Woims

society: okay

Did he have his name written down on something?

Or is that what the people who dug him up thousands of years later decided to name him?

And how TF does he even have a fanbase?

Ötzi is a 5300-ish year old mummy, found in the Ötztal Alps in Italy (hence his name). While the earliest form of writing was emerging from Sumer at the time, Ötzi likely came from a civilisation with no writing system.

Ötzi has a fanbase because frankly he's absolutely fascinating. For a long time he was the oldest tattooed person ever discovered (in 2018 older Egyptian mummies were discovered), with 61 tattoos, a series of lines and crosses, primarily on his joints. These tattoos were likely an early form of acupuncture since he had worn joints that likely caused him pain.

The amount we've been able to study and understand about Ötzi is incredible, and he has offered us an incredible view of the European Copper Age. He was 45. He was 5"3. He was around 50kgs. We know what his final meal was, how he dressed, where he came from and how he travelled to the Ötztal region (through pollen in his lungs). We know he was involved in copper smelting (high levels of copper and arsenic in his hair). He could still have 19 descendants alive today. We know he was sick three times in the last six months before he died. We know he had whipworms. We know he was lactose intolerant.

We know he was murdered. Not killed by a stranger, or robbed. He was murdered by someone, and it was probably personal, and he did not know it was coming. He bled out, from an arrow to the back, and nobody helped him.

His last meal was elaborate. He was not on the run, or in a hurry to get away. He was not chased up those mountains. Where was he going? Why was he being followed? His body was not looted. He was a wealthy man, for his time. He had good quality clothes, shoes that people have reconstructed and hiked up the mountain in (and found surprisingly comfortable, apparently).

Weapons, too. He was found with a copper axe, a knife, arrows and an unfinished bow, baskets and medicines. These were all valuable possessions. People were not so rich back then that they could easily discard items like this- so why were they left to rot on the mountain with him? Was the fact they'd been touched by Ötzi really so repugnant to whoever was on that mountain?

There are at least 4 other people's blood on his gear. On the knife. On the arrows. The arrow that they shot him with was left in his back but the shaft was removed.

We know so much about Ötzi. We know everything about his finals hours- except for everything about Ötzi. We do not know who he was, we do not know his name, and we do not know why he was killed. His murderers stand in the shadows and will never come out into the light.

Ötzi was a wealthy man who was travelling. Perhaps he was simply an explorer, using his wealth to see the world. Perhaps he was visiting family, or returning from a trip. But either way way he’s a wealthy man, probably a weapon smith, forging tools from copper and wood for others to use. But regardless, he is travelling through the mountains.

It’s a long journey, and while Ötzi can probably hunt for himself or has non perishable or preserved food on his person, he’s been getting sick a lot. Perhaps he’s not used to the cold, or brought some disease with him on his journey, but he’s now presented with a problem: if he gets sick again, he may not make it through the mountains. If he becomes incapacitated from his disease, the odds of running out of food and starving or freezing become too high for him to bear. Ötzi does not want to die. But he fears he cannot survive on his own.

Thankfully, people live in these mountains, and a travelling family happens upon him in the snow. They greet him kindly and he greets them in turn, and they camp together for the night, sharing a fire and eating together. There’s a mother and a father and a few children, scarred by sickness and fights and the world, but all still breathing. Before he goes to sleep, Ötzi glimpses medicine among their supplies. Medicine for wounds and for illness. And Ötzi does not want to die.

He thinks about it as he falls asleep, it’s the first think he remembers when he wakes up, he stares it down as he eats breakfast, as he barely notices when the eldest daughter leaves to hunt and to scout the area. It consumes him. Ötzi does not want to die here.

They were kind to him, so he’s courteous enough to ask for it first. Of course they say no. There are more of them and he is a stranger. They will not give him something so vital. So he kills them. Their weapons are fine for hunting, but he is an excellent weapon smith and his are better. There are more of them, but the children are young, and the parents are his first targets. Ötzi leaves the ashes of the fire and the corpses of kind strangers with a basket of medicine and a feeling of relief.

His relief clears his mind of all worries. Swallowed by the knowledge that his odds of survival are so high that it would take a freak mishap to kill him now. But he is set. The family is all dead so they cannot follow him. And even if there were a surviving family, there were not any long range weapons left at the camp, which a potential revenge-seeker would need in order to kill him, for he would surely win any close quarters fight, and would hear an assailant crunching through the snow before they reached him. These are thoughts he might have had, if he wasn’t basking so much in his safety. And perhaps, if he had entertained these thoughts more, he would have realized that there was someone left who fit all the criteria of his possible murderer.

The eldest daughter is an excellent shot. He is dead by the time she reaches him. Her family’s blood is still on his weapons, and it almost makes her vomit. She can’t take them. She also can’t bring herself to take back the medicine that killed her family. Or maybe she’s just in too much shock from the death of her family. Maybe she’s doesn’t know if she wants to live anymore. She snaps off the shaft of her arrow. He doesn’t get to take anything else from her.