Why was an ancient Irish king ritually sacrificed by his own people and then
left in a bog for two thousand years? The violent truth about bog bodies is shocking.
Bogs are a very specific sort of environment. National Geographic explains that bogs are created
when a lake gets filled in with plant material that's in a constant state of decay. Bogs are
low in nutrients and oxygen but they're highly acidic, and it's this environment that allows
for the chemical reaction that needs to occur in order to naturally preserve a dead body.
According to the National Museum of Denmark, not every body that ends up deposited in bogs
is preserved. In order for the body to be exposed to the microbial activity that
kick-starts preservation, the body needs to be buried and completely covered while it's
still fresh. It also needs to be deposited in the cold weather, which halts decay.
Bog bodies are preserved, but that doesn't mean they're completely unchanged. The BBC
says the chemical process turns the person's skin dark brown and leathery. Even stranger,
it also turns all hair colors to red.
"It's like leather. It's been in the bog,
and it's literally been tanned. The bog acids have literally converted it to leather."
Bog bodies are no accident. While it's possible some simply happened to die in the right place
at the right time to be preserved, most of the bodies were put there on purpose,
tied up and staked in place. Why on earth would that be a thing? Well,
bogs aren't just useless patches of very wet land — for thousands of years,
they've been an invaluable source of turf. That's still used as fuel in many countries,
and ancient people would have also used it as a building material. That alone made it incredibly
important to a community's survival — and it was a bit more than that, too.
In some areas, bogs were seen as a mysterious place, where the veil between the human and
the divine was thin. Scores of offerings have been recovered from bogs, and include things
like jewelry, pottery, tools, and the remains of sacrificed animals. Bogs were long thought
by some to be the home to ghostly creatures seen dancing across the open expanse of land. Today,
we know that's caused by bursts of gas, but it's still surreal enough that it's easy
to see why ancient peoples would have considered bogs to be special places.
According to the Smithsonian, the first actual record of a bog body being discovered comes the
17th century. Some are extraordinary in their nearly lifelike appearance, like the body named
the Old Croghan Man. He was found in Ireland in 2003, not far from a site linked to the crowning
of ancient kings. That's important: archaeologists suggest he was likely a king himself.
The Old Croghan Man was exquisitely preserved, but only from his neck to his waist. He lived
sometime between 362 and 175 BC, and he stood around six and a half feet tall.
He was discovered with an amulet depicting the sun — a symbol of kingship — and he also
had another symbol of the sun and kingship removed before or at his death: his nipples.
He also died badly, and not just by having his nipples removed:
he had holes bored through his arms and was restrained with stakes, then was strangled,
stabbed, and drowned. According to experts, the three methods were likely a reference to the
three aspects of the goddess the sacrifice was dedicated to: fertility, war, and sovereignty.
When things got tough, it was often the king who sacrificed his life in hopes of saving his people.
In the 1980s, mill workers cutting peat for compost found a skull in the Lindow
Moss bogs. Law enforcement was called, and it just so happened that only a stone's throw from
where the skull had been discovered was the home of a "person of interest." Police were pretty
sure Peter Reyn-Bardt had done something horrible to his wife, but without a body,
they hadn't been able to do anything about it. Now, it seemed, they had a skull.
"They dug up what they thought was possibly a dinosaur egg. But
it turned out to be something rather different than that."
Confronted with the remains, Reyn-Bardt confessed to killing and dismembering his wife,
then scattering what was left of her in the nearby bogs. It was only at his trial
that Oxford University scientists revealed the skull actually dated back to Roman-era
Britain — but thanks to his confession, he was sentenced to life in prison.
A year later, workers unearthed what they initially thought was
the remains of the missing woman. Instead, though, it turned out to
be one of the most well-preserved bog bodies ever discovered: The Lindow Man.
Bog bodies have also yielded some interesting clues about ancient hygiene. Take the Old
Croghan Man: what remained of him was so well preserved that authorities could tell
from his hands that he wasn't someone who had struggled through a lifetime
of manual labor. On the contrary, his fingernails were relatively pristine.
Then, there's the Clonycavan Man: when he was discovered,
he still sported his perfectly styled hair. University of York scientists confirmed he'd
used a bit of product to get his fancy 'do: it was a mix of pine resin and vegetable plant oil,
some of which had been imported to Ireland from either Spain or France.
It wasn't just the men of ancient Ireland who liked to keep themselves spiffed up. When the
Osterby Man was discovered in a German peat bog, he still had his hair done in an elaborate
do called a Suebian knot, which would have been the height of style in the year 100.
The Grauballe Man is widely considered to be one of the best-preserved of all bog
bodies. He was found in 1952 by a peat-cutter working in a bog in Denmark, who recalled,
"It was a Saturday morning. I stood on the shovel and it wobbled like a rubber
ball. [...] There was the head so fine. I had to get down on my
knees to see if it really was a human head. Then I realized it really was."
The Grauballe Man lived somewhere around 390 BC, and his short hair was perfectly preserved,
along with the two weeks' worth of beard stubble he was sporting when he died. Even his facial
features were very clearly still twisted in a grimace, and it's no wonder: He died terribly,
with his leg broken and his throat cut. Up until then, though, he'd been pretty healthy... aside
from a few dental issues and a case of worms, which were still preserved in his digestive tract.
