Recreating Otzi the Iceman's Flint Knife

Otzi is a fifty three hundred-year-old glacier mommy found in the Italian Alps of South Tyrol Italy he was discovered initially on September 19 1991 by tourists crossing the glacier that he died on Potsie was from the late Neolithic period also called the Copper Age and died sometime between 3370 in 3100 BCE Otzi was around 45 years old when he died the artifacts associated with Otzi were found in the vicinity of his body and in a glacier gully nearby he had archery gear with him including an unfinished bow view would a leather quiver with 12 unfinished arrows as well as two arrows with stone arrowheads is still attached the most famous tool associated with Otzi was a copper bladed axe a valuable tool in his time Otzi wore a leather belt with a pouch which contains small flint tools and pyrite and dried fungus for fire starting when his body was removed from the ice several tools were found underneath including a pressure flicker and his Flint dagger the material for my doctor just a lesson in Flint from Italy which is the same or very similar to the Flint Otzi made his knife and other tools from I got this lesson Flint and I traded the flint knapper from Italy the discovery of Otzi was extremely significant to archaeology for several reasons the preservation with soft tissues allowed archaeologists to better reconstruct what life was like for someone in that time in place OTT sees organic objects in clothing were well-preserved which is extremely rare for these types of objects in an archaeological setting Otzi stools are most like that of the northern Italian tradition but also that of the Swiss organ culture based on the plate species in his gear and isotope analysis performed on his body Otsu is from the lower svenska the main valley one to two days walk south from the site of his discovery I see had retouched his photos extensively as a consequence of not having access to church for some time in the days leading up to his death several this tools including the arrowheads on his to complete arrows show signs of being repurposed for cutting an arrowhead was found lodged in the Iceman's left shoulder which was likely the cause of his death he also suffered a stab wound to his hand and blunt-force trama 48 to 24 hours before his death you you Otzi Stanger has a total length of 132 millimeters although it would have been laundered if not for the missing tip of the dagger blade the handle is made from ash wood inbound in place by sinew pitch or birch tar was not used for having his dagger as can be seen this recreation is wider than the original Ostia had retouches knife at least one time after its initial creation possibly more this recreation is an unrestored version of what oxys knife may have looked like the basic Aussie stagger is odd in that it has two hafting systems both notches and a stem below that most of our fashionable tools have one or the other but having both is very rare other comparable dagger blades have been found archaeologically which are shown in this illustration oxys blade had an ash wood handle which is the wood I'm using for this recreation I chose a green piece since it'd be easier to carve while still wet and compared to a dried seasoned piece of ash once the handle was shaped the notch for the cord made in the notch for the blade cut in it was time to haft it all together OTT sees blade did not have pitch or birch tar to hold the blade into the handle it is held in by sinew which appears have been twisted into a single ply cord when applying to seen you on my reproduction I chose to twist it before applying I also plug the sinew while wet so that as it dried it would shrink and tighten down creating a stronger haft with the sinew dried all that was left was to make it court to set into the groove at the end of the handle the piece of court left there on Otzi's dagger was made from tree bass fiber twisted into a two ply cord I did not have best fibre available to me so I used flax fiber instead when tying it to the handle I decided to tie the cord on to the handle then back onto itself to form a loop for the wrist on Otzi's knife the core was broken off just as at least the handle so it is unknown if we formed a loop or was attached to something like his belt I finished reproduction is 170 millimeters which even accounting for the missing tip of aht sees flint blade is a bit longer than the original waterful that the blade is also left wider to account for possible dimensions before he sharpening other than that this blade was made as close to the original as I possibly could make it you

Channel: Pathways of the Past

Views: 138,141

Keywords: flintknapping, archaeology, Otzi, experimentalarchaeology

Id: vASNoqT1jDs

Length: 16min 37sec (997 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 13 2019