PETER OVERTON For thousands of years they've lain unseen and untouched. From the swampy depths of Europe's peat bogs, to the icy reaches of Italy's Alps. These ancient mummies have been frozen in time. But now they've emerged to tell us about our distant, violent past.
RICK TURNER: They're an amazing find. They're like time travellers. They're faces from our pre-history. The only faces we know. The only individuals we know from that distant past.
PETER OVERTON: Not as sure under foot anymore, Rick?
RICK TURNER: No, we're walking on the bog now, Pete.
PETER OVERTON: For archaeologist Rick Turner, who spent a life time wading through the back pages of our history, these are exciting times.
RICK TURNER The burial, they came out on these very treacherous bogs.
PETER OVERTON: And it's the discovery of two almost perfectly preserved bog bodies that really has the scientific world buzzing.
Rick, why is the discovery of these bodies so important?
RICK TURNER: History's about people. A lot of pre-history is dry dust archaeology but here we have people we can connect with. The beautifully expressive hands and even the finger nails are here, is that right?
NED KELLY: Absolutely.
PETER OVERTON: For Rick and his colleague Ned Kelly, these two bodies, literally tanned by natural chemicals in the bog waters, offer an unprecedented window into prehistoric life.
NED KELLY: This here is the fatal wound here.
RICK TURNER: Yeah.
PETER OVERTON: And using the latest forensic science, experts here at the Irish Museum have pieced together a fascinating picture of how these men lived and died.
NED KELLY: We see him as an ambassador from the past. He has come to us with a story to tell and we have the responsibility of telling that story for him.
PETER OVERTON: This remarkable archaeological detective story begins in Ireland, 300 years before the birth of Christ. Not far west of where Dublin now stands, two men were murdered on remote bog lands. Here, their bodies would remain, trapped in time for the next 2300 years. Where were the bodies found, Ned?
NED KELLY: One of the bodies was found just here, Old Croghan Man, found in the bog just here at the bottom of the hill. The other one was found in the next county, just out in this direction here, not too far away.
PETER OVERTON: Named after local landmarks, Old Croghan Man was found without a head. Clonycavan Man was missing his forearms and lower torso. But both were so well preserved, police initially thought they had two modern day murders on their hands. They were brutally attacked, weren't they?
NED KELLY: Oh, absolutely. Terribly badly injured.
PETER OVERTON: But who were these people and why did they die out on these desolate Irish peat bogs? Well, the answers to these questions could provide invaluable new insights into ancient times. And solve two very cold cases.
MARIE CASSIDY: Two small symmetrical lesions.
PETER OVERTON: It's been a marathon investigation involving a team of 35 experts, including Ireland's state pathologist Marie Cassidy.
MARIE CASSIDY: Might be an indication that he has been tortured.
PETER OVERTON: I bet you this was a cold case you'd never think you'd work on?
MARIE CASSIDY: That certainly is one that I wouldn't have dreamed of being involved in. It's just fascinating to use the principles that we use today and apply them to something that happened 2000 years ago. You wouldn't believe it, would you? The rib has been sliced through.
PETER OVERTON: While both bodies were incomplete, professor Cassidy quickly established they're male and aged in their early 20s. By measuring Old Croghan Man's arm span, she also discovered he was remarkably tall for the time.
WOMAN: 6 foot 6.
MAN: He was massive.
WOMAN: Incredible.
MAN: No wonder his hands were so big.
PETER OVERTON: Then Professor Cassidy sets about establishing how this giant of a man died.
MARIE CASSIDY: If you put his arm up and the guy came across with a knife, it can slice across the arm as it's going down into the chest. They actually had made attempts to dismember this body, quite violently and it had taken a fair number of blows from a sharp instrument to sever the head from the body and also to try and sever the lower end of the body. So it was particularly violent.
PETER OVERTON: Were you taken aback by just how horrible it was?
MARIE CASSIDY: I was. I have been a pathologist for 23 years now, so I've seen some awful sights in my time but this probably was one of the most violent assaults I'd ever seen on someone. They've got an injury to the back of the skull.
PETER OVERTON: Next, Clonycavan Man goes under the microscope.
MARIE CASSIDY: This would indicate this is due to a blow from something heavy, with a sharp cutting edge.
PETER OVERTON: He turns out to be much smaller than Old Croghan Man. Just 157 centimetres or 5 foot 2, but it appears he too met a grisly end.
