Ötzi the Iceman

0:10 oh hey there, oh hey there. How's it going? It's going well. I'm a little tired today yeah, yeah, you and me both. I feel like when we do this on tuesdays, it's what? Almost 3, 30, and I've been up for 12 hours. So yeah, yeah, I uh. I had a short work day today so that we can podcast, yep, and I had never wanted to get out of there so quickly I don't know what it was. I had some great, great clients today and um, and they were all lovely, but the last one, it was one person, and she did two and a half hours of services.

0:51 Holy crap. She did an hour and a half massage and then a 60 minute facial. Both with you. And yeah, oh wow. Yeah, and it just felt like it was. It was lasting forever and she's so nice and it was deep pressure, which I really enjoy. But yeah, but two and a half hours with the same person, that's gotta, that's gotta just feel like, cause there's no change over. There's no change over, there's no getting up and yeah, um. So, even though it was dipped deep tissue, I was, I almost dozed off like probably 10 times, like it was so bad. I'm like my god, kate, get up, get up, get up, get up, get up. Yeah, it was, it was really rough. Um, I hate when I feel like that I can understand that yeah yeah so I've got a, I've got a question for you all right, let's do it um, if you could travel anywhere right now anywhere anywhere.

1:47 Okay, where would you go? dylan damburu in colorado. I know it sounds pretty basic, but I was literally just thinking about that on my way home today. I'm like I could just keep going and I'm like, oh, I could get some. Uh, my favorite, you could just keep driving is that what you mean? You could just keep driving west. Yeah, yeah, you know, but uh, I'm like then I could get some of my favorite beard, my dylan dam brewery extra pale ale, and I could have that on the podcast yeah bring some back home. That'd be great. But and then we could we could talk about that in our podcast my random trip just to bring beer back to colorado no, the beer well, that too.

2:35 Yeah, one of these days I hope to be able to crack one of those open on the podcast. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Yeah, I have no, unfortunately no plans on getting out there anytime soon, which is really depressing. I haven't been to Colorado since last year. But when you do, I'm going to be in the suitcase because I like Colorado too. We can stop by and see your family. Yes, we could. We can stop by Kearney, nebraska. I mean we could wave and I can take you to the Thunderhead Brewery where they have a beer that's great flavored. It sounds so disgusting but it's so good. It's called Thunder Punch.

3:15 I endorse that beer. What's the name of the? brewery again, thunderhead. Brewery Thunderhead okay, and their beer is called Thunder Punch. I don't even know if you would call it a beer, but maybe I don't know. It could be. I don't know. I don't know much about it. I don't know anything about it actually. Yeah, I remember when we when the family, the wife and the kids and I went to Colorado last year to meet up with Al. Hey Al, hey Al. I think you had told me to try and find that night. We didn't have time because we were just staying the night and then leaving again the next day to go.

3:59 Continue on to a better destination. That's right, I'll pop out of the suitcase and be like let's go grab your ID, nevermind You're old. Had to get it in there, didn't you? So the last time I went it was two years ago I think, and I sit down at the bar and I was like I want a thunder punch and they literally said what kind I was like you got more Thunder Punch and they literally said what kind I was like you got more than one. There's more than one Say what. They had like cherry and lime and I was like I need the original. What is this other bullshit? That's funny. Well, you know, they have to expand, keep it fresh, you know, add more variety.

4:43 So on and so forth. That's what breweries do um so to answer your question specifically, I would go to dillon dam. If it wasn't somewhere in the states, I would go to uh, italy, I've never been. I know you've been there. I've never been there. I'd like to go to rome and all that, but yeah, that'd be fun so speaking of italy yeah that's actually where our story takes place today. What I know? it's like kismet, I never really planned this folks no, we really didn't but hey um let's go to or as kate would say it.

5:23 Italy. I don't say Italy, I say Italy, I just say Italian. Why aren't you consistent? Because my name is Kate and I don't know how. And I don't. It sounds like you're at like an AA meeting, anyways. Hello, my name is Kate, and what am I doing here? I don't remember and I don't know how, but anyways, all right, take us to Italy. Okay, so we are going to talk about someone who lived 5,200 years ago. Is this hearsay or did this really happen? This really happened 5,200 years ago.

