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This is an archive of past discussions about Ötzi. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Ötzi's penis

How's that for a subject line. Anyway, I read somewhere once that although it was thought that Oetzi had no penis, he did in fact have one, but it had suffered an understandable amount of shrinkage. Seriously. If anyone actually knows something about this, then could they change that sentence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.204.59.207 (talk) 19:28, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

the story about his discovery by Rastbichler-Zissernig can has been online 2001.

I'm not sure what this is referring to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wraithcraze (talk • contribs) 12:13, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

The relevant portion of the article has been rewritten. — Cheers, JackLee 00:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

An Ancient Crime?

I have removed the following text from this section:

Consider the evidence. The man was wearing a uniform, (his bearskin hat), and he was armed to the teeth with antipersonnel weapons. His copper axe was only good for cutting trees. Pure copper is too soft to hold a sharp edge. His flint dagger is only good for protectting him from other creatures that could hurt him. His bow and arrows, while good for hunting are excellent for killing people. Witness his wound and its inevitable results.

This is entirely speculation, as far as I can tell:

• The concept of a uniform is a relatively recent innovation; it is unlikely that someone in a prehistoric culture would have a special uniform to differentiate him from his antagonists, if such there were. Since we have no idea what his fellows wore, speculating that the hat had some special significance is beyond the scope of Misplaced Pages.
• If a copper axe is good enough for killing people, it's good enough for killing animals and possibly still better for cutting down saplings than a plain rock or even a flint knife.
• A flint dagger is good for cutting many things; anyone with wilderness survival experience knows that a knife is one of the most essential tools to have when fending for oneself.

, indicating he did not make his own clothing (uniform?)

Or that he repaired it in haste after a fight? Again, purest speculation. Furthermore, even if he did not make the clothing himself, that does not support further speculation.

The only ancient criminal here was him, although it might not be correct to place 20th century morality onto a stone age human.

This is unencyclopedic in tone and is not supported. There are any number of reasons why he might have been attacked that do not require him to be a "criminal."

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 15:06, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

IMHO It's higly unlikely for a man to intentionally start a battle being equipped with an unfinished bow and only two usable arrows out of fourteen. It's evident that he estimated to have time to finish his equipement during the trip (also to have something to do, next to the fire, first to sleep) and so, that the trip was expected to be several days long. One of the hypotesis is that he was a merchant, this is the more probable to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.26.228.251 (talk) 19:26, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Held up by 34th century BC highwaymen? LamontCranston (talk) 03:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

They're wrong, if the bow was unfinished he wouldn't have been able to shoot two people with the same arrow. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.36.248 (talk) 05:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Dangerously underweight

Even though Ötzi is short by today's standards, the estimate that he weighed just six stone at the time of death struck me as very low, so I worked out his BMI and it comes out at just under 14, which is below the starvation threshold. I won't edit the article because I don't have time to go looking through the sources to see if anything is said about him being extremely underweight, but there is a short 'health' section that doesn't mention this, and I think it should. Given that we have height and mass figures in the article, it's not original research to make the trivial connection that reveals Ötzi to have been exceptionally thin, and I think given the other theorising that's done about his life and death, this fact demands explanation. It seems he had an active life in the mountains, and just before his death had eaten what seem to be a couple of decent meals. How is this reconciled with his strikingly undernourished state? 79.68.202.189 (talk) 11:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Dude, that's totally OR. You'd need a source for something like that, even putting in his BMI would be iffy. WLU (talk) 12:17, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

As I mentioned in the section "His weight?" above, I agree that the weight of 84 lbs, which was stated in a newspaper article, seems rather low. I suspect that this was the weight of Ötzi's corpse when it was found rather than his weight when he was alive, but this was not clear from the newspaper. If a more accurate source can be found, the figure can be corrected. — Cheers, JackLee 14:02, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, if a source that clearly stated it was pre- or post-freeze weight, that would be a good addition, but as is it's unclear. WLU (talk) 14:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

