Ötzi find spot: On the trail of a glacier mummy

A stone pyramid in everlasting ice

It was 19th September 1991 when the German mountaineering couple Erika and Helmut Simon discovered an icy human corpse on the Tisenjoch below the Fineilspitze summit in Schnalstal valley. It wasn’t until days after the complex recovery that it became clear that the body was not, as had been first suspected, that of a mountaineer, but a mummy from the Copper Age. The expert on prehistory and early history, Konrad Spindler certified the body as being at least 4000 years old. Due to the ideal location of the site on Similaun, a 3 by 7 metres wide hollow below the Fineilspitze, Ötzi's body was protected from the destructive forces of the moving glacier for thousands of years. The fact that the mummy was discovered at all was due to the hot summer and the consequent severe glacial melt. During the subsequent archaeological inspections of the Ötzi site, a quiver and its contents were found, as well as laces, fur remains, birch bark, parts of a grass mat and a perfectly preserved fur hat. Ötzi also carried a copper hatchet and a bow with him. The discovery of the glacier mummy in Schnals is a huge asset to South Tyrol as well as countless humanities and scientific research institutes, not least because of how well it is preserved and its age. With the help of radiocarbon dating, the mummy was able to be estimated at around 5,250 years old. Regular research on the glacier mummy in the last few decades has continually provided new findings about how people in the Copper Age lived. Today a large stone pyramid located nearby commemorates the sensational archaeological find.