After weeks of enjoying an empty diary, my only commitment putting words on paper, I have an appointment with the Foundation’s photographer at nine o’clock on Tuesday morning. I find Tonatiuh Ambrosetti standing in the sunny courtyard, holding a demitasse and looking towards the mountains, which are once again shrouded by mist rising from Lake Geneva.
He asks where I would like my portrait to be set. ‘Where are you most comfortable? Where do you spend your time?’
‘The library,’ I say. ‘Actually, no. The forest.’
I don’t like having my photograph taken. Worse, overnight a spot has appeared on my philtrum. Tonatiuh senses my discomfort. ‘People think a photograph has to be everything, it has to be forever. But it is acting. It is just this moment: an illusion you and I will make together.’
Like an actor, I have brought props – a hat and a scarf. Tonatiuh insists on carrying them for me, even though he’s already burdened with his case and tripod. He tramps ahead through the snow to select the best spot. I confide my adventure in the forest to him.
‘You should always have a map with you.’ He looks serious, but maybe he’s just considering the composition as he sets up the tripod. He indicates that I should move slightly to the left, by holding his hands just so. I double-check I have understood him before I move. Once he is happy with my position, he holds the light meter against my cheek and my chest.
‘Woah! It is like a sunny day at the shore.’ As he walks back to his tripod he says, ‘This sun will cast good shadows. The shadows will be strong but that will be interesting.’
I stand very still, and focus on a distant larch tree, its golden needles blazing among the dark conifers. The thaw has begun, and there is an occasional flurry as saplings that were weighed down by snow spring back up.
I can hear a woodpecker drilling dead wood. ‘I’m looking for the woodpecker.’
As the sun rises in the sky it passes behind the tree trunks, meaning the seaside light doesn’t hold for long. My hands are still cold, and getting colder.
‘Pretend you are walking towards that tree,’ Tonatiuh peers round the camera, ‘and you suddenly hear the woodpecker here.’
‘You are the woodpecker?’
‘Yes, I am the woodpecker.’ He smiles.
He doesn’t warn me when he is going to take a photo – there’s no countdown, no ‘cheese’. Although I’m looking away, after a while I find I can predict the moment from the tiny sounds I hear in the stillness – something inserted into the folding camera, something removed. Pause. Click. This capture of the body reminds me less of a theatrical performance than of a medical test – I recall a CT scan of my brain, sliding head-first on an examination table into a tunnel. No, don’t think of bad things, it might show on the film. I raise my chin.
The mist is coming more strongly now up the path, as if it is chasing us into the forest from the valley.
‘Mist, fog, what is the difference?’ he asks. ‘Fog is polluted?’
‘Well, sometimes. But mainly, it’s about their . . . thickness. Polluted fog in a city is smog.’
‘Smog.’ He tries out the word. ‘Thank you.’
He is silent between shots, and I try to concentrate on looking natural. ‘We will take one last one in the mist,’ Tonatiuh says. ‘You will be in shadow – but I think it will be good.’
As we walk back to the Foundation, I ask if I am free to use the photos.
‘Yes of course, there’s no point taking photos if no one sees them.’
Once Spindler confirms the age of the body – 5,000 years – it is no longer treated as a crime victim. More paperwork is required. The body becomes a ‘national monument’. The iceman is older than the pyramids, older than Stonehenge, and his mummified flesh becomes a kind of protected landscape. A monument needs a name, and archaeological finds are usually named after the place of discovery. But here the archaeologists filling in the forms face a quandary: the place the corpse was discovered had no name on the maps. It is decided to call the glacier find ‘Homo tirolensis from the Hauslabjoch’, although it is now acknowledged that the glacier was not quite on the Hauslabjoch – it was nearer to the Tisenjoch. Next, how to describe the object for the ‘find category’ on the form? The archaeologists settled on ‘glacier corpse’. Of course, unofficial names were bandied about – the French media called the iceman ‘Hibernatus’, after the film in which an old man who has been frozen in the ice at the North Pole comes to life again. The name which stuck was coined by Viennese reporter Karl Wendl, who arrived at it through a contraction of Ötztal (the region) and ‘yeti’. ‘Ötzi’ was first used in a morning edition of the Vienna Arbeiter-Zeitung on Thursday 26 September. Ötzi had been a week above the ice.
