The scientific potential was immediately clear.

And over the decades following his discovery, researchers from around the world — archaeologists, anatomists, forensic scientists, geneticists, paleoclimatologists, botanists, entomologists, microbiologists — descended on this single body and extracted from it an extraordinary portrait of a life lived five thousand years ago.

Reading The Evidence Of A Life

The first thing researchers established was his age at death.

Skeletal analysis, examination of his teeth, and the state of his cardiovascular system all converged on an estimate of somewhere between 40 and 50 years old — with the more refined current estimate placing him in his mid-40s.

This was a substantial lifespan for the Copper Age, a period when life expectancy was significantly shorter than modern norms and when reaching the fifth decade required surviving a long series of hazards.