Stropping

This is the Birch Polypore or Razor Strop Fungus Piptoporus betulinus which develops from a small white spherical swelling on the side of dead or living birch trees. The common name derives from the fact that barbers used to 'strop' or sharpen their cut-throat razors on tough, leathery strips cut from the surfaces of these polypores.

Back in 1991, two hikers, Erika and Helmut Simon, from Nuremberg in Germany, were walking in the Ötztal Alps when they encountered a mummified body emerging from the ice. The iceman, who we now know as Ötzi, was alive some 5,000 years ago, several hundred years before stonehenge was built! Ötzi carried an extensive range of tools and weapons including a modest first-aid kit. Attached to Ötzi’s clothing were two hide strips, onto which round lumps of material had been threaded. Analysis has shown that these lumps were pieces of the birch polypore fungus.

Right up until the 20th century bracket fungi were used for medicinal purposes. The birch polypore is known to have antibiotic and styptic effects. Furthermore, toxic oils in bracket fungi are effective against the intestinal parasites from which Ötzi himself suffered. Were these curative properties already known by Ötzi's people back in the Neolithic period?