6:05 Yes. So we're talking like 3,200 BCE. Yeah. Look at me go, I can math. Yep, I can't. I had to go look it up, yep, so we are going to talk about Utsi, utsi, mm-hmm. Like Utsi Collins. No, that's Bootsy Collins, so you know, like the O umlaut from like German. Yeah. So it's spelled O umlaut T-Z-I. Okay, uzi, uzi. Mm-hmm so. That sounds Italian. So on September 19th 1991.

6:49 Six days before my birthday. Let me write that down. That's five days before Nirvana's Nevermind album came out. You're so weird. And the same year, and everything. Okay, september 19th 1991. Be there in your brain. Be there, okay, september 19th 1991. Be there in your brain. Be there Okay. Two hikers by the name of Helmut and Erika Simon. I love that his name is Helmut. Are traveling the Austria-Italy border, I was going to say Italian Italy border, in the Ozil Alps. Okay. When they discover a body. A body, yes, not a body. Okay, when they discovered body. A body, yes, not a body of water, but just a body.

7:30 No, I get that. Was he frozen in ice? He was. I think I actually might have heard of this person, or at least seen something briefly on it. I don't know anything about him but, so they actually at first thought that he was a recently deceased mountaineer. Yep, so yeah, I think I did actually hear a little bit about this. Yeah. So they went to like a nearby mountain refuge hut and the next day a military officer came out and tried to remove the body but it was half frozen in ice. Makes sense body, but it was half frozen in ice makes sense. The body was eventually extracted on september 22nd and was transported to the office of the medical examiner in innsbruck, which I think is austria okay um, and together with the objects found nearby, which I will discuss.

8:19 yeah, um, he had an axe, and immediate typology from just that tool, from archaeologist Conrad Spindler of the University of Innsbruck dated the mummy being at least 4,000 years old. That's crazy. Yeah, spoiler alert, he was over 5,000 years old. Yeah, I think we gathered that from earlier in the conversation. Already, as brief as it's been, gathered that from earlier in the conversation, already as brief as it's been. Tissue samples from the corpse and other materials were later analyzed at different scientific institutions and their results concluded that the remains belong to someone who will live between 3, 33, 59 and 3105 bc look at me, you right 32.

9:05 Look at me go. Because of where the body was found. Ultimately, the body was sent to Italy. Sure. So the corpse has been extensively examined. There's rumor that he's probably been the most studied human that we've ever had. Well, I mean, if he's that old. Yeah, so he was examined, measured, x-rayed and carbon dated. Okay. Tissues and intestinal contents have been examined microscopically, as well as all the items that they found on and around his body Right. So he was only 5'2". Yeah, a real short dude.

9:47 Yeah, he weighed approximately 110 pounds. How do you think they determined that? Because obviously he didn't weigh 110 when they the mummy part of them. That's pretty impressive I'm. They probably blew him up or something, or like oh, there's all of his contours. No, no, I'll see myself, I'll see myself out, yeah please do so um. At the time the body was found, it weighed only 30 pounds, five ounces See exactly that's not very much so. Analysis of pollen, dust grains and the isotopic composition of his tooth enamel indicates that he spent his childhood near South Troll Village in Italy.

10:33 Okay, yeah, I like it. Yeah, okay, I like it. Yeah. Yeah. So analysis of his stomach contents found partially digested Ibex meat. It's like a type of like mountain goat. Okay. And that was all confirmed by DNA analysis. That's crazy. And it was indicated that he probably consumed this meal less than two hours before death. Wow, at least he didn't die hungry. So wheat grains were also present in Utsi's stomach, okay, and they even discovered charcoal particles in his lower intestine, which indicates that he cooked or dried out the meat he consumed.

11:17 Oh, sure, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, and Utsi also consumed wild goat, which is a different type of wild goat. I say redundant, but okay. Yeah, and they also found einkorn and barley grains, flax and poppy seeds and various berry seeds. Okay, a well-rounded meal, I guess. Yeah, they actually also found some of his hair nearby, really yeah, they think it was beard hair. Okay, I mean it would make sense that he would have had a beard back in that time.

