Secondly, the death would have to take place on non-moving ice ( ice patches), allowing the ice to preserve it without crushing it. First, the body would have to be lost, so that relatives could not recover it for proper burial.

So why are there not more finds like Ötzi? The thing is that it would take a number of preconditions for their bodies to be preserved until today. Obviously, people died in the high mountains in the past – in blizzards, accidents, due to violence, or for purely natural reasons (more here). The absence of ice mummies is not for the lack of people dying in the high mountains. However, the chances of finding an ice mummy are low and our mummy-kit is still unused. To avoid such calamities, we have prepared a mummy-kit and a contingency plan if an ice mummy should appear in our own mountains here in Norway. This lack of understanding led to unfortunate damage to the mummy and the artifacts during the recovery. Back then, people had no idea that human bodies could be preserved by the ice for such a long time. It was not realized that Ötzi was a very old ice mummy when he was discovered. Ötzi, as he was found in the ice in the Hauslabjoch pass in 1991. We published an extensive post on Ötzi here, discussing both the find itself and the scientific problems with the official Ötzi story. Each year, 250000 people visit the museum in Bolzano where he is exhibited. He became a world-wide sensation when his mummified body was found in 1991. Ötzi, the iceman from the Tyrolean Alps, is the holy grail of glacial archaeology.

We learn about diseases they had, and why they died. We get information on what they ate in the last days prior to dying. Analysis of ancient ice mummies can tell us when and where they lived. There is so much information to be gained from such rare finds. As glacier archaeologists we often get the question: “What would you most like to find?” Let’s be honest: We would all like to find an ice mummy like Ötzi.

Caveman encased in ice