South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology

In 1991 two walkers on a high ridge in the Alps found a body coming out of the ice at over three thousand metres. It was taken for a recent casualty until dating put it at more than five thousand years old, and a survey established that it lay just inside Italy. Otzi is now kept in a cold cell at a temperature and humidity matched to the glacier that held him, viewed through a window about the size of a serving hatch. The museum around him shows the clothing and equipment found alongside: an axe with a blade of near-pure copper, a bow and unfinished arrows, a birch-bark container, shoes packed with grass.

History

The museum was set up in 1998 to house Ötzi, a natural mummy of a man from about 3300 BC, kept in a chamber at 98% humidity and below freezing, like the glacier where he was found. His equipment included the oldest complete axe of the Copper Age ever found and a quiver of 12 arrows, only two of them finished (Wikipedia, South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology).

Highlights

• Otzi himself - through a small window into the cold cell.
• The copper axe - hafted in yew, with a blade of near-pure copper.
• The clothing - hide and grass, layered, with shoes stuffed for insulation.
• The tattoos - lines and crosses marked into the skin, mostly over joints.

When to go

Open all year and best kept for a day when the weather has closed the mountains. Book online in high summer and through the Christmas market weeks, when Bolzano fills completely. Allow two hours. The museum closes on Mondays outside the busiest months, so check the calendar before making the trip.

Before you go

The body is small, dark and hard to make out through thick glass, the queue at the window moves slowly, and a fair number of people come away feeling it was anticlimactic. Much of the rest is text and reconstruction rather than objects. Bolzano is expensive, and in December the town is given over to the Christmas market.

Nearby

The Renon plateau is above the town by cable car; the Dolomites are an hour east.

Key facts