So, Ötzi, what's new?

Profile pic from long ago

I don't know what you were doing in September, 1991, but Helmut and Erika Simon, German tourists in the Alps, were busy finding the frozen body of a 45-year old man in one of the Alps. (There are many alps.)  The Simons thought at first he was a mountain man who had only recently met his maker, but it turned out that old Ötzi the Iceman, as he has come to be known, was roaming all the Alps in the year 3,330 BC - about the same time that Ronald Reagan began acting in movies. 

Since the body was found near the border of Austria and Italy, it was widely assumed that he had gone out to pick up some Italian food for dinner, but analysis of the contents of his stomach revealed he had recently had a deer sandwich on herb bread, along with some fruits and grains.  And in his pockets, researchers found a card from Panera with holes punched in it.  Sad to say, two more punches, and he would have been entitled to a free deer meat sandwich, but this was not to be, because he died from being hit by an axe and shot by an arrow before being dumped in one of the many peat bogs in his town.

Computer-generated Ötzi image

From what was found, scientists determined that he worked as a shepherd and also as a radio DJ, under the air name "Pete Boggs."

There being no TJ Maxx in his town, Ötzi had to make his own clothes:  a cloak made of woven grass (that had to be comfortable) and a coat, a belt, leggings, loincloth and shoes, all made of various leathers. He also wore a bearskin cap (possibly Kangol) and his "socks" were soft grass wrapped around his feet. From his belt hung a pouch with several handy tools: a scraper, drill, flint flake, bone awl and a dried fungus.

I've been fascinated by Ötzi since he first turned up, and wish he had a Facebook page to use for posting new pictures...such as the one above, showing a computer-generated idea of what he might have looked like.  He's as old as the hills, and as new as tattoos and acupuncture, both of which he indulged in.

I don't know why there has not been a movie made about Ötzi, but maybe Hollywood has just been waiting for Jeff Bridges to have time to play the part.