Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012, September 26, 1991, Page 15, Image 15

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    Ancient body
in Alps sports
tattoos, leather
INNS H K U t: K .
Austria (AP) — A
man whoso 4,000
yoar-old mumml
fiod body was discovorod on a
glacier's odgo woro tattoos,
dressed in leather and packed a
knife, scientists said Wodnos
Researchors called the find
by hikers Tuesday an archaeo
logical sensation, and said it
could offer a nire glimpse into
life in die Bronze Age, a time
when men ate meat and stone
ground meal, judging from the
mummy's chiseled teeth.
"We are absolutely sure this
body is 4,000 years old," said
Konrad Spindler of the Univer
sity of Innsbruck's Institute for
Pre-and Parly History.
From an examination of the
body and implements found
with it, scholars dated the "Ice
man from the Similuun" — so
named by Austrian newspapers
for the glacier where he was
found — to the early Bronze
Age, roughly 2,000 B.C. in the
Alps, he said.
He said items found with the
corpse were not purposely bur
ied with it, but were carried by
the living man. They included
a flint stone, pieces of leather
and fur clothing, und shoes.
Hikers in the Tyrolean moun
tains in Western Austria near
the Italian border stumbled
across the remarkably well-pro
served man sticking out ol the
glacier at about 10,000 feet and
notified local police.
Spindler said the man ap
peared to be between 20 and 40
years old und was “u good
mountain climber." He wore
winter < lothing ol leather and
fur stuffed with hay at the time
of Ids death, he said.
Colored tattoos uru visible on
the corpse's skin, in the form of
crosses and lines, hut their
meaning was not immediately
clear.
The corpse's teeth, many of
which are still in place, are
worn down, typical of a time
when people lived mostly on a
diet of meat and stone-ground
meal, which often had tiny bits
of stone mixed in, Spindler
said.
Spindler claimed the mum
my would allow researchers for
the first time to "form an exact
picturo of life in the curly
Bronze time."
day
Scientists could study the
stomach’s contents and other
organisms on the body, he said.
But scientists say many ques
tions may never he answered.
it is unclear how the mun
died. Researchers in Innsbruck,
capital of Tyrol province, were
trying to find out what caused
an apparent wound at the back
of the man's head and to deter
mine whether he was killed or.
perhaps, died in an accident.
Scientists also wonder what
prompted tho man to venture
that high into the mountains,
because mountaineering Is a
fairly recent human pursuit.
There was speculation he
was looking for ore deposits, or
— because of tho ax and the
knife found with him — that he
was a huntor seeking gamo.
Worner Platzer, the head of
tho Anatomy Institute of Inns
bruck University, said tho body
had been treatod with chemi
cals for preservation and placed
in a refrigerated room where
tho temperature is minus 6 de
grees Celsius, the temperature
insldo the Similaun glacier.
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