OUR WORLD FROM 5,781YEARS AGO DURING THE COPPER AGE

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

                                                 Otzi, the Ice Man of 5.000 years ago

5,781 years ago our history started its story with an awesome detailed accounting of it by Moses who wrote it all down after that from 1,311 to 1,271 BCE.  He was like a radio receiver, taking in what G-d told him and he wrote it all down.  People of today in the area of writing and creativity seem to go through something similar with thoughts entering their heads. They even wonder how they ever got those ideas and are pretty awed about it themselves.  They feel they are "in the zone."  At any rate, we have a detailed accounting of the beginning of man as Adam and Eve, the creation of the world, and the beginning of society and how it was all handled by many groups of people like Abraham, father of the Jews and the Arabs  before they became Muslims.  

Since Moses was born in 1391 BCE, which was about 3,412 years ago, that in itself is pretty awesome to put together such writings such as the Torah, made up of the scrolls of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy in a period of 40 years.    

For us Jews, our Biblical history tells us that the world was created  5,781 years ago, and goes on to tell us about Adam, who lived for 930 years and Eve, Cain and Abel and their problems. Shortly after that, we meet up with Noah, who lived for 950 years and the Ark. It was from Noah that 70 people came from whom humanity was derived, so Otzi would fit right in.    I figure that Noah or one of his sons should be about the same age as a man I'll introduce you to below; Otzi, the Ice man.                                                                          

                           Otzi, the Ice Man of 5.000 years ago, was naturally freeze dried.  His mitochondrial DNA was K.

Over 5,300 years ago, Ötzi was crossing Tisenjoch/Giogo di Tisa in the Schnalstal/Val Senales Valley, South Tyrol, where he was murdered and preserved naturally in the ice.  This was in mountains in Italy.  

Amazingly, his mummy was discovered in the mountains between Italy all preserved, named THE ICE MAN. He was given the name of Otzi because he was found in the Otzi mountain range.   Scientists figure he was from the era of more than 5,000 years ago  which would be around 3,000 BCE and was about 49 years old when he died.  His clothes were still on him, and things he carried were buried in the ice.  At this age, possibly affected by Lyme Disease and other ailments that they discovered, he was carrying 60 lbs of his possessions.  To think, here he was in Europe at a period way before  Abraham, who was born in about 1948 BCE, 3,969 years ago-possibly 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. 

Notice that Israel is in the area of Copper:  The Bible does mention copper mining. Israel is described as a “land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can mine copper” (Deuteronomy 8:9), and the Book of Job gives an extraordinary description of ancient mining operations (Job 28:1-11).  Copper is seen as one of the mainstays of Solomon's wealth. The copper from Solomon's mines is also seen as providing the metal used in the building of the temple, as well as for all the utensils used in the temple services. The Bible does mention copper mining.

Ötzi is a glacier mummy from the Copper Age, who, thanks to extraordinary circumstances, has been preserved down to the present day. Little by little, he has imparted genuine stores of knowledge. He was discovered accidentally by hikers in 1991, together with his clothing and equipment, on the Schnalstal/Val Senales Valley glacier and has been the subject of intensive research ever since.  Scientists found arsenic in his body.  He was found intact, including his skin and on that they found tattoos of lines.  

He is therefore older than the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge and the result of a series of highly improbable coincidences. Ötzi lived during the Copper Age, a period of the late Neolithic. He was still using stone tools but owned an innovative and very valuable copper axe. The skill of extracting and processing metal had recently arrived in Europe from Asia Minor. The advent of copper marked the beginning of the Bronze Age. 

Ötzi and his artefacts have been exhibited at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy since 1998.

                                                                          

The mummy is stored in a specially devised cold cell and can be viewed through a small window. Ötzi’s numerous pieces of equipment and clothing have been painstakingly restored. Visitors have been amazed by the skills of Stone Age people. The mummy was dubbed Ötzi by the Austrian journalist Karl Wendl, who was looking for a catchy name. The name refers to the discovery site in the Ötztal Valley Alps.  The South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology belongs to the autonomous province of Bolzano and is associated with the South Tyrol Regional Museums.

