Insight Into the Iceman’s Mind and World
LET’s go back to Ötzi. Was he primitive, stupid, and devoid of aesthetic sensibilities? What do his utensils, his weapons, and his clothes reveal?
His weapons reveal that Ötzi had an excellent knowledge of ballistics. The two finished arrows had the characteristic feathers at the butt. The feathers were glued at an angle to make the arrow spin in flight, permitting a fair degree of accuracy up to a range of some 30 yards [30 m]. His leather clothes (various animal skins) tell us something of the tastes of the period. Today, a garment needs not only to cover but also to satisfy certain aesthetic requirements. What about in Ötzi’s day? Describing the finds, Time magazine says: “The robe had been cleverly whipstitched together with threads of sinew or plant fiber, in what appears to be a mosaic-like pattern.” Both the pieces and the deliberate manner in which they had been sewn contributed to creating a “patchwork effect,” says the book Der Mann im Eis (The Man in the Ice). Over the tunic, the Iceman wore “a woven grass cloak, ideal for protection from the cold, which during a break could have been used as a ‘mattress’ to isolate his body from the ground.”—Focus.
“An unexpected degree of sophistication” in his equipment was also noted, comments Time. The dagger, for example, was complete with “a finely crafted sheath, made from woven vegetation.” The Iceman, then, apparently lived in an epoch that was truly “rich and culturally intense,” as Giovanni Maria Pace defines it in his book Gli italiani dell’Età della pietra (Italians of the Stone Age).
Mention could also be made of the mushrooms found near Ötzi. They may have served to start a fire, but more likely, say experts, the Iceman had them with him for their antibiotic and therapeutic properties, part of a kind of portable “first-aid kit.”
Aesthetic taste, intellectual capacity, therapeutic knowledge, and know-how in the fields of metalworking, agriculture, and art—these indicate, in contrast with the image often presented, that contemporaries of the Iceman were knowledgeable and competent in diverse fields. British archaeologist Dr. Lawrence Barfield stated: “Few of us today have any of the skills which most people would have had during the fourth millennium [B.C.E.].” Their refined tastes emerge, for example, in artistic depictions and metal and ceramic artifacts recovered from tombs.
The Religious Climate
“As far as scholars have discovered, there has never existed any people, anywhere, at any time, who were not in some sense religious,” says The New Encyclopædia Britannica. Speaking of the prominent role that religion played in ancient times, the Dizionario delle religioni (Dictionary of Religions) says that “compared to those used in everyday life, a disproportionate amount of goods and energies were employed in religious projects.”
The religious sentiment of Ötzi’s time was evidently very prevalent. In many places, ancient burial sites have been found that attest to the variety and richness of funeral rituals. Dozens of clay figurines have also been found that depict divinities belonging to ancient pantheons.
Ancient Human History and the Bible
The civilizations that emerge from research into ancient times, then, were quite complex. The picture is not one of primitive civilizations struggling, among a thousand difficulties, to make almost imperceptible progress toward a fully formed society. As far as historians are concerned, communities were of varying sizes but fully formed.
This is meaningful for any who study the Bible. The book of Genesis indicates that very early in human history—and particularly as humankind ‘scattered over all the surface of the earth’—complex and fully formed civilizations appeared, the elements of which had intellectual and spiritual capacities.—Genesis 11:8, 9.
The Bible testifies that technical and artistic abilities were possessed by mankind even in the very earliest times, such as the forging “of every sort of tool of copper and iron.” (Genesis 4:20-22) According to the Bible record, human beings have always had the conscious desire to worship some deity. (Genesis 4:3, 4; 5:21-24; 6:8, 9; 8:20; Hebrews 11:27) Even though his religiosity degraded with the passing of time, man remains “incurably religious,” says The New Encyclopædia Britannica.
The Search for Origins
Although archaeological research is not able to answer all the questions posed by the discovery of Ötzi, it has nonetheless enabled us to gain some insight into the world in which he lived—a complex world, very different from the usual image of so-called prehistoric times. It was much more modern than many believe.
In conclusion, apart from the facts deduced from the Iceman’s appearance and belongings, as National Geographic stated, “almost everything else about him is part mystery, part speculation.” Meanwhile, Ötzi lies in a cold chamber in Innsbruck, Austria, while over 140 authorities in various disciplines struggle to resolve further mysteries of the Iceman who came in from the cold.
[Picture on page 8]
Forensic experts examine the Iceman’s body in Innsbruck
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Foto: Archiv Österreichischer Alpenverein/Innsbruck, S.N.S. Pressebild GmbH