The Iceman

Born into a Copper Age community in the Alpine world, Ötzi grows up beneath a shaman’s prophecy that his life will carry knowledge far beyond his own generation. Daily pain, dangerous terrain and the demands of subsistence shape him long before enemies begin to pursue him. An avalanche, captivity and violent rivalries force him repeatedly to rely on practical skill, endurance and knowledge that others seek to control.

The novel builds a fictional life around the body, equipment and injuries discovered with the 5,300-year-old ice mummy. As Ötzi moves through mountain communities and towards the final journey preserved by the glacier, intrigue and murder provide an imagined explanation for the evidence surrounding his death. Blanchet uses the archaeological record as the foundation for a prehistoric survival story about technology, belief, status and conflict in Chalcolithic Europe.