Bodies in the Bog and the Archaeological Imagination by Karin Sanders: review

From the Telegraph:

Bodies in the Bog and the Archaeological Imagination

By Karin Sanders

CHICAGO UP, £26, 317pp

In 1969, PV Glob, a distinguished professor of archeology in Denmark, published a remarkable book. The Bog People was written in response to a request from a group of schoolgirls at an English convent. These young ladies had become excited about photographs of the mysterious discovery, in a Danish bog, of a almost perfectly preserved body dating back to the Iron Age and known as the Tollund Man, from the area in which he was found.

He lay in the ancient peat, entirely naked except for a thin leather cap and a lanyard around his neck. As Glob described in his charming, plainly written book, Tollund Man joined Grauballe Man and Windeby Girl (who turned out to be Windeby Boy), disinterred from the Jutland fens; a mute, macabre gathering looking like crumpled, leathery marionettes.

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How did 2,000-year-old feet find their way to a Dublin attic?

From the Irish Times:

EXPERTS FROM the National Museum are still trying to explain how two human feet dating from 2,000 years ago were found in an attic in a house in the Terenure area of Dublin last December.

The human remains, a foot from a young child and the foot of an adult male with part of the lower leg attached, turned up during renovation work on the house in south Dublin.

The builders informed the gardaí who in turn called in the Dublin City Coroner Dr Brian Farrell, who ordered the remains be sent to Dublin City Mortuary for postmortem examination.

According to a report in the autumn edition of Archaeology Ireland to be published this week under the heading “Not One Foot in The Grave but two Feet in the Attic”, the mystery is unresolved.

During his examination, Dr Farrell and other scientists concluded the two mummified right feet had come from an adult and from a child. There were no signs of antemortem injuries or cut marks.

The foot of the male adult had part of the lower leg attached although the stretching and tearing of the muscle fibres suggest it had been pulled off a body, said the report.

“It closely resembled a bog body in appearance, as it had the dark brown, almost black colour seen in recent bog bodies such as Oldcroghan Man and Cloneycavan Man,” the report continued.

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Students uncover hundreds of Iron Age remains

From The Copenhagan Post Online:

There was a sensational find when Århus archaeology students uncovered the bones of around 200 bodies dating from the Iron Age

What was supposed to be a simple three week long research exercise for archaeology students at the University of Aarhus developed into a unique excavation project.

Remains of more than 200 bodies have been found at the dig site near Skanderborg in Jutland dating from around 2,000 years ago.

The Illerup River Valley was a deep lake measuring about 10 hectares during the Iron Age and archaeology digs have established that it was used as a major sacrificial site during that period.

The area, which is a popular location for archaeologists, is now a mixture of bog and meadow, much of which is subject to conservation laws.

The student dig began on 20 June and almost immediately began turning up human remains.

‘This was a defeated army that was sacrificed to the lake at the time. The majority of remains are large arm and leg bones, skulls, shoulder blades and pelvises,’ said Ejvind Hertz, curator from Skanderborg Museum and excavation leader.

According to Hertz, the 200 victims found so far are just a small fragment of what lies in the area, which has only been partially excavated, and estimates suggest that the figure could run to well over one thousand.

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Lindow Man to be star attraction at Great North Museum

Published in The Journal, May 15th 2009 by Tony Henderson:

ONE of the most fascinating figures from distant history will be the star of the Great North Museum’s first major exhibition.

The £26m venture, based on the Hancock Museum in Newcastle, opens on May 23.

And its summer exhibition, running from August 1 to November 27, will feature Iron Age Lindow Man, whose remarkably preserved body was found in a peat bog in Cheshire.

Lindow Man, who lived in the First Century AD was discovered in August 1984 when workmen were cutting peat at Lindow Moss bog.

Nicknamed Pete Marsh, he will come to Newcastle on loan from the British Museum.

Research by British Museum scientists has provided more information on Lindow Man – his health, appearance and how he might have died – than on any other prehistoric person who lived in Britain.

The conditions in the peat bog meant that the man’s skin, hair and many of his internal organs are well preserved. Radiocarbon dating shows that he died between AD 20 and 90.

He was about 25 years of age, around 168cm tall and weighed 60-65 kg. He had probably done very little hard, manual work, because his finger nails were well manicured.

His beard and moustache had been cut by a pair of shears. There is no evidence that he was unwell when he died, but he was suffering from parasitic worms. His last meal probably included unleavened bread made from wheat and barley, cooked over a fire on which heather had been burnt.

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