MARIE CASSIDY: This guy had this cut going across the head and the bone's smashed in and large injury to the back of his head and the bone's broken. Then he had a huge injury down the front of his trunk and all the ribs caved in. I mean, this man had literally been through the wars. These were horrendous injuries. So he had died a very violent death.
RICK TURNER: They'd be carrying the body out perhaps in some form of procession and they'd then reached a feature like this, a natural pool in the bog. And I think this is where most of the bodies would have been buried.
PETER OVERTON: What experts like Rick Turner believe is that both men were the victims of ritualistic killings, not uncommon in the Iron Age culture of 2000 years ago.
RICK TURNER: The victim would be carried out across the moss where they could force the body underneath the ground. It's like an eye into the other world. It's like suspending them halfway between life and death.
PETER OVERTON: Why do you think they were sacrificed?
RICK OVERTON: Maybe a famine or an invasion or some crisis in the local society. And I think perhaps that people may be the most valuable thing that they have to offer. It may be someone special in their own society, a priest or a warrior. It may be a hostage or a prisoner of war, someone they kept especially for a ceremony like this. So this would have been home in the Iron Age.
PETER OVERTON: Life 2300 years ago?
RICK TURNER: Yeah.
PETER OVERTON: While the barbarity of these sacrifices is shocking to us, Rick believes we should see them in the context of the times. And though the Iron Age people could be incredibly brutal, he says they were also cultured and artistic.
RICK TURNER: We always underestimate people in the past. We'd be surprised how sophisticated they were. They're no different to you and me. They're exactly the same people. There's no difference at all. So they have the same hopes and fears and aspirations that you and I would have.
PETER OVERTON: Just how similar was starkly illustrated when investigators put a face to Clonycavan Man. Using scanners and 3D imaging, they were able to digitally rebuild his skull. And flesh out his features. They have a look that really is not out of place in today's society. They were like you and I.
RICK TURNER: Indeed. And it's that immediacy, that's what it makes them so powerful.
JOANNE FLETCHER: This is how we think Clonycavan was in life.
PETER OVERTON: Indeed, not only did they look like us, it seems our ancient forebears shared our obsession with fashion and personal grooming. I don't think it's too unrealistic to say that you could see this man walking down the street today?
JOANNE FLETCHER: Totally, totally.
PETER OVERTON: According to York University's Dr Joanne Fletcher, Clonycavan Man even styled his hair with gel.
JOANNE FLETCHER: Just like the modern material and used for exactly that same purpose. And it's still working, several thousand years after being applied. That's a pretty resounding sort of endorsement of this product.
PETER OVERTON: It sounds like it. He was the metrosexual of his time.
JOANNE FLETCHER: Absolutely. The David Beckham of his day. You know, very, very stylish.
PETER OVERTON: We're talking about a sophisticated society here.
JOANNE FLETCHER: Oh, absolutely.
PETER OVERTON: Across Europe, and across time. An even older mystery, the ultimate cold case. I'm travelling to the Italian village of Bolzano to see one of the greatest archeological discoveries of them all a Stone Age warrior who has intrigued and baffled scientists since the day he was discovered in these towering snow-capped mountains. That is stunning. Just stunning. His name is Oetzi the Ice Man and he's the grand daddy of all mummies. I must say it's a moving experience to come and meet the ice man. Oetzi died 5300 years ago, long before the Iron Age, long before even the pyramids were built.
DR EDUARD EGARTER VIGL: I'm a very fortunate man. For me it's a challenge to discover all his secrets.
PETER OVERTON: Pathologist Dr Eduard Egarter Vigl, is Oetzi's guardian here at the South Tyrol Museum. For the past decade, the doctor and his colleagues have been patiently chipping away at the many mysteries that surround this enigmatic ice man.
DR EDUARD EGARTER VIGL: When he died, I'm sure that he had problems. He was under stress. He had very, very strong pain.
PETER OVERTON: Was he murdered, doctor?
DR EDUARD EGARTER VIGL: Yes, absolutely. We are sure that he was murdered.
PETER OVERTON: Oetzi was discovered 15 years ago on this mountain glacier high in the Italian Alps. He was carrying a remarkable collection of tools and personal belongings. Oetzi was murdered, shot in the back with an arrow. Brought down from this mountain pass, the ice man became an archaeological sensation.
