The corpse from the Porchabella-glacier in the Grisons, Switzerland (community of Bergün)

Abstract

In 1988 and 1992 the remains of a woman and her equipment were found in the ice of the `'Porchabella-glacier'' (community of Bergun, canton Grisons, Switzerland). In contrast to the well-preserved objects of her equipment only single parrs of the soft body parts (mainly shoulder and left arm) were preserved, whereas the skeletal remains were almost completely intact. We concluded the age of the woman to be nearly 22 after the anthropological analysis. As far as her clothing and equipment are concerned an Austrian origins can be postulated. She may have lived in the 16th or 17th century, because of the old sequence of tooth eruption (order of dentition: M1, M2, Il, I2), and this is also confirmed by her type of shoes. From the movement of the glacier this dating seems to be reliable, even though we cannot exclude the possibility that the body is little more than 200 years old. We will expect more detailled information after the fnal examinations have been completed in the course of 1994.