An online article on ANSA - Researchers working to recreate voice of Oetzi the Iceman - reports on the use of software to create a synthesised voice.

Ötzi the Iceman. Image: ANSA

Researchers are working to recreate the voice of the 5,300-year-old mummy dubbed Oetzi [Ötzi] the Iceman, using software developed at the National Research Council's Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC).

Ötzi is the well-preserved natural mummy of a man who lived around 3,300 BCE, more precisely between 3359 and 3105 BCE; he probably died between 3239 and 3105 BCE. The mummy was found in September 1991 in the Oetztal Alps near the Similaun mountain and Hauslabjoch on the border between Austria and Italy. He is Europe's oldest known natural human mummy, and has offered an unprecedented view of Chalcolithic Europeans. 

Reconstruction of Ötzi the Iceman at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology. Image: South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology

Now, scientists are using tomographic imaging to develop a reconstruction of Oetzi's vocal tract, and a team led by ISTC Coordinator Piero Cosi is using software created at the Institute to synthesise the iceman's voice.

Oetzi the Iceman is housed at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy.

South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology:

http://www.iceman.it/en