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Monday 28 February 2011

Artists Recreate the Face of Otzi, a 5,300-Year-Old Iceman Mummy

In the year 3289 BC, Otzi trekked up the Schnalstal glacier in the Italian Alps. The Neolithic guy -- dubbed Otzi the Iceman, or "Frozen Fritz" -- wore a coat and leggings made of sheep's fur and moccasins made of cattle leather as he climbed, having just polished off his last meal: unleavened bread and meat. Severely wounded by an arrow and possibly dispatched with a blow to the head by a cudgel, he died, his body froze and was mummified, and he lay in place for a very, very long time.


Now, 5,300 years later two Dutch forensic experts Alfons and Adrie Kennis have painstakingly created the first image of Otzi with the latest in forensic mapping technology that uses three-dimensional images of the mummy's skull as well as infrared and tomographic images. The new reconstruction shows a prematurely old man, with deep-set eyes, sunken cheeks, a furrowed face and ungroomed beard and hair. Although he looks tired, Ötzi has vivid brown eyes. Indeed, recent research on the 5,300-year-old mummy has shown that the Stone Age man did not have blue eyes as previously thought. Believed to have died around the age of 45, Ötzi was about 1.60 meters (5 foot, 3 inches) tall and weighed 50 kilograms (110 pounds).

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