<< News >> Now you can walk in footsteps of 5,000-year-old Iceman - wearing his boots
Submitted by PaulM on Sunday, 17 July 2005 Page Views: 1809
DiscoveriesMore than 5,000 years ago, Oetzi the Iceman was bestriding the Alps, a hunter covering many miles on foot as he stalked his prey. Now replicas of his distinctive mountain boots, made of calf, bear and deer leather, are to be sold to modern-day mountain climbers after a prototype pair won rave reviews.Oetzi's body was found perfectly preserved in a frozen glacier in the Italian Alps in 1991 by two German climbers. He was wearing goatskin leggings and a grass cape, in addition to the boots.
They have now been re-created in a tanning process involving boiled liver and pig brains by a Czech academic after years of research into prehistoric production methods.
Petr Hlavacek, a footwear expert from Tomas Bata University in Zlin, in the eastern Czech Republic, said that the boots were "like going barefoot, only better".
He said: "They are very comfortable and perfect protection against hard terrain, hot temperatures and the cold. They may not look very attractive but from a technical point of view they are very strong. They have a very good grip and withstand shock well.
"Because the shoes are actually quite complex I'm convinced that even 5,300 years ago people had the equivalent of a cobbler who made shoes for other people."
Since leading climbers praised the boots' performance after testing them in extreme conditions, a Czech company has offered to buy from Dr Hlavacek the rights to sell them. The discovery of Oetzi, believed to have been in his forties when he died, gave scientists a unique insight into the life of man 5,300 years ago.
They were able to tell that he had eaten venison for his last meal, that he lived about 30 miles from the place where he perished and that he had been shot by an arrow.
Asked by a German university about prehistoric footwear, Dr Hlavacek and a university colleague decided to recreate Oetzi's boots. They painstakingly sourced the calf, deer and bearskin used for the soles, finally managing to track down a pelt from a bear hunted in Canada.
Oetzi's shoes had been stuffed with hay to form a lining that provided warmth and comfort. The researchers re-created a handmade net made of thin strips of bark that held the hay in place.
After unsuccessfully trying to tan the leather with vegetable fats, it was decided to use boiled pig liver and raw pig's brain - a method known to have been used in the Stone Age in South America. The noxious mixture was smeared onto the skin, left for three days - and did its job.
Dr Hlavacek was allowed to take a cast of Oetzi's feet to record his exact measurements. "His feet were much smaller and slimmer than those of an adult man today - only as big as a 12-year-old boy's," said Dr Hlavacek.
He said that Oetzi's boots offered more contact with the uneven ground than modern shoes.
Vaclav Patek, a Czech mountaineer who tested the shoes, said: "They were a pleasant surprise. They were durable, warm and comfortable and far better than some modern shoes."
Source: Telegrpah.co.uk 17 July 2005
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