11:57 Yeah, so they used the hair analysis to also examine his diet. They really were fascinated by his diet. Mm-hmm, because he had food still in his belly. Well, I know, which is crazy, I know. Didn't they find a mammoth like that too that still had food in its stomach? Yeah, I believe I heard that. And it froze or something like that. Stay tuned for a future episode. We're going to continue our frozen section, I guess. Anyways, sorry. So the pollen was very well preserved, with the cells inside remaining intact, indicating that it had been fresh and, because of the type of pollen, it suggested that Utsi died sometime in the late spring or early summer.

12:50 Okay. And the icorn wheat that I mentioned earlier is also harvested in late summer. So that makes sense, yeah. Yeah, so late summer hadn't happened yet. So the speculation is that he has stored this wheat from the previous crop, previous year's crop. Right. In the hair there were also trace amounts of copper and arsenic, which indicates that he was probably a metal worker a metal worker oh wow and with him he had a very rare copper axe and apparently this axe is just is a big deal like just how it was made, um, what it was made out of.

13:35 It was a pretty big deal to archaeologists is it in the museum? a museum in italy somewhere? it is awesome. Yes, yes, um. So the the ore um the copper ore was mined in tuscany, so like they can even pinpoint that that's wild that they can do that. I know it's so cool. Even like the pinpoint, like where he was, he grew up. That's crazy. So Utsi's copper axe blade was 99.7% pure copper. Wow, that's wild yeah. So they think that Utsi was involved in, like copper smelting.

14:16 Smelting. Sure Smelting, yeah, yeah. So they also examined proportions of Utsi's tibia, femur and pelvis. Okay, they also like obviously did his arms, and his arms didn't have like a lot of wear and tear, but his tibia, femur and pelvis were almost kind of like shortened, like compressed a little bit, as you would, um, because of gravity. But this this also suggests that he did a ton of walking sure so he's in the alps right. So he's walking up and down, and up and down, and up and down do you think he was going to search for more copper?

14:57 I don't know I mean, why else would you go up? I don't even know if there's copper in the Alps but I have no idea. But so this is pretty interesting. They have done a DNA analysis on. Utsi in February 2012. And they indicated that he was lactose intolerant. What? Really. That's weird. He also had a brain injury. Yeah, because he was killed by somebody else. He thinks I was going to get there. He had periodontitisitis, which is worn teeth cavities, and gum disease okay um, they think that these oral pathologies probably were brought about by his heavy grain and high carbohydrate diet sure and lack of dental care.

15:54 Yeah, he had rib fractures which they found during a CT scan, and that was probably potentially from the ice crushing his body over at Millennia Sure. He had gallbladder stones. I had gallstones once and he was shot with an arrow. He sure was Sorry. I jumped the gun there before I heard about it. He also had a pre-existing condition of heart disease. Oh dear. And Lyme disease. What Uh-huh. That's crazy. He had a cut like a deep cut in his hand that was probably received 24 to 48 hours before his death.

16:39 Okay, it was potentially a defensive wound. I could see that he had a broken nose. Oh, poor guy. He had back pain. How do you know he had back pain? Because the spine is decompressed. Okay. He had intestinal parasites called whipworm Whipworm. That doesn't sound pleasant. He had frostbite oh yeah, I mean he probably fell Once he got shot. He probably fell in the snow, ice, whatever. So, yeah, makes sense so yeah, makes sense. Utzi's lungs were examined endoscopically and when were found to be blackened by suit, probably due to his frequent proximity to fires right with uh smelting and all and you can relate to this one.

17:27 He had hip and knee joint pain from lack of cartilage hey, that sounds like hey I'm a little taller than 5'2", though, and it's not the hippie yet, just the niece. Yeah, we'll get there Plenty of time. He had no fingernails. However, they found two nearby. I don't know how you can be outside in the rock, in the snow, in the Alps and find two fingernails. Not even. Well, yeah, that's pretty amazing that they found them. But how? I wonder how they were removed. I don't know, just over time, because of his decomposing a little bit or something, who knows, but obviously he was pretty well preserved, though he was that's crazy.

