Ötzi's gear

kamagong

kamagong

Gold Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2001
Messages
10,871
I thought some of you might find this interesting. It's a blog post about the kit the Iceman had with him.

What I thought most fascinating was the compartmentalization of his kit. The Iceman had a pack, but he also kept part of his kit on his belt. A prehistoric PSK perhaps?
 
I've always found Oetzi's gear intriguing. Extremely practical and rather sophisticated.

The thing that has me most scratching my head is how practical the copper ax was. Seems like even a work hardened copper blade would be very soft, and I am wondering how it was effective enough to replace a stone ax head. Bronze I would understand, but copper throws me off.
 
his axe has made a few people wonder ..

THe stone axes Ive made and used ( yeah crude ok , but ya gt to try it out to know ) .. lost their edges real fast .

Id think a copper one , allowing for copper to work harden and all , after a bit would be a better tool to have even if it is soft compared to the steels we are used to having on hand today .

my take on it tho .

Ozti has fascinated me since waaayyy back :)
 
Looking at the pictures again, the ax bit is cast plenty thick. So it would gain strength from that. It may not have been used for the same kind of ax chopping that I'm used to thinking of doing, either. How many big trees would he be felling? For doing firewood gathering and shaping his bow and such, it might be just dandy.
 
As to the composition of the ax, don't discount using the materials to which you have access. Iron is a loser to bronze in all of the categories that make a good tool- except one. Iron is rather abundant, while bronze is not. Iron tools are inferior to bronze tools, but there is a lot more iron than bronze laying around. Where I used to deer hunt you could walk around and pick up iron ore nuggets up off of the ground.

You just need access to copper to make a copper ax, but you also need access to tin and someone to smelt the material to create bronze, before you can make a bronze ax. Copper and tin do not usually exist in the same area, so more trading is required.

Of course steel makes superior tools to iron, bronze and copper. However, that is a later discovery.

Anthropologists believe that stone axes were not used as full-swing felling axes, but with short rapid strokes. Almost like pecking through the material. Fire is much more efficient at felling large trees. If- IF- a copper ax is the next level of advancement, then it stands to reason that a copper ax may be used in a similar manner. If that were the case, then the soft (relative to steel) nature of copper would not be a detriment, and the better toughness (relative to stone) would be a significant advantage.
 
hlee said:
Anthropologists believe that stone axes were not used as full-swing felling axes, but with short rapid strokes. Almost like pecking through the material. Fire is much more efficient at felling large trees. If- IF- a copper ax is the next level of advancement, then it stands to reason that a copper ax may be used in a similar manner. If that were the case, then the soft (relative to steel) nature of copper would not be a detriment, and the better toughness (relative to stone) would be a significant advantage.
Click to expand...

Bingo.
 
Interesting stuff to us. For that guy on the mountain he was using an advanced cutting system. When it got dull you could work it on a stone and get a good edge and chop wood or cut meat. He probably used stone tools to cut also when those were good enough for the task. The real mystery is if he was up there to escape from someone in pursuit and what was the conflict if there was one? Had he been in a knife fight and won but died from wounds and exposure? There's so much to imagine about his equipment but the guy lived a life and died up away from any of his people. Maybe he was a real bad guy and we would have been glad he went away if we had known him or maybe he was some kind of hero? More likely he was an average Otzi and had a bad day trying to live his life and take care of business.
 
I could read about Otzi for hours. Fodder for my mind! I'm almost tempted to give an ancient kit a try... maybe someday. :)

Thinking about his knife and axe makes me realize how spoiled I am with something as simple as a Mora and Fiskars.
 
I have very long been interested by Otzi, and here in Washinton D.C. at the the Smithsonian Museum they have a exhibit of exact replicas of his stuff. A small knife and hatchet, warm clothing, and he was set. I always figured he must have been one tough mutha, that after being in a knife fight,( at least two different peoples blood was on his knife and clothing) and being shot a fatal wound in the back while fleeing up the mountain, he made it away from his pursuers. He must have lost them in spite of his injuries, since his copper ax would have been a prize to the people of that time, and would have been taken if they had found him.

I'd love to know what happened in the final day of his life. It's an unsolved murder mystery when you get down to it.

Carl.
 
The murder mystery part is intrigueing and new evedince comes to light all the time. The hand wound was several days old when he died. He had eaten a big meal just before he died, something he would not likely do if he thought he was being hunted. The arrow cut a major artery, an injury that would have been fairly quickly fatal. "Someone" pulled the arrow out of his back but the point stayed in. They found traces of arsenic in his hair which suggests that he refined and cast his copper axe head. The cutting edge had been beaten after casting to harden it. This is a technology that was thought to have developed later than Otzi's time. At least in that part of the world. They are also exploring his DNA. So far, they have not found a direct liniage of progeny.
 
Likely someone with a grudge killed him. Someone who already had equal or superior tools, otherwise they would have taken his. Someone not too powerful though, otherwise they would just leave the arrow behind instead of trying to pull it out. Then again, maybe Otzi tried to pull it out just before he died.
Come to think of it. You can tell a lot about someone by the way they knap an arrowhead. If Otzi was a craftsman then his arrows should be of equal quality. If the one found in his back is of equal quality but looks like it was made by someone else, you could assume that it was made by someone of equal talent. Maybe someone the same age. Maybe a rival craftsman.
 
Last edited:
I thought he had tinderfungus and pyrite with him too.
 
He also had a large amount of pollen (possibly from pollen cakes) and meat in his colon. :eek::p
 
But they removed part of it during the study; now he only has a semi-colon. :D

Ah, yes, six years spent getting a degree in English were worth it simply to enjoy bad grammatical puns!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top