It wouldn't be OR, dude. The height and weight are given in the article, it is only a matter of providing clarity to the reader to point out that he was extremely underweight. That's only the case, of course, if that weight figure is accurate. Given what's been said, I suspect it actually refers to the weight of his preserved body and doesn't necessarily reflect his weight at the time of death. I would suggest rewording the sentence in question to remove the assertion that he weighed 38 kg at the time of death. The source given isn't clear on this, so our leap to calling that his death weight is what's OR, if anything. I can't do it because someone has protected the article. 79.68.202.189 (talk) 06:55, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

If you portrayed the material and sources as presenting any conclusion as to his weight and health status, that'd pretty much be a WP:SYNTH, which is original research. For clarity, what source would you be basing these conclusions on? If the only source is this page, you can't really say anything about his health status due to weight because they don't. If you suspect it refers to something, but don't have a reliable source to prove it, again I would say that is original research. The source says nothing about his weight beyond the gross figure. That's all that we can say from my understanding of WP:OR. What would you suggest as a change, and what would your sources be? WLU (talk) 21:36, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

In the absence of anything to clarify the information in that Guardian article, what I would do if I could edit the page is just remove anything about weight from the sentence, because the article currently asserts that it refers to his weight at the time of death, which is not necessarily borne out by the source and seems unlikely for the reasons discussed. Can someone remove it please? 79.68.202.189 (talk) 22:28, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Two weeks later and no one has made the edit requested, despite it having been clearly pointed out that the sentence as it stands is no good and detracts from the article. I once read a Misplaced Pages advocate's assurance that most Wikipedians would rather eat broken glass than allow an error that had been noted to go uncorrected, but all I've had here is "dude, that's totally OR." Misplaced Pages needs to make its mind up: let your editing be open to all and live with the chaos, or lock things down a bit and use the breathing space to take care of your content. In the case of this article we have a page protected from unregistered editors, but when a reader points out an error they're unable to fix because of this protection, they get ignored. 79.68.191.40 (talk) 21:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The weight comment is reliably sourced, but the underweight comment is not. Therefore, the article is fine as it is. Two editors have responded that there is a problem with your suggested changes. Misplaced Pages's not broken, your edits do not comply with policy. Feel free to bring this up at WP:RFC, with an admin, or on the relevant wikiproject page. Or Talk:WP:OR. WLU (talk) 00:16, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, 79.68.191.40. I've had a look at the article and some sources, and have revised the infobox and article text as regards the Iceman's weight. Permanent protection from unregistered editors was requested for this article because of almost daily vandalism. It's unfortunate that no registered editors watching the article were able to deal with your concerns in a timely fashion, but (at least for me) "real life" takes priority. Also, you could have become a registered editor and made the change yourself. Do think about taking that step! :-) — Cheers, JackLee 01:41, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I visited the Iceman exhibition at the ANMM over the weekend, and the display indicated that Otzi weighed about 50kg whilst alive, while the mummy now weighs 13kg. I'll see if I can find a source for this and possibly edit based on this Bruiseviolet (talk) 22:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan! — Cheers, JackLee 00:15, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Who knows if that was his actual weight? the methods used to find his weight at time of death might have been erronous; scientists screw up all the time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.130.62.234 (talk) 15:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

It's not for Misplaced Pages editors to decide whether the scientists have done their job properly or not, just to report the facts based on reliable sources. If it turns out that there has been a mistake and that is reported, the article can be updated at that stage. — Cheers, JackLee 15:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Bad organization