18:15 So on the fingernails he had three bows lines, a little bit or something, who knows, but obviously he was pretty well preserved though he was, that's, that's crazy so on the fingernails he had three bows lines, which indicates he was six sick three times in the last six months oh, wow yeah, okay. Um, it is said that his last sickness was two months before he died and lasted two weeks. Poor guy they even know how long it lasted and that's just the weirdest thing yeah, that's crazy so his skin? um, he was actually found without an epidermis, so his skin, his, he was down to the dermis layer, sure, um, and that was due to the ice makes sense yeah, um, and he was essentially, was essentially freeze, dried like a raisin.

18:58 Well, I mean so was he actually taller before that. Like you know, a grape shrinks to a raisin. Was he like a regular human being? They? Measure the bones not the skin I'm joking like a regular human being. they measure they measure the bones, not the skin. I'm joking, um. They also indicated that he probably had a lot of low, like low, body fat percentage, like they. They mentioned in this in a reference I'll tell you about. Um. They reference an olympic wrestler oh so he was pretty, uh, pretty fit yeah so he had a six pack. I have a keg.

19:40 So this is what he wore, because that was also nearby, oh okay, so they found him with nothing on basically. Yeah, okay. So there was a sheepskin coat and loincloth, ooh, loincloth, ooh loincloth. He had bearskin leather-soled shoes Wow, and they were stuffed with grass for insulation like socks. Sure. And they were really wide, so uh and waterproof and that was probably designed so he could walk in the snow.

20:23 Yeah, kind of like ancient snowshoes. Basically, yeah, yeah, fully, fully shoot, I guess, either way. Yeah, I don't know what I'm saying. He also had leggings made from deer hide, okay, and a bear skin cap and it had a leather chin strap wow, that's. Impressive. Yeah, cute, cute it's gonna be the rage this this fall and winter leather chin strap yeah, bear hat you know, he um wore a woven grass cape or cloak okay um, it was indicated that maybe he could have also used it as a blanket or, you know, slept under it yeah at night. Yeah, his belt had a pouch sewn into it which contained a bunch of useful little things a scraper, a drill, a flint flake, a bone, all and dried fungus.

21:13 Why would? What's up with the dried fungus? It's probably medicinal. Oh, fair enough. Yeah, so Irish and Italian researchers were able to undertake an analysis of mitochondrial DNA from six different items of the body's clothing, and they ended up publishing all the results in scientific reports. Oh nice, so they're making history here. Well, right. So there were also shoelaces made from cattle, cattle, mm-hmm. Okay. And a quiver. Do you know what a quiver? is. It's what you put your arrows in.

21:53 Yes, so his quiver was made out of wild deer. Okay, and the fur hat that I mentioned the bearskin fur hat was actually made from a genetic lineage of our brown bear. Oh, wow. Yeah, so the tools that he carried, the quiver. He had a fire-making kit. He had a knife made with an ash tree handle do they know what the blade was made out of? did it say that? uh, I don't think I wrote that, because he had a copper axe. I was just curious. Yeah, I think it is probably stone of some kind oh, okay yeah, um, he had a u-tree long bow u-tree long bow y-e-w you yeah okay, he um.

22:46 It was 72 inches long wow, that is long and it was it was rough and unfinished okay so one of the speculation um points is that it was rough and unfinished because he was being hunted sure and he needed to make himself some defensive weapons real fast. So the quiver holds 14 arrows, but only two of them had arrowheads okay again suggesting that he was working really fast to try to get stuff done. Yeah, he carried berries um birch bark and mushrooms yeah and um his fire kit was filled with various plants flint and pyrite.

23:31 Okay, okay, this is quite interesting. He had 61 tattoos 61 tattoos on his body. Yes, wow. So the epidermis is gone, right. But, but tattoo ink goes down to the dermis. Sure. So it could still be seen. Right, were they able to decipher a lot of them? So there were 19 groups of these tattoos and they were all in black lines. Oh, okay. Like parallel lines. They would run along the longitudinal axis of his body to both sides of his spine.

