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Ice Mummies—Return of the Iceman
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Program Overview
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NOVA examines how science is unlocking the secrets of the Iceman, a
man discovered in 1991 frozen in the Italian Alps.
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Found with the Iceman are a copper axe, leather clothes, flint
tools, shoes lined with grass, and a quiver full of arrows.
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Mapping of the site shows that the body—thought to have
been discovered in Austria—was actually found 92 meters
(100 yards) inside the Italian border.
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A battery of tests—including carbon dating, microscopic
analysis, X-rays and endoscopy—reveal that the Iceman:
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had been frozen for about 5,300 years, making him the oldest
frozen mummy ever found;
had heavily worn joints; was about 45 years old; -
Ate a last meal of meat and rough milled wheat; and
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had traces of copper on the surface of his hair and arsenic
inside, indicating that he might have been involved in
smelting.
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Reconstructive archeology demonstrates how the Iceman might have
built and used his copper axe.
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