The Art Neuro Weblog

The Mummy Collector
In Japan there's a saying that 'The mummy collector returns mummified'. What this is in reference to is how a man who is sent out to collect the mummified remains of a man atop a mountain often comes home dead, and mummified. It's meant to be a warning about following in the footsteps of stupidity. The English expression equivalent would be, "Throwing good money after bad"; except what is being expended is lives instead of money.

In that spirit, I'd like to relate this article here:

VIENNA (Reuters) - The man who 13 years ago discovered the frozen remains of a prehistoric iceman in an Alpine glacier was found dead in the Austrian Alps on Saturday, eight days after he went missing, rescue authorities said.

Helmut Simon, the German who found the 5,300-year-old mummified body while hiking on the border of Austria and Italy in 1991, disappeared on Oct. 15 after setting off alone on an expedition in the Bad Hofgastein region in southwestern Austria.

"He was found at an altitude of around 2,200 meters (7,220 ft), apparently having fallen around 100 meters," a member of the Bad Hofgastein mountain rescue team told Reuters.

Rescue officials found and recovered the body of the experienced 67-year-old mountaineer after a local hunter notified them of a mysterious red spot high up on the 2,300-meter Gaiskarkogel mountain.

Simon, 67, and his wife, Erika, from Nuremberg in Germany found the neolithic iceman on the 3,000-meter (9,000-feet) high Similaun glacier in the Tyrolean Oetz Valley. The mummy was named "Oetzi" after the valley.

I mean, literally, the mummy collector... Ah, fugeddaboudit! :)
Send this in to the Darwin Awards.

- Art Neuro