Okay I got enough genuine requests to share things about mummies and mummification so instead of like, talking about anything useful on my blog I’m going to spend however many words talking about my favorite mummy because of course I have one.
His name is Otzi and if you’ve heard about him it’s because he’s really famous but you don’t understand he’s fucking cool as shit and tells us so much about Europe just before the Bronze Age.
Rest under the cut bc I’m about to share pictures of Otzi and he is a very mummified mummy.
So this is Otzi:
He’s a natural mummy, meaning he was mummified through natural means in the Otztal Alps after his death around 3230 BC, which predates the commonly accepted start-date of the Early Helladic period of Ancient Greece by only 30 years. Otzi was buried under a glacier, forming a cold, anaerobic environment that preserved his body really really well. His stomach contents are intact and we know he had tattoos because they’re still on his skin.
There’s been a lot of speculation about the nature of his tattoos but what archaeologists currently think, due to the placement of the tattoos and the wear on his body in those areas, is that they were therapeutic tattoos. He has 61 visible tattoos, all in these distinctive line and cross patterns, which were actually made by cutting into his skin and rubbing charcoal into the wounds.
Another thing we know, this time very certainly, is that Otzi was probably murdered. He showed signs of pursuit and physical altercations days before his death, and he has an arrowhead embedded in his shoulder blade that severed his subclavian artery alongside a severe head injury. It’s likely Otzi bled to death, however, and didn’t die from the head injury. He was 45 years old.
Otzi’s physical health is also very easy to track because of how intact he was. We know his haplogroup today is found predominantly in Sardinia and Corsica, and that he had a tooth gap and no wisdom teeth. He stood at around 1.6 meters, or 63 inches, and weighed approximately 50kg or 110lbs. He also showed signs of Lyme disease–the oldest evidence of the condition that we have on record–and was predisposed to cardiovascular disease.
All of Otzi’s equipment, his longbow, his arrows, his quiver, all of his clothing, etc. was also really well preserved and gives us insight into everything about pre-Bronze Age Europe. One of the items Otzi had in his possession is very special though: a copper axe. The axe is the only one of its kind in the world today, as most others have been lost to time. It’s also an amazing insight into Otzi’s status–these were incredibly rare items seen often as status symbols–and tool construction techniques in the Copper Age.
Archaeologists also put a lot of attention into the fact that his murderers did not take this valuable item after killing him despite evidence of removing the shaft of the arrow lodged in his shoulder. There’s some speculation that, since the item was rare, it would out the murderer for their crime, but we have no confirmation and can only speculate on motive.
Otzi is one of the oldest natural mummies in existence. In fact, he is the world’s oldest wet mummy, as the environment he was preserved in was anaerobic, rather than lacking moisture. He bears the oldest tattoos we have on record and provided archaeologists ample information about the age of several medical conditions. Before Otzi we had very little information on how Neolithic Europeans lived before the Bronze Age.
Otzi presently resides in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy, and is kept in a special cold cell to keep him preserved, as outside his glacier burial, he begins to deteriorate and melt. It’s been 31 years since he was found and remains one of the coolest pieces of archaeology I’ve ever heard of and is one of my favorite things to infodump about so thank you for letting me.
I did have to leave some stuff out for brevity but luckily for my other mummy-loving friends, Otzi has a website! You can read more here: https://www.iceman.it/en/the-iceman/
Family friend found a dead baby badger and told me where to find it! I currently have it in a bag, I need to decide by this afternoon what to do with it bc it's likely roasting in there (I've literally had to retreat inside from gardening, it is Too Hot for Ireland). I mostly want the skull for display, and I'll probably make jewellry or craft with the other bones.
