脰TZI, the 5000-year-old mummy found four years ago in an alpine glacier, may have been a coppersmith. At the BA last week, Don Brothwell, an archaeologist at the University of York revealed that analyses of 脰tzi鈥檚 hair show it was heavily contaminated with copper and arsenic, a pollutant associated with copper smelting. 鈥淎re we seeing in his hair composition evidence he was involved in the production of copper? Or maybe he was a rep for a copper axe-maker,鈥� he suggested.
Brothwell had 脰tzi鈥檚 hair analysed in a spectrometer at the University of Oxford which can detect metals at concentrations of 1 part per million. Cross sections show that the surface of 脰tzi鈥檚 hair is covered in a layer of copper.
Brothwell has asked Konrad Spindler and his colleagues at the University of Innsbruck, the current custodians of the mummy, for samples of other tissues that could provide more clues to 脰tzi鈥檚 profession. 鈥淚鈥檝e asked for bits of lung tissue and bits of skin from his fingers,鈥� said Brothwell. If 脰tzi worked in copper, then the fingers might bear traces of azurite and malachite, ores from which copper is extracted.
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Other new findings show that 脰tzi had the same type of harmless threadworms in his intestines as people do today. Andrew Jones and his colleagues at the Archaeological Resource Centre in York have been analysing parasite eggs from the iceman鈥檚 gut, and are due to publish their results within a few weeks.
Tim Holden of AOC, a company in Edinburgh which provides archaeological services, will soon begin analysing well digested food debris from 脰tzi鈥檚 lower bowel. Brothwell hopes to acquire samples of less digested food from the stomach. By analysing DNA from the debris, he hopes to identify meat and plants in 脰tzi鈥檚 last meal.
More clues to 脰tzi鈥檚 diet may be lurking in the tartar, the calcified scale that accumulates on teeth. 鈥淭artar traps small particles of food as you chew,鈥� said Brothwell. 鈥淏y releasing the material chemically from the tartar, you can identify fragments such as wheat and chaff, or pieces of meat,鈥� he said. Through DNA analysis, he hopes to establish which animals the meat came from.
Brothwell said that in December, 脰tzi will leave Innsbruck for a permanent home in Italy. The mummy was discovered in 1991 in the 脰tztaler region, on the border between Italy and Austria. It is now established that the body was found on the Italian side of the border, so 脰tzi will be 鈥済oing home鈥�.