24:18 Okay. And there was a cross mark behind his right knee and on the right ankle. Hmm. And then additional parallel lines on the left wrist. Okay. The greatest concentration of markings were found on his legs, which together was about 12 groups of lines. Wow, I mean the fact that he had so like was the cross, like the cross that we know it from, like Christianity cross. No, no, it was more like an X so to speak. Oh gotcha, okay yeah. I mean, I figured not, but you know. Yeah. That would have been really wild.

24:59 A microscopic examination of samples collected from the tattoos revealed that they were created from pigment manufactured out of fireplace ash or soot. The pigment was then rubbed into these small linear incisions and it was suggested that Utsi was repeatedly tattooed in the same locations, since the majority of them are quite dark. Okay, in speculation that it was somehow a pain relief similar to acupuncture or acupressure. That's interesting. So it wasn't even just for. I killed nine deer and I got nine lines on my whatever my back hurts. Yeah, so longitudinal lines that's like up and down, right.

25:43 Uh, yes. Longitudinal latitude. Oh my God, I'm not much of a map reader reflexology and some other Chinese therapies. there are meridian lines of the body, so I could understand if longitudinal means like north south. Okay, yeah, sure, let's go with that until someone proves us wrong. Yeah, text us, let us know. So many of Utsi's tattoos originally went unnoticed because they were quite difficult to see. Sure.

26:23 In 2015,. Researchers photographed the body using non-invasive multispectral techniques to capture images on different light wavelengths that were imperceptible by humans, and that is where they saw most like his tattoos. Sure, yeah, that's cool. Also, he had brown eyes, in case you were wondering. How do they figure that out? Cause his eyes clearly were gone. Genetics. I guess Wow. Actually his eyes were still there. Were they really. His eyes were still intact. That's impressive. Yeah, cause I wouldn't have guessed that. But well, clearly I didn't, because I said they must have been gone I was shown up so it was this year, nope, last year, it was last year.

27:14 We're in 2024. I'm talking about 2023. Oh geez. They did a high coverage genome test so his DNA primarily reflects Anatolian farmer ancestry. Okay. More so than any other European population. So what does that really mean then? It means he's a farmer. Oh, that's all that meant. No, I don't know. I thought he was a farmer. Oh, that's all that meant. No, I don't know. I thought it was a smelter. It came from the farmer, the anatolian farmer ancestry. Let's look up what anatolia is that kind of like uh 21 and me or whatever anatoli, whatever farmer, farmers onlycom?

27:56 No, maybe not. Okay, so Anatolian is unknown. I have no idea what that is. All right. Well, we didn't know before and we don't know now, so let's keep on trucking Some somebody educate me. Someone leave Kate a voicemail on our website to explain what that is. Yeah, so scientists also discovered that Utsi had intact blood cells. Really, these are considered the oldest complete human blood cells ever identified. Does that mean, we can clone them? Yes, if you listen to our last episode on baba venga we're gonna be there soon yeah, like real soon we're gonna have cloning down to a t yeah, yeah, not just goats or what was the what was the two-headed goat, or whatever we had back in the 90s?

28:53 what was? that all I remember is dolly the sheep. That's what. That's what I'm talking about, not a goat. Yeah, dolly the sheep, yep, yep, yep. So most bodies, this old blood cells, are either shrunken or like mere remnants, but Utsi's had the same dimensions as living red blood cells. I wonder why that is Like what was. He was just that well-preserved. I say because that's impressive, honestly yeah. All right. Okay, so here's what scientists and archaeologists think happened to him. Like Dr Jones. Who's that? Indiana. Oh there, it is there it is, should we just keep uncomfortably laughing about that really terrible joke I did.

29:45 Well, I don't really watch those movies, and it's not because they don't interest me, I just would rather watch Star Wars. Well, I mean, who wouldn't? But he's also in Star Wars. Yeah, I know. That's why I said I'd rather watch Star Wars If I want to see, if I want to see what's his name? I'm waiting for you to I know what it is. Harrison Harrison Ford. I will watch Star Wars. There you go. Okay. Woo, that was rough. Okay, here we go it was late spring, early summer, correct, and it was in the Alpine range at about 2,500 meter elevation. How many feet? Is that A lot For our American listening folks?