The details of the bickering between the discoverers over money etc. does not belong at the beginning of the article. It is totally irrelevant to the significance of the mummy, which is the primary topic of interest to most readers. That whole section needs to be stuck somewhere at the end of the article, in keeping with its importance, or lack of it. Haiduc (talk) 02:08, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. It is more logical for the information on disputes relating to the discovery of the mummy to be under the "Discovery" heading. And having a "Miscellanea" section is an invitation for all sorts of trivia to be stuck into the article: see "Misplaced Pages:Trivia sections". — Cheers, JackLee 02:23, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The reader does not prioritize information according to some arbitrary logical scheme (and there are other possible logics that could be applied to the article). The reader comes in to read about a find with historical and anthropological significance. Those topics must first be exhausted before launching into a legalistic discussion about who may or not have rights to the mummy. I think we can afford to be somewhat flexible in the arrangement of the material so as to serve the interests of the reader before those of the archivist. As for the "miscellanea" section being a magnet for trivia, if it invites material that previously did not fit, that may be a plus, and if something is posted that is inappropriate it can always be deleted. There are no fail-safe strategies. Haiduc (talk) 20:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Rather than having them as sub-sections on the page, I think they're both sufficiently notable to have their own sections - it eliminates the temptation to add more trivia and doesn't try to link separate sections with no real need to be linked. I edited the page with this in mind. WLU (talk) 23:26, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't think it's that difficult for readers to locate the information on Ötzi's historical and anthropological significance since there's a table of contents, but have no objections to the article being left as you revised it. I was also going to suggest that the subsections under the "Miscellanea" section be made full sections in their own right, but am glad to see that WLU beat me to it. :-) — Cheers, JackLee 00:25, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, this is a good solution. Haiduc (talk) 14:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Otzi's bow

The article refers to otzi's bow as being unfinished, but this is probably not the case. This was assumed because the bow was determined to have drawn about 166# at 28 inches. however, it is unlikely that a man from this time period would wander this far away from home without being fully equipped; aside from the bow he also had an axe, 14 arrows, a knife, medicinal mushrooms and a firestarting kit. he was equipped for a journey, so it wouldn't make sense for him to have had an unfinished bow. also, one arrow had blood from 2 different people on it, indicating that he had obviously fired the arrow as it is unlikely that he had used it as a melee weapon when he also had a knife and an axe on him. The bow had no nocks, but bows from this time period often didn't have nocks, but instead had the string tied tightly to the sharply tapered ends, sometmimes aided by a buildup of sinew under it. 166 pounds is alot, but only compared to modern bows. modern bow hunters use 50-60# bows, which is extremely weak in comparison to the majority of ancient bows, among which a bow under 80# is rarely found. humans back in this age were a little shorter than modern humans, but were much stronger due to a superior lifestyle and diet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.130.62.234 (talk) 15:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Fascinating. Any references for these views, so we can mention it in the article? — Cheers, JackLee 00:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

In what way was it 'unfinished'? This suggests it could be a quick and easy job but hardly one to do while traveling. LamontCranston (talk) 03:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

They say it's unfinished because it lacks a grip and they don't know how he attached the string, pretty weak argument if you ask me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.36.248 (talk) 05:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Homosexual linkings

I was reading the straight dope, and found this article about an April fool's joke that had Otzi as the first recorded receiver of anal sex. It apparently ended up in a few newspapers. Not sure if it's worth a mention or not, so I post it here for whoever looks after this article to include or reject. --Numsgil (talk) 08:46, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

My feeling is that it's not necessary to mention this in the article, but I'm interested to hear what other editors think. — Cheers, Truth's Out There 09:31, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree; sophomoric jokes are not encyclopedic. - Nunh-huh 11:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Cause of Death

Isn't it a little tenuous to list Oetzi as a "victim of a crime" when no appreciable criminal code existed? Perhaps "violent death" or "victim of assault" would fit better. DublinDilettante (talk) 17:34, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree "Death by violent misadventure" J8079s (talk) 22:24, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done — Cheers, Truth's Out There 02:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Arrows

The arrows he had were not bone tipped. 12 were unfinished the two that were finished were broken. Could some one fix this? J8079s (talk) 00:52, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Can you provide a reference for the information you've provided? — Cheers, Truth's Out There 02:51, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I am very new to this. The source is in the next sentence in the article. Pictures at the South Tyrol museum web site show this. I have Brenda Flowers book around here some where.I will look for it but I'm not sure its in there.However the article should agree with its self. Again I'm new to this. thanks for your help.J8079s (talk) 03:40, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

found the book Iceman Brenda Flowers --J8079s (talk) 04:13, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Is the "source in the next sentence" you're referring to footnote 10 (Europe: A History by Norman Davies)? I don't have access to either this book or Iceman by Brenda Fowler (not Flowers), but if you let me know the place of publication, publisher, year of publication and ISBN of the version of the Iceman book you're referring to and the page number that the information appears on, I will assume good faith on your part and update the article accordingly. Just to clarify, you are saying that the arrows were not bone-tipped but flint-tipped. Is that right? — Cheers, Truth's Out There 18:37, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

the sentence in the article says "14 bone tipped arrows" then says"two were finished twelve were not"

