A long-running battle over a finder's fee for Italy's famous Iceman mummy has been settled.
Authorities in this province on the Austrian border said on Monday they would meet the 150,000-euro demand of the German couple who found the Iceman in 1991.
The money will go to Erika Simon, 72, who lost her husband and co-finder Helmut in a mountain accident five years ago when he was 67.
The pay-out settled a row which began in 1994, three years after the find, when the Simons spurned a 'symbolic' reward of 10 million lire (around 5,200 euros).
That was when the couple began fighting for a slice of the multi-million-euro business the Iceman generates.
In September 2006 the provincial government appealed a verdict by a lower court earlier that year which confirmed that the Simons found the 5,000-year-old frozen man and ordered the provincial government to ''properly'' compensate Erika.
The provincial council in Bolzano appealed to the highest court of appeal, the Cassation Court, arguing that 150,000 euros was too much for the find.
It pointed out that it had borne all the expense of exploiting the find.
Mrs Simon countered by reiterating that the Iceman had been a goldmine for the northern ½ûÂþÌìÌà city.
For years Bolzano's provincial administration had been offering the Simons 50,000 euros.
In spurning the fee, the Simons cited the estimated four million euros a year the Iceman generates for restaurants, hotels and souvenir-sellers in Bolzano alone - not to mention a worldwide industry of TV programmes, documentaries and books.
They filed suit to establish who found the prehistoric hunter and who should get the proper reward.
½ûÂþÌìÌà law lays down a finder's fee of 25% of a discovery's value.
The local government filed a countersuit contesting the Simons' claim and arguing that their offer was fair because of the expense of building and running a special refrigerated museum for the mummy.
OTHER CLAIMANTS.
They also named several persons who claimed to have seen the mummy before the Simons.
One, a Swiss woman, said she spat on the Iceman to stake her claim. Her DNA was not found on the body.
Another, a Slovenian actress, claimed she beat the Simons by about five minutes. She could produce no one to corroborate her account.
When the Simons were acknowledged as finders by the lower court, legal pundits predicted Bolzano's provincial government would soon make a settlement with Mrs Simon.
But the authorities instead decided to fight on.
Helmut and Erika made international headlines in September 1991 after discovering the frozen remains while hiking on the border between Austria and Italy.
The location led to the first legal spat about the find, with both countries laying claim to it. This row was settled in Italy's favour in December 1997 and the Iceman came home early the following year.
'SIMILAUN MAN' OR 'OETZI'.
The mummy is also known as the Similaun Man or Oetzi because he was found on the 3,000-metre-high melting Similaun Glacier in the Tyrolean Oetz Valley.
When he came out of the ground palaeontologists had never seen anything like it.
The body was almost wholly preserved and it also came complete with an array of clothes and weapons.
The Iceman, 159 cm tall, 46 years old, arthritic and infested with whipworm, has since become familiar to viewers of some 30 TV science documentaries the world over.
Lately his fame has been boosted by suggestions that, like some of his younger Egyptian counterparts, he may wield a curse.
Seven people who have had something to do with him have died in allegedly mysterious circumstances.
