Iceman Murder Mystery

A CSI-style autopsy reveals clues to the murder of the oldest preserved human ever found, a famous 5,300-year-old mummy whose death holds the secrets to an ancient way of life.

Ötzi the Iceman has been poked, prodded and probed by scientists for the last 20 years, ever since he was pulled from a glacier in the Italian Alps. Yet this mummified corpse continues to keep many secrets. Now, through an autopsy like no other, scientists will attempt to unravel the enduring mysteries and reveal not only the details of Ötzi’s death but an entire way of life. How did people live during Ötzi’s time – the Copper Age? What did they eat? What diseases did they cope with? The answers abound miraculously in this one man’s mummified remains.

Ötzi has become one of our only links to the Neolithic on everything from culinary habits and fashion to metallurgy. Pollen grains from the mummy’s intestine have illuminated ancient diets. His shoes, hat and pelt are our oldest connection to clothing. His axe alone, found right alongside his corpse, pushed our understanding of the transition from stone to copper use, or the Copper Age, back 1000 years.

Now Iceman Murder Mystery gains exclusive access to the defrosting of the ultimate time capsule. Otzi’s caretakers, including Dr Eduard Egarter-Vigl, head of conservation for the iceman, are taking their quest for answers further than they ever have before. For the last several years, Ötzi has been carefully frozen in specially designed freezers to prevent decomposition. After two full years of preparation, the mummy is ready to be thawed so that scientists can peer inside. But they’ll have to work quickly.

Once Ötzi has thawed they’ll have exactly eight hours to discover everything they can about the mummy. Any longer, and the priceless body will start to decay. In that time the team will peer into his chest cavity to explore damage to his heart and lungs, probe his skull to study potential brain traumas, open his stomach to search for signs of disease and glimpse his last meal and extract precious DNA to determine what Ötzi may have looked like.

When you’re operating on a 5,300-year-old man, nothing is routine. Ötzi has been crushed, contorted and ravaged by time. But when the team has finished, at precisely 5pm, it will have hopefully painted a vivid picture of Ötzi’s life and times… before he his returned to his frosty chamber.

Produced by HD Productions in association with National Geographic Television and NOVA/WGBH Boston. Read more about this film on the NOVA website.