Description: On September 19, 1991, a German couple, The Simons, were hiking from their Alpine cabin in Austria. It was warm, and the snow had melted almost down to the rock. Suddenly, at 10,500 feet, they found what they thought was the body of an unfortunate mountain climber. The corpse lay face down, with just his head and top of the shoulders emerging from a slushy pool.

In fact, what the couple had stumbled on was an archeological sensation: a mummified Stone Age corpse that had lain undisturbed for 5,300 years. The discovery was of great importance because it was not in a grave but was found with a complete array of equipment and tools necessary for the man's survival.

The tremendous publicity on the Iceman's discovery has led to his gruesome visage's appearing on the cover of Time, The Washington Post, and almost all of the science journals have featured him in their pages, a "Nova" broadcast, an hour-long show, "Saturday Night Live" cast him in a comedy skit, and on and on.

The stories that he was a fake, or even that he was gay, show the tremendous interest and exploitation which this discovery has inspired. From the moment compressed-air jack hammers were brought up to try to get the body out of the ice, this story has never ceased to be interesting: the way carbon-dating showed how old he was, a detailed account of research on the tools, clothing and other accessories, theories on who the Iceman was -- all of these things bring into play a broad array of popular scientific information. This book will also cover what life was like in prehistoric Europe, based on what we have discovered about the man in the ice.

Finally, there's a great deal of other research related to thediscovery of the Iceman: geology, botany, and history. (Incidentally, this book will also talk about other sensational archeological finds such as Tutankhamen's tomb, the Bog Man in England, and so forth.)

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