Those most familiar with the man believe he was killed and placed
in the bog as a human sacrifice, most likely an offering to the
gods that was presented to them in the hopes of gaining their favor.
Discovered in 1950, the Tollund Man isn't just notable for the
incredible detail seen in his face and head,
he also represents the first time scientists were able to successfully preserve part of a body.
Removing a bog body from the bog that preserved it comes with some difficulties. Water evaporates,
after all, and once the body is removed it can start to deteriorate. In the 19th century,
smoking the bodies — just like you'd smoke, say, a pork shoulder — was the go-to method,
but it also led to the corpse shrinking and losing much of the detail.
Ultimately, scientists were able to preserve the Tollund Man's head by first soaking the
head in a series of liquids until finally placing it in beeswax,
which was absorbed into the individual cells. His peaceful expression was a bit deceiving,
though: He died dangling at the end of a hangman's rope, the noose still around his neck.
According to The Irish Times, the 2011 discovery of a bog body dubbed the
Cashel Man is the oldest ever found: Radiocarbon dating put the body's age at around 4,000 years.
For some idea of what else was going on in 2000 BC, when the Cashel Man was still alive and well,
let's put it this way: History Central says this was the same time the Babylonians were
inventing their mathematical system, the Minoans were at their height,
and King Tut was still about 700 years into the future.
Unfortunately, the body had been damaged by the same peat milling machine that had uncovered it,
limiting how much archaeologists have been able to determine about how the man died. Still,
it's believed the Cashel Man is proof of kingship rituals dating back to the Early Bronze Age,
and according to the National Museum of Ireland,
it's likely he too met his untimely end as part of a ritual sacrifice.
In many cases, bog bodies are so well-preserved that archaeologists
have been able to determine exactly how these ancient people met their end. Disturbingly,
the extreme overkill that the Old Croghan Man was subjected to — the staking, stabbing,
strangling, and drowning — was par for the course.
Take the Lindow Man. Ancient History says that while his precise cause of death is still debated,
his body shows signs of multiple injuries, including a broken rib,
a slit throat, and two savage blows to the top of his head.The same sort of violence
is seen in the remains of the Clonycavan Man: Archaeology says both the top of his
skull and his face had been broken open with a blow from what was probably an ax.
"You can see the wound there, with it's flap of skin, which is typical of a lacerated wound,
in fact two lacerated wounds joined together."
The Grauballe Man seems to have been executed by a single slice to the throat, but the act
was so violent that the knife blade — likely wielded by someone standing behind him, leaning
over him as he knelt — sliced through his neck, severing all his arteries, and chipped his spine.
Archaeologists generally agree bogs were considered special,
but there's some debate about why so many were buried there. In some cases,
it's thought bodies represented a ritual offering to the gods.
"Perhaps they were willing sacrifices, they went
to help out their community, in leading them through these crises."
That's the theory supported by British archaeologist Miranda Aldhouse-Green,
who points to ancient Roman writings on human sacrifice in the same area where
bog bodies have been discovered. She also adds that the presence of other
offerings left in bogs seems to support that, but others aren't so convinced.
There's another theory that says bog bodies belonged to people executed for brutal crimes.
Cited as evidence for that theory is the violence demonstrated in the killings,
and ancient Roman writings suggest some civilizations used bogs as the execution
grounds. It's also possible these were people who were seen as social outcasts for other reasons,
but one thing seems for certain: while most of their ancient contemporaries
were cremated, the bog victims were deliberately sent to a different end.
Miranda Aldhouse-Green told The Atlantic that, in her studies,
she had noticed that many bog bodies had certain physical abnormalities. Identifying some of these
abnormalities has been tough, because it can be hard to determine if damage to a bog body
was done before or after death. Still, there's enough evidence to be compelling.
For instance, Old Croghan Man's immense height set him apart from his peers. Then,
there's the Yde Girl. She lived in the Netherlands at some time between 100 BC and 50 AD, and was
killed when she was about 16 years old. Scans done on her remains revealed she had scoliosis, which
some researchers think made her a target when it came time to choose someone to be sacrificed.
Among the bog bodies discovered in the Netherlands was also the Zweeloo Woman, who had dwarfism.
Aldhouse-Green says there are other cases, too:
she's seen bog bodies with severe joint disease that would have impacted the person's mobility,
and even a body with extra thumbs. She suspects this helps support her theory that these were
ritual sacrifices, as they would possibly have been thought to have special powers.
Many bog bodies have been dated to the Iron Age and earlier, but that's not always the case. In
1978, the Meenybraddan Woman was discovered in a bog in Ireland — and according to PBS,
she was wrapped in a woolen cloak that allowed her time of death to be dated
to the 16th century. It was so out of the ordinary that it's believed she was either
a murder victim disposed of in the bog or that she had gone there to commit suicide.
Then, there's the Bocksten Man, who was discovered in 1936. It's believed he was
a murder victim who was dumped in a peat bog in Sweden sometime in the 14th century. The
body was still dressed in a cloak, hood, tunic, hose, and front-lacing shoes,
making it one of the best surviving examples of medieval dress from that era.