30:27 It's a lot or. English, it's a lot. How many? 2,500 meters? Yeah. All right, I'm going to work on that while you keep talking. I didn't do the Feet what's it called? Conversion, conversion, woo Alright, so 2,500 meters. And then keep that website up Because I've got a couple more. Oh cool, that would put you at 8,202.1 feet. That's pretty high up there. Like I said, I've been higher in colorado, though not because I smoked weed so 33 hours before his death, okay. He descended to 1200 meters above sea level on the southern side of the mountain that's quite a drop from 2500.

31:16 Yeah, I mean that's 1,300 meters. Approximately 24 hours before his death, he got a debilitating cut on his right hand. Yeah, you had said that, right hand, yep. Also potentially creating bruising on his body and head, as if he was roughed up. Yeah, because they pretty much guessed it's defensive wounds that he got the cut right. He was being attacked by a knife-wielding man or something. Or group, we don't know. Or a caribou. He grabbed some moss and gripped it in his hand. Okay, perhaps running for his life.

31:57 Yeah, that would make sense perhaps because of his injured hand, he could not finish the arrows and he couldn't finish his bowstring, as it wasn't smoothed out um, or a notch wasn't made for the arrows or the bowstring so it was. It was a rough one sure I mean if you had a giant cut in your hand and you use your hands to do everything. Yeah, it's going to be a little difficult to finish some things Especially when you're being hunted. Yeah, exactly, if I got a giant cut in my hand, I could not be a massage therapist. Not for a while, until I healed. Yeah, that'd take a bit. Ouch. Yeah. Okay, so about 8 to 13 hours before his death he ate.

32:38 Okay, so about 8 to 13 hours before his death, he ate, he had a meal. Well, you gotta get hungry, you gotta get some energy in you. Yeah, but he potentially saw traces of his attacker coming, so he ascended once more, going above 3,000 meters. Oh, so above 3,000 meters would be a little bit shy of 10,000 feet, 98, 42. Four hours before his death, he ate again, and this was his last meal Sure was because it was four hours before his death. In this pass it's questioned if he was going to continue up the pass. Or go back down. But he was shot with an arrow to his back.

33:19 Where in his back did it say? It was like near his shoulder Sure. His left shoulder. Okay. Utsi died quickly but painfully. I'm sure he essentially bled out. Yeah, he may have hit his head or have been struck as he lay dying, which is where he got his brain injury, gotcha, as he lay dying which is where he got his brain injury. Gotcha, Either his killer or someone else, I would imagine the killer yanked the arrow shaft out of his back. Well, I would imagine those are hard to come by back then, or you had to make all your own, so he probably wanted. I'm going to kill someone else with this. But the arrowhead remained. Oh, it got stuck in there.

34:00 And scientists did not discover that arrowhead in his body. For 10 years, so they found it in 2001. Sure, all right yeah yeah, let's go with that. How do you think they missed that for the 10 years? I mean, I know they're obviously not trying. They're trying to preserve the body and everything yeah, yeah. So that's going to be the biggest feat is they're trying not to increase decomp. Right. So they haven't frozen much more often than they do thought. Oh, I would imagine. Yeah. Yeah, so today he is still kept frozen, okay. Yeah, so today he is still kept frozen in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy.

34:45 That's a lot of words for a place I know. But it's in. Bolzano, Italy. Is he just like in their freezer storage or is he like on display? He's just in storage. He's both. Oh, really yeah yeah, I'll show you a picture okay um, but that whole facility, that whole museum is dedicated just to him he's got an entire museum just for himself. That's impressive so get this the discovery of utsy. He sparked a legal battle over ownership rights and the title of the discoverer, I know. Can we just be happy that something this cool? happened.