JUDD STEVENSON: He's the world's oldest white mummy. White mummy means he's got all his internal organs, he's got his eyes, he's got his lungs. He's even got the contents of his last meal in his intestinal tract.
PETER OVERTON: His last meal?
JUDD STEVENSON: His last meal. Red deer meat, venison, cooked.
PETER OVERTON: Barbecued?
JUDD STEVENSON: Barbecued.
PETER OVERTON: Australians can relate to that.
JUDD STEVENSON: Absolutely. We found traces of charcoal on the meat.
PETER OVERTON: According to the museum's resident ice man expert, Judd Stevenson, Oetzi's so well preserved, they've been able to get an accurate picture of his age.
JUDD STEVENSON: We think he was around 46. It's pretty elderly for that era. He wasn't in very good health. His arteries were beginning to harden. He had arthritis, rheumatism. The life expectancy would have been mid to late 30s. He was way beyond that.
PETER OVERTON: Using state-of-the-art technology, investigators have painstakingly examined every millimetre of Oetzi and his treasure trove of belongings. And they've made some incredible breakthroughs. From microscopic traces of pollen on his clothing, they've discovered he died in spring. And by matching the pollen to plant types in the area, they've even been able to retrace the ice man's route up to the glacier. But it's the intimate details about his last terrifying day that are most astounding. Researchers now believe Oetzi was attacked, perhaps 24 hours before his death. They know this from deep defensive wounds on his hand. And the DNA of others on his weapons. Then the wounded warrior fled into the mountains.
JUDD STEVENSON: He would have been in enormous pain. He could have felt his life was ebbing away from him. We still think he managed to escape. Because if he'd been found by his attackers, they would have stripped him. They wouldn't have left him a copper-bladed axe, they wouldn't have left him with a bear skin hat. So he still had that energy and strength for an elderly man in pain to escape. He gets my respect for that.
PETER OVERTON: For these dedicated history detectives, the relentless search for answers to the mysteries of our past continues. But no matter how smart the science, how sharp the mind, there are some mysteries that will perhaps never be solved.
RICK TURNER: Science tells us so many things, it tells us about those people. What they look like. How tall they were. Whether they were covered with paint or wearing clothes or what they eat and all those interesting facts. But in the end science isn't enough. You have to go that one step further and use your imagination.
RICK TURNER: They're an amazing find. They're like time travellers. They're faces from our pre-history. The only faces we know. The only individuals we know from that distant past.
PETER OVERTON: Not as sure under foot anymore, Rick?
RICK TURNER: No, we're walking on the bog now, Pete.
PETER OVERTON: For archaeologist Rick Turner, who spent a life time wading through the back pages of our history, these are exciting times.
RICK TURNER The burial, they came out on these very treacherous bogs.
PETER OVERTON: And it's the discovery of two almost perfectly preserved bog bodies that really has the scientific world buzzing.
Rick, why is the discovery of these bodies so important?
RICK TURNER: History's about people. A lot of pre-history is dry dust archaeology but here we have people we can connect with. The beautifully expressive hands and even the finger nails are here, is that right?
NED KELLY: Absolutely.
PETER OVERTON: For Rick and his colleague Ned Kelly, these two bodies, literally tanned by natural chemicals in the bog waters, offer an unprecedented window into prehistoric life.
NED KELLY: This here is the fatal wound here.
RICK TURNER: Yeah.
PETER OVERTON: And using the latest forensic science, experts here at the Irish Museum have pieced together a fascinating picture of how these men lived and died.
NED KELLY: We see him as an ambassador from the past. He has come to us with a story to tell and we have the responsibility of telling that story for him.
PETER OVERTON: This remarkable archaeological detective story begins in Ireland, 300 years before the birth of Christ. Not far west of where Dublin now stands, two men were murdered on remote bog lands. Here, their bodies would remain, trapped in time for the next 2300 years. Where were the bodies found, Ned?
NED KELLY: One of the bodies was found just here, Old Croghan Man, found in the bog just here at the bottom of the hill. The other one was found in the next county, just out in this direction here, not too far away.
PETER OVERTON: Named after local landmarks, Old Croghan Man was found without a head. Clonycavan Man was missing his forearms and lower torso. But both were so well preserved, police initially thought they had two modern day murders on their hands. They were brutally attacked, weren't they?
NED KELLY: Oh, absolutely. Terribly badly injured.