                                           

The Iceman’s genome was sequenced in 2012, revealing he had brown eyes and O-type blood, was lactose intolerant, and likely had Lyme disease. The mutations in Ötzi’s paternal genetic line are most commonly found in Sardinia and Corsica, islands off of Italy today, meaning those areas likely have descendants of his genetic family. Another study in 2013 tested thousands of modern men in the Alps and discovered that 19 modern men in the sample shared a genetic lineage with the Iceman. His maternal DNA line, however, appears to be extinct, and that was  K line. So if you’re a guy and your ancestors go back to this roughly 620-mile band between Sardinia and the Alps, there's a chance you could be related to Ötzi.  Here is Otzi's copper axe.  

                                                   

                                      Professor  Bryan Sykes, (1947-2020) 

Human geneticist who proposed that 95% of Europeans could trace their ancestry to one of seven women living thousands of years ago.  It was Bryan Sykes’s expertise in bone that led to his involvement in the effort to extract DNA from ancient specimens. Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images.  Sykes died at age 73.  

According to Bryan Clifford Sykes, author of THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF EVE and a British geneticist and science writer who was a Fellow of Wolfson College and Emeritus Professor of human genetics at the University of Oxford. and who published the first report on retrieving DNA from ancient bone., there were only 7 lines of mitochondrial DNA in Europe. K has been named Katrine. Katrine lived in Venice 15,000 years ago at a time when the Adriatic Sea lowered its sea level at the end of the last Ice age and shrunk it to half its size today.  Katrine's clan flourished in northern Italy and beyond.  10,000 years after she lived, one of her many descendants died crossing the Alps.  That was the Iceman, Otzi.    Sykes' book on page 3, his 1st chapter-is Iceman's relative found in Dorset,  is about the Iceman.  Since Sykes' 7 daughters were found, one more, a W, (Wilma) has been added to the list of which my paternal grandmother belongs to.  

                                                  

Otzi lived during the Copper Age (--4,000 BCE).  The Chalcolithic or Copper Age is the transitional period between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. It is taken to begin around the mid-5th millennium BCE, and ends with the beginning of the Bronze Age proper, in the late 4th to 3rd millennium BCE, depending on the region.

                                                                  

                                 Abraham, ready to sacrifice Isaac, his son by Sarah

Copper first came into use as the earliest non-precious metal employed by the Sumerians and Chaldeans of Mesopotamia, after they had established their thriving cities of Sumer and Accad, Ur, al’Ubaid and others somewhere between 5000 and 6000 years ago. These early people developed considerable skill in fabricating copper and, from these centres, the rudiments of craftsmanship spread to the river-dwelling people of Egypt where it continued to flourish for thousands of years long after their own civilization had degenerated.  Abraham had come from Ur of the Chaldees.  He would have also had a copper axe like Otzi.  

Considering the state of understanding the universe in the days of Moses and the Exodus, I think Moses wrote down a very logical and scientific explanation of the world.  Both he and his slaved relatives and others that he freed from Egypt would have understood his words.  Our rabbis have been reading and discussing these 5 books ever since, and most have brilliant minds.  RASHI (1040-1105 CE) , who wrote 961 years ago at the age of 20, wrote the most about the Torah that is still being quoted today.  Though the writing is not meant to be scientific, it is so remarkably close.                                      

So it is said that when we study the Torah with the realization that the Torah is not a history book, but the charter of man's mission in the universe.  Rashi explains, the Torah's narrative of Creation establishes that G-d is the Sovereign of the universe.  The Torah relates the story of the 6 days of Creation ex nihilo to refute the theories that claim that the universe came into being through some massive coincidence or accident.  The story of creation speaks only in general terms, because its primary purpose is to state that nothing came into being except at G-d's command. (Rambam).  

Resource:

Museum Tour: Ötzi the Iceman - YouTube--I watched; excellent !

Tanakh, Stone Edition

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Otzi, the Iceman, the Full Facts At a Glance , paperback book 

https://www.iceman.it/en/the-iceman/

https://copperalliance.org.uk/about-copper/copper-history/copper-through-the-ages/

https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/solomon-the-copper-king/

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/86519/13-mummified-facts-about-otzi-iceman

The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes

Jewish Calendar, year 5781-5782-this year.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10,000_BC_(film)