The Ice Man's Cloak

The Ice Man's Cloak

I had the privilege, in 1997, to be commissioned to make replica's of the "Ice Man' "Otzi's' grass cloak, knife scabbard and shoes for the new museum exhibit in Bolzano northern Italy.

I had been told many times during the year that I would probably get the job, but the commission was only confirmed 4 months before the museum was due to open in March 1998. This was very short notice indeed!

Picture of grass cloak in box before it was displayed in the museum.

The techniques needed to make the grass cloak and shoes was not a problem. I had been making replicas since I was able to get detailed information about the find.

So, it was not the method of making the replicas that would be difficult but having to find the materials to make them in late December in Cornwall.

I was particularly concerned when they then told me I would have to have my replica's in Bolzano by the end of January for the photographs to be printed in the museum brochure for the March opening.

The shoes

The tops of the shoes were made of the bark of the small leafed Lime tree Tilia Cordata and I already had a supply of that as it was a well used material in prehistory.

The soles and the top leather panels were another matter though. The soles were made of brown bear skin which is not exactly easy to come by these days!

The guards said I could have one of their old bear skin hats if I wanted it, but they were made of Canadian black bear skin, so they would not do.

Bear skin

To cut a long story short, someone came up with the idea that an old Victorian bear skin rug would do the job.

So, after much searching, in a dusty attic of an antique shop in Devon I found one shamefully hidden in a corner. It had a head stuffed with plaster and was complete with teeth and all!

My 'find' was perfect because the soles of the ancient shoes were made from de haired bear skin so it didn't matter if my bear skin was a bit moth eaten.

Another trip into Devon provided the red deer skin panels and the shoes were able to be made.

What grass?

The grass for the grass cloak was another matter entirely. No one in the museum could tell me what type of grass it was made of…

The Kew gardens grass expert said he thought a long grass of the type I described was found in the mountains somewhere in the Turin region of Italy, which did not help much as I live in Cornwall!

The 'grass expert' at the Natural History museum suggested something like it might be found somewhere in the new forest, but he could not be specific.

The data I was given said the grass had to be 120cm long thinning to 1mm at the tips. Time was racing on and I had just a few weeks before I had to take the finished cloak to Italy for the brochure picture shoot.

I eventually decided to make something similar for the photo and then take the next two months to find exactly the right grass for the exhibit opening in March. So I started work on a replica cloak made of sedge grass which proved a nightmare to work with.

Jacqui Wood's own website can be found at: Archaeology Online out.

Picture of museum exhibit wearing his Cornish grass cloak

Sedge grass has serrated edges and I had to cover my fingers with insulation tape to stop them being ripped to shreds while I plaited the grass. The finished cloak looked ok, if slightly green, but was easily good enough for the brochure photos.

So I arrived in Bolzano at the end of January thinking I was just going to deliver the replicas and found myself attending the last "Otzi' conference before the museum opened.

Everyone that was involved was there including the couple that found him and Conrad Spindler that wrote the first book about "The Man in the Ice'.

I was, to say the least, a little nervous when Spindler scrutinized the shoes; checking I had made them with the right materials. Eventually after a long silence he said they were excellent. Whew!

The Original Cloak

Spindler told the museum staff I must examine the cloak before I left on the Monday to try to identify the grass.

I was met at the door to the vaults beneath the museum (it used to be a bank) and was taken to a room with an armed security guard.

An archaeologist then brought in a plywood box and electric screw driver and unscrewed the twenty or so screws that held the top onto the box. Then there it was in front of me and as soon as I saw it I knew that all the photos I had seen of it were deceptive.

The photos concealed the fact that the cloak was not just made of grass it was also held together with the Tilia Cordada that were used on the shoes and knife scabbard.

This type of bark is an almost identical in colour to the grass but when seen close up the honey combed strands were easily identified.

This meant that the grass did not have to be so long as the top interlinking would be secured by the bark and not by double plaiting of the grass.

I could also see the information that it was 1mm at its edge was also misleading. Sure, in some places it was 1mm thick but this was because the grass had weathered and split. So now I needed to look for a grass that was 90cm long and weathered at the ends.

I knew exactly where to find such a grass as it was growing wild on a grass verge near the Perrnaporth turn off in Cornwall!

The grass was the upright Brome variety and when I got back to Cornwall for the last week in January and looked at it, it was perfect. It was even bleached to that pale golden colour and the winter frosts had already split the ends to 1mm thick.

I made the cloak the following week and it was put on the exhibit. So if you ever get a copy of the first Ice man brochure you will see it has a slight green tinge to it which is not in the exhibit in the museum.

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