Ötzi the iceman is discovered in the Alps

The prehistoric mummy offers a remarkable glimpse of life - and death - 5,000 years ago

- Danny Bird

On a crisp autumn day, German hikers Erika and Helmut Simon were trekking the icy slopes of the Similaun Glacier, high in the Ötztal Alps at an altitude of 3,200 metres. Amid melting ice near the Tisenjoch Pass, on the border between Italy and Austria, they spotted something extraordinary — a dark, eerily well-preserved human corpse, partially exposed by the retreating glacier.