We want our mummy
Page 36
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
etzi, at 5,300 years old the world's old
est mummy, has made his final journey inside a refrigerated truck from Innsbruck in Austria to his last resting place in Bolzano, Italy. The truck was accompanied by seven Austrian police vans and o helicopter for fear of terrorist attack.
Ever since Oetzi was discovered in the Oetztaler Alps in 1991, his nationality has been in dispute. An Austrian coroner was dispatched up the mountain to 10,000 feet. While he wrote out the death certificate, experts were kept at bay. By the time they got to the mummy, souvenir hunters had already helped themselves to bits and pieces and Oetzi had started to sprout mould. The Iceman spent the next six years in a freezer at Innsbruck University, while Italian nationalists insisted the body had been found on their side of the border. Experts established it was discovered on Italian territory; 92.57 metres inside South Tyrol. However, Austrians believe South Tyrol was taken from them in 1919 and as the mummy was a few years older than that, he was indeed Austrian.
Oetzi will be on view from 28 March in a refrigerated cell at the museum in Bolzano. The Austrians have now accused the Italians of "sensationalism". You see there's always trouble if you go digging up the past.