Brenda Fowler ;"Iceman uncovering the life and times of a prehistoric man found in an alpine glacier" The University of Chicago Press,Chicago originally published 2000 The University of Chicago press edition 2001 ISBN 0-226-25823-8 pg. 105,106 (in my own words) he had:

2(two) broken arrows tipped with flint. These 2 (two) arrows also had fletching(feathers)

12(twelve) arrows with no tips and no fletching

all were found in his quiver along with what is presumed to be his bowstring,a tool,and material that might have been for making arrow points(antler)

I hope this is clear.thanks for the helpJ8079s (talk) 01:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done Thank you for helping to make the article more accurate. If you're interested in the subject, there are still many aspects of the article that are unreferenced and need checking. Feel free to go through the article and point out other parts of it that may require fixing. — Cheers, Truth's Out There 03:31, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Clothes

His "vest" is called a coat in all sources even though it has no sleeves (it has no arm holes either) I hope we can expand this article. theres more to say about otzi.J8079s (talk) 03:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done (though I accidentally mentioned in the edit summary that I had changed "coat" to "vest" when it should have been the other way round. :( ) If you don't feel confident about editing the article yourself, feel free to post suggested additions or changes here on the talk page, backing them up with references to reliable sources (for books, provide the author, title, place of publication, publisher, year of publication, ISBN and page number(s); for journal articles, the author, title, journal name, volume and issue number, and DOI if available). An editor will come along and help. — Cheers, Truth's Out There 03:32, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Legal dispute over Ötzi's discovery

It would appear that the legal dispute has now been settled http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7643286.stm Although a little late.

Perhaps someone can update the main page.

Cadstar_User (talk) 08:09, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks for highlighting the information! — Cheers, Truth's Out There 14:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

help

I need help with my source. Its an article from the May 2003 issue of Scientific American,called The Iceman Reconsidered. Written by James H. Dickson,Klaus Oeggl,and Linda L Handley. I don't have the rest of the publishing info. (doi ect.). I got it by googling beau lines and otzi. I want to add under "health"that he hand three beau lines on his finger nail,indicating that he had been sick three times in the six months before he died. The last and most serious about two months before he died.The illness lasted about two week that time. I also want to use this source for its theory that the body may have floated (during a thaw) to its find location. Does anyone have the info we need on this source? ThanksJ8079s (talk) 18:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

If you use Google Scholar on "Iceman Reconsidered", you get this page, which show that the article appeared in a special edition of Scientific American, Mysteries of the Ancient Ones. (It also appeared in the May 2003 issue you mention ]). Is there enough info there? It seems to me the journal, issue, authors' names, and title is enough information for a citation. You don't need to cite it as a digital object; you can cite it as a print article. - Nunh-huh 04:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Arm

This is confusing. Unless it's just the angle of the picture, the picture in the section about his clothes and equipment show his right arm across his chest while all the others show his left arm. --CommanderWiki35 (talk) 02:14, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

 Done. Well spotted – it would appear that the image in question is laterally inverted, and is therefore not a reliable image to include in the article. I've removed it. — Cheers, Truth's Out There 08:10, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Otzi the Iceman Project

Our intermediate school has sixth graders ans their teachers working on an Otzi project. The project has been hung up in the hallway for everyone to see. It easily caught my intrest and soon Otzi will be the headline news of our school! I can't wait to learn more about Otzi! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.179.48.53 (talk) 01:28, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Glad to see you're excited about finding more about things! — Cheers, Truth's Out There 14:49, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

You don't know where was born

Feldthurns is possible as Vienna, Milan, Venice or Berna. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.54.144.101 (talk • contribs) 14:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, analysis of pollen and dust grains on the body and the isotopic composition of the Iceman's tooth enamel suggests he spent his childhood in Feldthurns and not elsewhere. — Cheers, Truth's Out There 07:01, 31 January 2009 (UTC)