Soldater från 1918 funna i glaciär

Body of frozen soldier goes to research
From correspondents in Rome
August 26, 2004

THE body of an Austrian soldier, one of three found preserved in an Alpine glacier since 1918, will be handed over to an Italian archaeological museum for research, authorities in the province of Trento said.

The body is that of a World War I soldier whose remains were discovered on Sunday along with the corpses of two colleagues in a frozen and mummified state after 86 years under ice in the Italian Alps.
The museum at Bolzano, in northern Italy, will be allowed to preserve and study the remains, discovered at the foot of a glacier 3400m above sea level.

The other two Austrian soldiers were scheduled to be buried this afternoon at an Italian military cemetery in the town of Peio.

The bodies of the three were discovered not far from the summit of San Matteo mountain, the scene of bitter fighting between Austrian and Italian forces near the end of World War I.

They were found by Maurizio Vincenzi, director of the military history museum at Peio in the Trentino region, who is a member of a mountain rescue team and a military historian.

Mr Vincenzi found the bodies after spotting a suspicious-looking dark patch in the ice through his binoculars.

Although war relics were often found in the area, no bodies had been found since 1927, he said.

"To find them in that state was almost impossible," he said. "The hands and faces were well-defined, the fingernails, teeth and skin on the face were all still there."

Mr Vincenzi said the three were probably shot dead in the battle to retake the peak of San Matteo on September 3, 1918, when Austro-Hungarian troops were repelled by Italian fire as they left their mountain-top trenches.

Experts at the museum hope their study of the Austrian soldier will reveal more of the secrets of Oetzi, the Stone Age iceman whose 5000-year-old remains were found in northern Italy in 1991, and which are likewise preserved in Bolzano.

They also hope to establish the optimal climate conditions for preserving Oetzi in Bolzano Museum, where he is kept in a room at a temperature of minus 6C and in 96 per cent humidity.

Oetzi, the world's oldest and best-preserved mummy was discovered by two German tourists after they strayed from a path on a hiking trip in the Italian Alps.