As archaeologists know, once you excavate a site you alter it forever. The glacier corpse has been preserved, conserved, carbon-dated, rehydrated. It has been X-rayed and displayed. Researchers have analysed Ötzi’s genome sequence, his fertility and his propensity to tooth decay. The only source of information on Ötzi’s story is his own body and the artefacts found with it; and since his are the only remains surviving from that millennium, he is also fated to be the example by which all life in that era will be judged.
Grains in his clothing suggest Ötzi left the valley following a harvest, meaning he was buried by the ice around the same time of year he was discovered. He was walking the main route across the Alps, coming from wooded settlements, where he collected the leaves in his fire-lighting kit. His heavy cloak and grass shoes imply his ascent into the mountains was planned. For as long as anyone can remember, the shepherds of this region have taken their flocks across steep couloirs and snow fields to the mountain pastures in June, and at the end of the summer they bring them down from the hills. Ötzi carried a shepherd’s tools. But his stomach was found to contain layers of pollen characteristic of different mountain elevations: hornbeam, then conifer, then hornbeam – showing that he had climbed up then down the mountain in quick succession, before his final ascent.
Why would a shepherd who had brought his sheep down from the hills at the end of the summer go back into the mountains in poor weather, especially when weakened by injury? (A few days before his death, Ötzi had sustained a deep cut to his right hand.) Perhaps Ötzi had encountered conflict on his return to the valley and was retreating to a known place of safety. It was originally believed he had been overtaken by a storm and frozen to death, but there is evidence that he was confronted by an enemy in the mountains. In 2001 a scientist looking at an X-ray noticed a white blotch on the film, a sign of something denser than bone. A flint arrowhead was embedded in Ötzi’s shoulder; it had been fired by someone standing close behind him.
The elements of his last meal – einkorn wheat and ibex meat – reflect that Ötzi lived at a time of great change. As well as hunting animals as they had always done, humans were beginning to farm grains. Farming would one day lead society to increasing conflict over land and resources, but for Ötzi the only borders would have been those created by impassable mountains or seas. If the high mountains were a neutral space in 3300 BCE, they were not by the twentieth century. When the border was drawn up between Italy and Austria following the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the watershed was used to define the frontier. However, this ridge lay under a glacier, making it impossible to determine its exact location. Over time, as the ice dispersed, it transpired the border had been drawn too far to the north – although it remains valid to this day under international law. The gully in which the iceman was found lay on the Austrian-facing side of the Alps, but an official investigation of the area concluded that he was on Italian territory. ‘In the high mountains, who cares about the exact line of the frontier?’ Konrad Spindler asks, before recalling how fiercely the two nations competed for ownership of the corpse.
From the moment the iceman emerged from the glacier he was a media star. The corridors of the department of Forensic Medicine at Innsbruck University were packed with journalists and reporters in
the first days of the find, and its telephone switchboard broke down. Better communications were required: more telephones were ordered, more fax machines, more photocopiers. In addition to the newspaper reports and cartoons about Ötzi, children’s stories were published, and books claiming it was all a hoax. Two years before the millennium, the car manufacturer Suzuki created ‘the Vitara “Ötzi” for all those valuing independence’; the vehicle promised to be ‘as weather resistant, as unaffected by sun, rain, snow and ice as Ötzi’. Recently an asteroid has been named after Ötzi. Asteroid No. 5803 in the great asteroid belt, which is invisible to the naked eye, travels the sun at a slightly elliptical orbit, taking 4.3 years to complete its trajectory.
