Tut and Ötzi: The world’s most famous mummies, one a mighty ruler, the other a migrant farmer

The two most famous human mummies are Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun (nicknamed King Tut) and a man – nicknamed Ötzi the Iceman – discovered by two German hikers in 1991, two miles high in the Ötztal Alps, between Austria and Italy. Tutankhamun (1341-1323 BC) ruled Egypt for about 10 years, the last of his family to rule during the end of the 18th dynasty. Ötzi lived sometime between 3350 and 3105 BC.

Both mummies have been closely studied scientifically. I will concentrate mostly on Ötzi today, fuller details of whom may be consulted in an article by Jennifer Pinkowski, in National Geographic during September 2021.

Ötzi’s body was found lying face down in the ice on the edge of a lake and, judging by accompanying pollen and leaves, he died in early summer. It is thought the warm summer winds dried him out and then the cold, high mountain temperatures preserved his desiccated form. Ötzi is the oldest mummy of Copper-age European man and he lived before Egypt’s first pyramid was built.

Ötzi is held in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy in a special low-temperature chamber with a window in one wall through which the 300,000 people who visit the museum annually can view him.

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The body is held at a constant low temperature and is sprayed four to five times a year with sterile water, creating a protective icy exoskeleton that ensures he remains a “wet mummy” (preserved in a wet environment). The museum allows carefully selected scientists to study Ötzi, and hundreds of such investigations have been carried out. Of the more sophisticated analyses, Ötzi’s genome has been sequenced and analysis of his gut microbiome is now under way.

Ötzi was a member of a migratory band of neolithic farmers who came through Turkey and replaced European paleolithic hunter-gatherers 8,000 to 6,000 years ago. He was 1.6 metres tall, had dark brown hair, brown eyes and a Mediterranean skin tone. He was left-handed, had heart disease, dental cavities, O-type blood, was lactose intolerant, suffered from Lyme disease, intestinal parasites, sore knees, hips, shoulders and back. He had broken his nose and several bones.

Ötzi wore shoes, leggings, a coat made from sheep/goat hides and a hat made from the fur of a brown bear. The shoes were stuffed with grass and laced with auroch (extinct cattle) leather. He carried a wooden-framed knapsack, a deerskin quiver with 20 arrow shafts and a flint dagger with a fire-hardened antler tip. He also had a handsome copper axe. The blade was 99.7 per cent pure copper and had a yew handle secured with cow leather.

Poor Ötzi had a sticky end, dying from an arrow in the back left shoulder that hit an artery. He bled to death in minutes. He had a wound in his hand suggesting he tried to defend himself by grabbing a knife wielded by his attacker.

He may have been finished off by an axe blow to the head because he had substantial brain haemorrhaging. Some hours before he was murdered, he ate a meal of einkorn wheat with red deer and ibex meat.

Tutankhamun’s tomb, the best-preserved of the pharaonic tombs, was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter and received worldwide press coverage because the tomb was the only royal burial found intact in modern times. Tutankhamun was buried in a three-layered coffin, one layer of which was made of gold. CT scans showed that Tutankhamun had malaria and a broken leg. Tutankhamun still lies in his underground tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

When preparing a body for mummification the Egyptians removed the brain and the body organs, leaving only the heart (believed to be the organ of reasoning) in place, and then used salt to dry out the body. The removed organs were preserved and held in separate jars.

The purpose of mummification was to prepare the body for the spiritual afterlife. Egyptians believed the soul returned to the body to allow it to live after death but the soul had to recognise the body. And so, they plumped out the face with resin to produce a lifelike appearance. Tutankhamun’s tomb also contained two small coffins containing the foetal bodies of his two daughters, one of whom died after four and the other after nine months’ gestation. The pharaoh wished his two little daughters to accompany him through eternity.

– William Reville is an emeritus professor of biochemistry at UCC