body lay in a rocky basin of about 3x7 m that had protected it from the devastating forces of the moving glacier. In 1991, when the mummy was found, the particularly hot summer had caused a significant melting of the ice and the consequent surfacing of the torso from the meltwater.
Furthermore, 61 tattoos were found on Ötzi’s body, mostly dots, lines and crosses: he is considered the first tattooed human known to man! The tattoos are found on parts of the body that must have caused him pain during the Iceman’s life: they therefore most likely had a healing function.
Therapeutic tattoos
Unlike modern tattoos, OTZI's tattoos were not made with a needle, but by making thin incisions in the skin and rubbing charcoal powder into them. They are all located in the rib area and lumbar vertebrae, on the left wrist, on the right knee, on the calves and on the ankles.
Some scientific assumptions indicate that Ötzi's tattoos were probably made using a bone or copper awl. These types of tools appear in the archaeological documentation of the region, but none have yet been identified as "tattoo tools". However, research has not stopped and who knows, sooner or later they will understand how the various objects could have been used and perhaps discover the real tattoo tools of the Copper Age.
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Made in places that were covered by clothing most of the time, it is unlikely that they had a decorative function. Today it is assumed that they served therapeutic purposes. In fact, they are found in correspondence with parts of the body with marked signs of wear that must have caused pain, to soothe which man resorted to tattoos. And the fact that their position coincides with the lines of acupuncture, still valid, supports this theory.
The scientists' findings, recently published in the International Journal of Paleopathology, suggest that Ötzi belonged to a society with surprisingly advanced medical knowledge.
If the results of the recent Austrian research on the oldest mummy in Europe are confirmed, we would have discovered that the ancient art of inserting needles into the body to relieve illnesses and addictions was practiced by man since the Stone Age in Europe, centuries before it was used in the East and at least 2,000 years before the first writings on this practice were found in China.
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