Italy is setting up a new lab to gather and lead world research into its famed Iceman mummy.
The research centre will be housed at a science facility in this northern Italian city, EURAC, which already works with the Bolzano museum that houses the prehistoric hunter's mummified body.
The lab will be headed by German researcher Albert Zink of Munich University, the president of the local Alto Adige region, Luis Durnwalder, announced Thursday.
Zink, one of the world's leading experts on the Neolithic man also known as Oetzi, was chosen from 15 candidates from five countries, Durnwalder said.
"We think it is only right that we should build around Oetzi a structure able to become an international reference point for Iceman studies," Durnwalder said.
The 5000-year-old (3000 BC) Iceman has spawned a global cottage industry of studies since he was found in a glacier in the Oetz mountain valley in 1991.
Until now, most of the major research work has been done outside Bolzano.
There have been discoveries about what he ate and what illnesses he suffered from, as well as a keen debate on how he died from the arrow wound found in his body - initially, it was thought, in a fight with rival hunters.
One theory says he was assassinated in a tribal power struggle.
Another suggested he was the victim of ritual sacrifice.
Another study - fiercely contested by patriotic residents of this formerly Austrian region who see Oetzi as their proud forefather - reckons he was cast out from his community because a low sperm count rendered him childless.
An eerie aura has also grown around the Iceman because of the allegedly mysterious deaths of seven people who came into contact with the mummy.
