Who was Otzi the Iceman?

Question from April Carter

In 1991, tourists found the mummified 5,300-year-old body of a man in the Alps. Nicknamed ‘Otzi the Iceman’, he’s now kept at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Italy. Otzi was around 45 years old, about 1.6 metres tall and weighed around 50 kilograms.

He wasn’t in the best of health, and repairs to his equipment suggest that he’d been on the move for quite some time. He was travelling along a ridge when he died, had just enjoyed a meal of wild goat and grains, and was carrying a fancy-looking copper axe, which suggests that he might have been a man of
some status.


Answered by Laura Mearsfor Brain Dump in How It Works issue 118 

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