His clothing was sophisticated. The outer coat was assembled from at least four different animal hides, primarily domestic sheep of a type ancestrally closer to modern domestic European sheep than to wild ancestors, plus some goat leather. The leggings were domesticated goat leather. The loincloth was also sheepskin. His shoes combined bearskin soles, upper panels of deer leather, bark netting, and a lining of grass that functioned as insulation — a system of insulation and protection that subsequent analysis showed was remarkably effective for high-altitude cold. His hat was brown bear fur with a leather chin strap.
The unfinished state of several items — the bow, the unfletched arrows — has been interpreted as evidence that Ötzi had recently been in a fight or had been moving under pressure, without time to complete his equipment maintenance. This interpretation connects to the forensic evidence for the circumstances of his death.
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## How He Died
The cause of Ötzi’s death was not understood for a decade after his discovery.
Initial examination of the mummy found no obvious external injury. For years, the working hypothesis was that he had been caught in a sudden storm at high altitude and died of exposure, perhaps lying down to rest and not waking up. The position in which the body was found — lying face down in the glacial hollow, with one arm under his chest — was consistent with this scenario.
That changed in 2001 when a radiologist at a Bolzano hospital, performing a routine X-ray examination of the mummy, noticed what appeared to be a foreign object embedded in the left shoulder. Subsequent computed tomography confirmed it: a flint arrowhead, still lodged in the tissue, that had entered from behind. The corresponding tear in his coat, found in the debris field around the body, matched.