South Tyrol Archaeological Museum, located in the city of Bolzano, - it is one of the main attractions of the city and the entire region of Trentino-Alto Adige. Its most valuable treasure is famous worldwide mummy Oetzi.

The museum was founded in 1998, the year specifically for the storage of mummies found seven years earlier on the glacier Similuan. We found her two German tourists from Nuremberg. They thought the mummy body recently deceased climber, but when it was taken to the University of Innsbruck in Austria, it was immediately recognized as the mummy of the primitive man.

According to scientists, the man, named Ötzi lived about 3300, the year BC Today it is the world's oldest human mummy. It is thanks to her, scientists were able to "look" at incredibly distant from us Copper Age of the European continent. Among the found with Oetzi tools were also discovered the world's oldest fully preserved ax equipment for a fire, a quiver with 12 arrows and a sword in its sheath. And, of course, clothing.

Similuanskaya mummy now stored in a special climate-controlled chamber at a temperature -6ºS and humidity 98%, which reproduces the conditions of the glacier, where it was found. In addition to the original findings in the exposition dedicated to Oetzi, you can also explore a variety of reconstruction their living conditions and meet the multimedia materials about the life of Ötzi in the context of the early history of the Alpine region.

Interestingly, after the discovery of Oetzi the media immediately began talking about the curse of the mummy, clearly inspired by the "curse of the Pharaohs." It is known for the death of seven people involved in the detection, investigation and study of the mummies, among whom were the same German tourist Helmut Simon and Konrad Spindler, first examined the Oetzi in 1991. Four of these people were killed in an accident.

Sam South Tyrol Archaeological Museum housed in a former bank building of the 19th century. His collection consists of 4 floors and are familiar with the history and archeology of southern Alpine region from the Paleolithic and Mesolithic (15,000 BC) up to the Middle Ages (800 AD). And in 2006, the museum has placed at the exhibition dedicated to the culture chachapoya - pre-Columbian cultures that existed in Peru in the 10-15 th centuries.