PETER OVERTON: But who were these people and why did they die out on these desolate Irish peat bogs? Well, the answers to these questions could provide invaluable new insights into ancient times. And solve two very cold cases.
MARIE CASSIDY: Two small symmetrical lesions.
PETER OVERTON: It's been a marathon investigation involving a team of 35 experts, including Ireland's state pathologist Marie Cassidy.
MARIE CASSIDY: Might be an indication that he has been tortured.
PETER OVERTON: I bet you this was a cold case you'd never think you'd work on?
MARIE CASSIDY: That certainly is one that I wouldn't have dreamed of being involved in. It's just fascinating to use the principles that we use today and apply them to something that happened 2000 years ago. You wouldn't believe it, would you? The rib has been sliced through.
PETER OVERTON: While both bodies were incomplete, professor Cassidy quickly established they're male and aged in their early 20s. By measuring Old Croghan Man's arm span, she also discovered he was remarkably tall for the time.
WOMAN: 6 foot 6.
MAN: He was massive.
WOMAN: Incredible.
MAN: No wonder his hands were so big.
PETER OVERTON: Then Professor Cassidy sets about establishing how this giant of a man died.
MARIE CASSIDY: If you put his arm up and the guy came across with a knife, it can slice across the arm as it's going down into the chest. They actually had made attempts to dismember this body, quite violently and it had taken a fair number of blows from a sharp instrument to sever the head from the body and also to try and sever the lower end of the body. So it was particularly violent.
PETER OVERTON: Were you taken aback by just how horrible it was?
MARIE CASSIDY: I was. I have been a pathologist for 23 years now, so I've seen some awful sights in my time but this probably was one of the most violent assaults I'd ever seen on someone. They've got an injury to the back of the skull.
PETER OVERTON: Next, Clonycavan Man goes under the microscope.
MARIE CASSIDY: This would indicate this is due to a blow from something heavy, with a sharp cutting edge.
PETER OVERTON: He turns out to be much smaller than Old Croghan Man. Just 157 centimetres or 5 foot 2, but it appears he too met a grisly end.
MARIE CASSIDY: This guy had this cut going across the head and the bone's smashed in and large injury to the back of his head and the bone's broken. Then he had a huge injury down the front of his trunk and all the ribs caved in. I mean, this man had literally been through the wars. These were horrendous injuries. So he had died a very violent death.
RICK TURNER: They'd be carrying the body out perhaps in some form of procession and they'd then reached a feature like this, a natural pool in the bog. And I think this is where most of the bodies would have been buried.
PETER OVERTON: What experts like Rick Turner believe is that both men were the victims of ritualistic killings, not uncommon in the Iron Age culture of 2000 years ago.
RICK TURNER: The victim would be carried out across the moss where they could force the body underneath the ground. It's like an eye into the other world. It's like suspending them halfway between life and death.
PETER OVERTON: Why do you think they were sacrificed?
RICK OVERTON: Maybe a famine or an invasion or some crisis in the local society. And I think perhaps that people may be the most valuable thing that they have to offer. It may be someone special in their own society, a priest or a warrior. It may be a hostage or a prisoner of war, someone they kept especially for a ceremony like this. So this would have been home in the Iron Age.
PETER OVERTON: Life 2300 years ago?
RICK TURNER: Yeah.
PETER OVERTON: While the barbarity of these sacrifices is shocking to us, Rick believes we should see them in the context of the times. And though the Iron Age people could be incredibly brutal, he says they were also cultured and artistic.
RICK TURNER: We always underestimate people in the past. We'd be surprised how sophisticated they were. They're no different to you and me. They're exactly the same people. There's no difference at all. So they have the same hopes and fears and aspirations that you and I would have.
PETER OVERTON: Just how similar was starkly illustrated when investigators put a face to Clonycavan Man. Using scanners and 3D imaging, they were able to digitally rebuild his skull. And flesh out his features. They have a look that really is not out of place in today's society. They were like you and I.
RICK TURNER: Indeed. And it's that immediacy, that's what it makes them so powerful.
JOANNE FLETCHER: This is how we think Clonycavan was in life.
PETER OVERTON: Indeed, not only did they look like us, it seems our ancient forebears shared our obsession with fashion and personal grooming. I don't think it's too unrealistic to say that you could see this man walking down the street today?