Ötzi’s mummified body is now on display in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, a museum dedicated to him. He rests on a glass shelf in a cold cell, behind glass. The public view him through a small window, about the size of the Mona Lisa. Only one person can look in at a time. He lies face up, but the viewer cannot quite see his face. It is theatre of course: the light that shines on him is no ordinary fluorescent bulb, but reminiscent of a cool blue glacier. He lies on precision scales at -6°C and at 99 per cent humidity. He is regularly sprayed with sterile water to prevent loss of his natural moisture.
He is such a popular attraction that a new museum is under construction to allow for more visitor capacity and, twenty-five years after the find, a feature film is due for release. ‘Neither scientific research nor archaeological investigation have so far been able to explain what exactly happened before his death, and why this man, who 5,000 years later was to be named “Ötzi”, was murdered,’ intones the press release. ‘The film Iceman fills in the missing pieces in the story of a dramatic event which took place on the Tisenjoch one day in early summer some 3,300 years BCE.’
The film premiere is 30 November. Tomorrow. Living in central Europe rather than on the margins must have gone to my head, for I consider making a trip to South Tyrol to attend the screening. I type the address of the cinema into a search engine and look for directions from Switzerland to Bolzano. I’d have to travel across the Alps. A six-hour drive, via Milan and Verona – but I can’t drive. I click on the pedestrian icon. Walking, 108 hours, via Bern: ‘This route includes roads that are closed in winter’.
I will have to wait for a wider release to see actor Jürgen Vogel’s interpretation of Ötzi. But there are other manifestations. The South Tyrol Museum commissioned a life-size model of the iceman. Now, there are two Ötzis in the museum – the original and a recreation. The full-length figure uses the latest in forensic mapping technology based on three-dimensional images of the skull, as well as infrared images. The reconstruction shows a prematurely old man, with deep-set eyes, sunken cheeks, a furrowed face and ungroomed beard and hair. It is one thing to show features, but quite another thing to capture a character, as this statue has managed to do.
The exposure of Ötzi, like the photography of the other bodies which have emerged from glaciers, makes me uneasy. What are the ethics of displaying human remains, long hidden from the world’s view, without consent? What can be learnt from such voyeurism? I remember the Greenlandic mummies at the National Museum in Nuuk. ‘They’re my relations,’ Thrine had said, possessively and with sadness. She won’t visit the museum: one visits living relatives, and respectfully buries the dead. The clinical context in which Ötzi rests now would surely be alien to him. Scientists have discovered much about this Neolithic man (even his DNA has been extracted from his bones and sequenced in a Boston lab) but what beliefs he may have held remain a mystery. Would the procedures enacted on his corpse fit in with his own view of an afterlife?
It’s not surprising that there are rumours of an Ötzi curse. Since that palindromic discovery date (19.9.91), five of the men who worked on the body have met unfortunate ends. Forensic expert Dr Henn, who placed the corpse in a body bag with his bare hands, died in a road accident on his way to a conference at which he planned to discuss Ötzi. Kurt Fritz, the experienced mountain guide who had led Dr Henn to the peak, died in a freak avalanche in 1993, the only fatality among his group. In October 2004 Helmut Simon failed to return from a hike and was found eight days later; he had fallen 300 feet to his death and his body was frozen under a sheet of ice. Even Konrad Spindler, after writing many accounts of the iceman, dies – although from a medical condition. Isn’t the truth that those who walk in the mountains are statistically more likely to die in the mountains?
Ötzi would have been unaware, as he died – with no one to bury his body – that he wouldn’t be forgotten. Today a cairn marks the gully in the mountains where Ötzi’s body was discovered. A cairn of stones is a sign of achievement for climbers. Yet in the Arctic it has a different significance. There, where the ground is too hard to be dug, on account of permafrost or rocks, it is the traditional means for making a grave; a mound of stones both conceals the remains and memorializes the dead. The structure is also seen in the inunnguaq – a stone monument which evokes the shape of a human body. An inunnguaq can be placed on a headland to mark the disappearance or death of a person. Knud Rasmussen describes an Inuit community’s response to a drowning: ‘The men . . . sorrowed so deeply over the loss of their women that they built cairns up on the shore, just as many cairns as there were women lost. They did this because they wanted the souls of the drowned women to be on dry land not out in the wet sea.’
