Bog body
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Bog bodies, also known as bog people, are preserved human bodies found in sphagnum bogs in Northern Europe, Britain and Ireland. Unlike most ancient human remains, bog bodies have retained skin and internal organs due to the unusual conditions of preservation. Under certain conditions, the acidity of the water, the cold temperature and the lack of oxygen combine to tan the body's skin: skeletal preservation is very rare in these bodies, as the acid in the peat dissolves the calcium carbonate of bone. The bodies provide very useful research material for archaeologists.
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[edit] Bog Bodies found
More than a thousand bog bodies have been found, as a result of peat-cutting activities, in regions associated with the Celts of the Iron Age; the earliest bog body, that of Koelbjerg Woman, has been radiometrically dated at about 10,000 years old; she may simply have drowned. The newest is of the 16th century AD, a woman in Ireland who may have been buried in unhallowed ground following a suicide (PBS NOVA). By far the majority of the bog bodies belong to the Celtic Iron Age, some as late as the 4th century AD.
Preserved bodies of humans and animals have been discovered in bogs in Britain, Ireland, northern Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, both Jutland and Zealand, and southern Sweden. Records of such finds go back as far as the 18th century. It is not readily apparent at the time of discovery whether a body has been buried in a bog for years, decades, or centuries. However, during the 20th century, forensic and medical technologies were developed that allow researchers to more closely determine the age of the burial, through radiocarbon dating, their age at death and many other details. Scientists have been able to study their skin, reconstruct their appearance and even determine what their last meal was by their stomach contents. Their teeth also show how old they were and what type of food they ate throughout their life time.
[edit] How victims were killed
Many bog bodies show signs of being brutally killed, stabbed, bludgeoned, hanged and strangled, more than once by all means. The nipples of Old Croghan Man were sliced almost through. The corpses were sometimes decapitated, then deliberately buried in the bog, staked down with stakes or twisted willow or hazel withies. Interpretions of the forensic examinations vary: it is debated whether they were ritually slain and placed in the bog as an execution for a crime, or as a human sacrifice (See also: Celts and human sacrifice). Some bog bodies, such as Tollund Man from Denmark, have been found with the rope used to strangle them still around their necks. Some, such as the Yde Girl in the Netherlands and bog bodies in Ireland, had the hair on one side of their heads closely cropped. The bog bodies seem consistently to have been members of the upper class: their fingernails are manicured and tests on hair protein routinely record good nutrition. Strabo records that the Celts practiced auguries on the entrails of human victims: on some bog bodies, such as one of the Weerdinge Men found in southern Netherlands, the entrails have been partly drawn out through incisions.
The unity of the details of violent ritual slaughter over such a wide swathe of Northern Europe is a testament to a broadly unified culture, one which corroborates the breadth of material culture found in Celtic Iron Age archaeological sites of the La Tène type.
[edit] Archaeological research
In the case of the "mummies" of Cladh Hallan the burials have been interpreted as a primitive method of embalming significant individuals.
The face of one bog body, Yde Girl, was reconstructed in 1993 by professor Richard Neave of Manchester University using CT scans of her head. Yde Girl and her modern reconstruction are displayed at the Drents Museum in Assen.
[edit] Notable bog bodies
(Dates given are radiocarbon dates.)
- Clonycavan Man
- Grauballe Man, found 1952 in Nebelgård Mose, a bog in Jutland, Denmark.
- Haraldskær Woman, 5th century BC, found 1835 in a peat bog in Jutland, Denmark
- Lindow Man
- Oldcroghan Man
- Tollund Man, 3rd - 2nd century BC
- The mummies of Cladh Hallan, Scotland
- Yde Girl, 170 BC - AD 230.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- PBS/ NOVA, "The Perfect Corpse"
- Peter Vilhelm Glob, The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved. (Cornell University Press, 1969; reprinted 2004.
- Archaeological Institute of America, 1997. Archaeology: "Bodies of the Bogs"
- van der Sanden, Wijnand, 1996. Through Nature to Eternity: The Bog People of Northwest Europe (Museum Boymans van Beuningen) Accompaniment to his exhibition at Silkeborg, Denmark.
- Don Brothwell, 1987. The Bog Man and the Archaeology of People (Harvard University Press) Original publisher, British Museums Publications, Ltd., London (1986) ISBN 0-7141-1384-0
- Tim Taylor, 2003. Buried Soul (Fourth Estate Ltd)
- Miranda Aldhouse Green, 2002. Dying for the Gods (Tempus Publishing)
- Wijnand avn der Sanden, 1996. Through Nature to Eternity (Batavian Lion Int.)