JOANNE FLETCHER: Totally, totally.
PETER OVERTON: According to York University's Dr Joanne Fletcher, Clonycavan Man even styled his hair with gel.
JOANNE FLETCHER: Just like the modern material and used for exactly that same purpose. And it's still working, several thousand years after being applied. That's a pretty resounding sort of endorsement of this product.
PETER OVERTON: It sounds like it. He was the metrosexual of his time.
JOANNE FLETCHER: Absolutely. The David Beckham of his day. You know, very, very stylish.
PETER OVERTON: We're talking about a sophisticated society here.
JOANNE FLETCHER: Oh, absolutely.
PETER OVERTON: Across Europe, and across time. An even older mystery, the ultimate cold case. I'm travelling to the Italian village of Bolzano to see one of the greatest archeological discoveries of them all a Stone Age warrior who has intrigued and baffled scientists since the day he was discovered in these towering snow-capped mountains. That is stunning. Just stunning. His name is Oetzi the Ice Man and he's the grand daddy of all mummies. I must say it's a moving experience to come and meet the ice man. Oetzi died 5300 years ago, long before the Iron Age, long before even the pyramids were built.
DR EDUARD EGARTER VIGL: I'm a very fortunate man. For me it's a challenge to discover all his secrets.
PETER OVERTON: Pathologist Dr Eduard Egarter Vigl, is Oetzi's guardian here at the South Tyrol Museum. For the past decade, the doctor and his colleagues have been patiently chipping away at the many mysteries that surround this enigmatic ice man.
DR EDUARD EGARTER VIGL: When he died, I'm sure that he had problems. He was under stress. He had very, very strong pain.
PETER OVERTON: Was he murdered, doctor?
DR EDUARD EGARTER VIGL: Yes, absolutely. We are sure that he was murdered.
PETER OVERTON: Oetzi was discovered 15 years ago on this mountain glacier high in the Italian Alps. He was carrying a remarkable collection of tools and personal belongings. Oetzi was murdered, shot in the back with an arrow. Brought down from this mountain pass, the ice man became an archaeological sensation.
JUDD STEVENSON: He's the world's oldest white mummy. White mummy means he's got all his internal organs, he's got his eyes, he's got his lungs. He's even got the contents of his last meal in his intestinal tract.
PETER OVERTON: His last meal?
JUDD STEVENSON: His last meal. Red deer meat, venison, cooked.
PETER OVERTON: Barbecued?
JUDD STEVENSON: Barbecued.
PETER OVERTON: Australians can relate to that.
JUDD STEVENSON: Absolutely. We found traces of charcoal on the meat.
PETER OVERTON: According to the museum's resident ice man expert, Judd Stevenson, Oetzi's so well preserved, they've been able to get an accurate picture of his age.
JUDD STEVENSON: We think he was around 46. It's pretty elderly for that era. He wasn't in very good health. His arteries were beginning to harden. He had arthritis, rheumatism. The life expectancy would have been mid to late 30s. He was way beyond that.
PETER OVERTON: Using state-of-the-art technology, investigators have painstakingly examined every millimetre of Oetzi and his treasure trove of belongings. And they've made some incredible breakthroughs. From microscopic traces of pollen on his clothing, they've discovered he died in spring. And by matching the pollen to plant types in the area, they've even been able to retrace the ice man's route up to the glacier. But it's the intimate details about his last terrifying day that are most astounding. Researchers now believe Oetzi was attacked, perhaps 24 hours before his death. They know this from deep defensive wounds on his hand. And the DNA of others on his weapons. Then the wounded warrior fled into the mountains.
JUDD STEVENSON: He would have been in enormous pain. He could have felt his life was ebbing away from him. We still think he managed to escape. Because if he'd been found by his attackers, they would have stripped him. They wouldn't have left him a copper-bladed axe, they wouldn't have left him with a bear skin hat. So he still had that energy and strength for an elderly man in pain to escape. He gets my respect for that.
PETER OVERTON: For these dedicated history detectives, the relentless search for answers to the mysteries of our past continues. But no matter how smart the science, how sharp the mind, there are some mysteries that will perhaps never be solved.
RICK TURNER: Science tells us so many things, it tells us about those people. What they look like. How tall they were. Whether they were covered with paint or wearing clothes or what they eat and all those interesting facts. But in the end science isn't enough. You have to go that one step further and use your imagination.