Indecent Exposure?
Oddly unbundled against the Alpine cold, "Ötzi" the Iceman steps out in a new, older-looking reconstruction of the famous 5,300-year-old Alpine mummy. After a partial preview last week, the full re-creation was unveiled Tuesday.
In reality, the Iceman dressed for the weather.
Artifacts found near his body high in the Ötzal Alps of Italy suggest Ötzi died with not only his leather, grass-insulated boots on but also head-to-toe animal skins, including a fur hat, and a cape of braided grasses. (Related: "Iceman Wore Cattle, Sheep Hides; May Have Been a Herder.")
The new model is half naked only "to show that his body was muscular and well trained," said anthropologist Albert Zink, who worked with forensic artists on the reconstruction.
"For sure, it would have been too cold to walk around like this, especially in the mountains," said Zink, head of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Bolzano, Italy.
Found in a melting glacier in 1991, Ötzi was preserved in ice for millennia after having been slain by an arrow. The new reconstruction is the centerpiece of an exhibition at Bolzano's South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology marking the 20th anniversary of the Iceman mummy's discovery.
—Ted Chamberlain
Pictures: New Iceman Is Fit, Nearly Naked—And Too Old?
Revealed this week, a new reconstruction portrays "Ötzi," the Iceman mummy, oddly half naked and older looking than usual.
