ROME, Aug 24 (AFP) - The body of an Austrian soldier 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 on Tuesday.
The body is one of a World War I soldier whose remains were
discovered on Sunday along with the corpses of two of his
colleagues in an unsually well preserved 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 3,400
metres (11,000 feet) above sea level.
The other two Austrian soldiers were scheduled to be buried on
Tuesday afternoon at an Italian military cemetery at Peio.
The corpses 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 history buff.
Vincenzi brought them out after spotting a suspicious-looking dark
patch in the ice through binoculars.
Experts at the museum hope their study of the Austrian soldier will
reveal more of the secrets of Oetzi, the Stone Age "iceman" whose
5,000 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 currently kept in a
room at a temperature of minus six degrees Celsius (21 degrees
Fahrenheit) and in 96-percent humidity.
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.