35:26 So Helma and Erica Simon, the original finders, claimed a 25% share of the find's value, as per Italian law. Despite being offered that symbolic sum, they pursued a legal case to be recognized as Uzi's official discoverers. Well, which makes sense. The court ruled in their favor, but the amount they sought was disputed. Of course. There wasn't anything about how much they asked for Okay. I'm sure they asked for a lot more. Meanwhile two additional individuals emerged of course each, each claiming to have discovered utsy before the simons did but did.

36:09 How do they prove that? magdalena, a slovenian climber, asserted that she found the body first and asked helmet simon to take photographs oh, bullshit another woman, sandra, from switzerland, claimed to have found utzi before the simons and even spat on the body to mark her discovery did they ever find, uh, some of her dna on him? Um, they didn't. No, they did not do any kind of DNA analysis on a potential. Probably because it's not there. Yeah. So these rival claims caused significant distress to Erica Simon, who vehemently denied the women's accounts.

36:50 The court heard the cases and the dispute actually dragged on for years, with one claimant stating that her attempts to contact the court had even been ignored. Wow, the legal battle over utsy's discovery continued after helmet simon's death in 2004 okay in 2006, a court finally ruled in favor of the simons, granting them a finders fee and ordering the government to cover their legal costs. Okay. Erica Simon subsequently lowered her claim to 150,000 euro. Sure. The provincial government countered by arguing that the cost of preserving Utsi and establishing a museum should offset the finder's fees, offering only 50,000 euro Good.

37:39 Lord. But if that's the case, wouldn't she get like profits from the museum? Then I mean because she's kind of basically buying into the museum. Yes, yes Okay. So the dispute escalated to Italy's highest court. Oh and, in 2008, the parties finally reached a settlement. So Erica Simon received 150,000 lira in recognition of the discovery and the resulting tourism revenue. This marked the end of the legal battle over the rights to one of the most significant archaeological finds of the 20th century. Okay, I think the other historical archaeological find of the 20th century would be the discovery of the T-Rex Sioux.

38:30 Like pseudo-Sioux, like at the Field Museum yeah. There's a documentary on Sioux. It's pretty fantastic, and there was a major dispute over that too, of where the bones were. Yeah, yeah yeah, there's a documentary on. Sue, it's pretty fantastic, and there was a major dispute over that too of where the bones were Right. Did you know there's a song called A Boy Named Sue? Yes, johnny Cash. Yep, there you go. Tally one for K. I got something right in the music World. Okay. Anywho On the official Utsi Iceman website they have a webcam where you can watch a time lapse of the weather where his stone pyramid marker is. Why did they go with a stone pyramid marker?

39:13 I don't know. Like you said, an obelisk right. Yeah, I'll show you a picture of it, but briefly I want to describe some of the resources I had. So the first one is the official Utsi website. Okay. So I ran across a documentary video that introduced me to the topic and it is from top documentary films dot com and the video name is called Uzi and the World of the Iceman, and I highly recommend the YouTube documentary that was first PBS'd, pbs'd.

40:01 PBS'd. It was called Utsi the Iceman, a 5,000 year old true crime murder mystery. The video I highly recommend. They have actual footage of them taking Utsi out of the ice. Did they take him out in a giant block? No, I don't think so. Okay, but he was actually carried in a hearse. Was he. To Innsbruck. Yeah, he was. That's funny. Yeah, the video also shows all like the scientists doing their experiments and stuff. It's a pretty cool documentary.

40:43 Oh, I bet it would be, pretty, pretty interesting to see what they did. Yeah, so I wanted to briefly show you some pictures, and these are going to be posted on our social media accounts. Okay, let me see how do I share my screen. Okay, so here is utsy's body yep, that's the picture I saw. I remember. Okay, I did yeah what I saw yeah yeah, and let's see here I'm gonna try to that's utsy's body out of the ice, so obviously that's the position that he officially collapsed in and died yeah. And his upper lip is like stitched up, and that's just how he died.

41:26 Yeah, it's not because he was deformed or something. Exactly. Right, okay. And then we've got. Oh, so is that like where he's frozen? Yeah, so that is the museum and you can literally, you can literally look in and see his uh, frozen corpse that's crazy yeah is that all like made out of copper around it? due to his axe, it looks like copper at least no, I don't think it's copper no, it's probably not, but it looks like it. That's kind of funny. Yeah, that's kind of funny, yeah, that's kind of neat. And then this is the stone pyramid marker. The obelisk. Isn't that view so pretty?