IV
It used to be that the only red buildings in Greenland were those of the church and the traders: the infirmary was yellow; the salt house was white. The wooden buildings erected by Danish missionaries were painted with pigments mixed with seal oil, and over time a colour code was established, which made it easier to find one’s way around in poor visibility. The tradition continues at Aappaluttoq mine, which opened its red buildings in 2017 on the ice cap near Nuuk. Prospectors extracting drill cores from the hard grey rock at Aappaluttoq have found rubies and pink sapphire running through the mica and amphibole. The transparent pink crystals may be the oldest rubies in the world. It’s safe to bet they won’t stay in Greenland for display.
Yet it is too early to know if the rubies will be a going concern. Mines come and go more swiftly than one might expect in Greenland. Many enterprises fail due to lack of investment or disappointing prospects and even successful mines are tapping finite resources. A gold mine which opened to great excitement at Nalunaq closed, after only a few years’ operation, in 2013.
Other materials such as lead and zinc and the seventeen rare earth metals may be less romantic than gold and gemstones, but as competition for the world’s resources hots up, they have the potential to be equally profitable. Not long ago, after an event at a literary festival, an elderly gentleman handed me a slip of paper before excusing himself modestly. Back in the hotel I unfolded the note and found a map of Greenland, with an ‘X’ marking a spot south of Upernavik and the name ‘BLACK ANGEL MINE’. There was an email address. Who wouldn’t respond to such intrigue? I sent an email, and I was invited for lunch.
Tom turns out to be a Geordie geologist, eager to compare notes on the north. Once we’ve covered our shared fondness for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the conversation turns to the Arctic. He tells me that his very first job after graduating in the 1970s was at the Black Angel Mine, named for an angel-shaped zinc outcrop high on the mountain. The Pouilly-Fumé pairs perfectly with the goat cheese tart as Tom reminisces about the extreme conditions in which he worked, and the challenge of getting building materials from the port in the fjord to the drilling zone using cables and a helicopter. The mine was active for seventeen years. Now under new ownership it has reopened using a Greenlandic name, Maarmorilik. It remains ‘a geologically favourable target area’, according to a new promotional film made by ARC Arctic Resources. I can understand Tom’s love of rocks and minerals and his fascination with the deep time which forged them. I’m also impressed by his pragmatic approach to the world.
Greenland’s warming tempera
tures make underground exploration increasingly viable as the permafrost – soil that has been frozen for thousands of years – begins to melt. Mining and drilling bring new opportunities to the Arctic, money that might enable Greenland to achieve financial independence from Denmark at last – although the country’s fortunes would then be tied to the vagaries of multinational corporations instead. In 2013, the government granted four times the number of exploration licences approved a decade before. The same year, after a debate that divided the country, parliament voted narrowly to repeal a 1988 ban on uranium mining. (Uranium is a radioactive metal mainly used for nuclear fuel and weapons.) The repeal has allowed an open pit mine sourcing uranium at Narsaq in the south of Greenland. There was outrage up and down the coast; Ole even went so far as to wear a button badge. Protestors fear that as well as bringing welcome jobs to areas that are suffering economic hardship, open source uranium mines will generate radioactive dust which could spread over land and sea.
One secret of successful gambling is to bet low. Another is to play a predetermined number of wins. Never forget that everything that’s won can be more easily lost.
It takes me a few weeks to realize that the irregular perforations in my cabin wall are Morse code. I decide to translate my home. I stand outside in the snow, jotting down the sequence of dots and dashes. I look up a history of Morse in the library to get a crib sheet for the code and I discover that it was not originally sent as short and long tone pulses over radio. The dots and dashes were punched onto paper tape, the intention being that they would be read. The system only became sound-based when telegraph operators noticed that they could transcribe the clicks made by the apparatus directly, making the tape unnecessary.
The Library of Ice Page 23