Discoverer of Otzi the Iceman Dies

[chukhung]

A footnote to this old column of Cecil’s.

From this story on Yahoo! News:

VIENNA (Reuters) - The man who 13 years ago discovered the frozen remains of a prehistoric iceman in an Alpine glacier was found dead in the Austrian Alps on Saturday, eight days after he went missing, rescue authorities said.

Helmut Simon, the German who found the 5,300-year-old mummified body while hiking on the border of Austria and Italy in 1991, disappeared on Oct. 15 after setting off alone on an expedition in the Bad Hofgastein region in southwestern Austria.

Luckily for Herr Simon’s family, his body was recovered a good deal faster than Otzi’s.