42:07 That's beautiful. No wonder he was going up there. Yeah, so that is Utsi. Utsi. Yeah, the Iceman who is 5,200 years old. That's crazy. Isn't that so cool. Yeah, that's. I mean to find something that old and that preserved where they could find out where he was from, he had a backache or whatever. I mean jesus christ brown eyes, all that stuff, that's that's amazing to be able to like kind of look back in the past like that, because I would imagine you know they always say they always put timelines on how long humans have been around and so on, whatever. So that's gotta like fuck up a little bit of that stuff, knowing like what they could do and everything right I totally didn't even show you something.

42:54 Well, oh my gosh why would you omit that, that piece of evidence I mean and it's, and it is like such good evidence. Okay, so they had an artist come in oh, did they do a rendering of what do you think they did a they did a rendering, but get this. They did a rendering, but get this. They did a rendering of the original body, okay, and they created a 3D model. So they actually have like a mannequin, if you will. Yes. That's kind of cool. Okay, you ready. I think so Are you. Okay, okay, here we go. This is what he looks like. Wow, that is weird. He's here we go. This is what he looks like. Wow, that is weird.

43:34 He's a little man. No doubt he had a Napoleon complex before Napoleon had a complex, even though apparently he really didn't. That is wild. He's an ugly man, wow. He was approximately 45 years old. I was going to ask. So I I mean, I'm almost 45 and I don't look like that, but I have gray in the beard like he does he was a little weathered um 45. That's got to be pretty decent age for that time right I would imagine I mean, I would think so, but I I guess I don't know what life expectancy was back at 3200 bc, yeah.

44:19 So yeah no, that's uh, that's wild. That's utsy, named after the, the the um alpine ridge okay, oh, that's the name of the ridge that they found him on. Yeah, it's like, or something like that gotcha. That makes more sense then. So, uh, it's kind of funny how you asked me where I'd like to go and I said italy, and then it happened to be a story in italy where is a place you would like to go? Oh um scotland I would love to go to Scotland. My parents went there and my mom loved it. Yeah, that's probably the the highest on my list. I would definitely go back to Italy.

44:59 Sure. Um. I would love to see Germany. I went to Germany, it was great. I went to Oktoberfest with my brother and our our friend Patrick was great. I went to octoberfest with my brother and our our friend patrick. Um, and then, since you what? You brought up austria for something before. Right I went to. Yeah, it was right, on the austria italy border I went to uh, salzburg, austria, on our trip out there. So, yeah, it's a beautiful area. I would love to go see more of that too, but that's why I want to go to italy see some of their, because they have mountain ranges obviously. Um, I like mountains. Personally, I'm more of a mountain guy than a beach guy, so yeah yeah, it's a beautiful area.

45:45 I would love to go visit someday. It's not in the cards at the moment, but you know, hopefully one of these days we'll get there. So yeah, yeah, so let us know how you like the episode. Give us a voicemail or a text. Or an email or whatever form you can think of. Also, we did record this over Zoom, so we hope the quality is pretty well. There's a good chance maybe something cut out here or there, but we'll try and fix that on editing as best as possible. But we hope you enjoyed some ootsie talk and uh guess what?

46:25 What I didn't sing once oh, my god, you didn't recording. I think we're gonna put a gold star next to this title if you, we got to get out of here fast, otherwise I'm gonna start right now well, I suppose all right, buffoons, that's it for today's episode buckle up, because we've got another historical adventure waiting for you. Next time feeling hungry for more buffoonery, or maybe you have a burning question or a wild historical theory for us to explore. Hit us up on social media. We're History Buffoons Podcast on Reddit, x, instagram and Facebook. You can also email us at historybuffoonspodcast at gmailcom. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts and turn those notifications on to stay in the loop.

47:10 Until next time, stay curious and don't forget to rate and review us. Remember, the buffoonery never stops.