Research Term 1 – Bog Bodies of Europe

Tollund Man

The discovery and initial excavation

An overview of what we know (hypothesis and supporting evidence)

Where did they come from?

What was their social status or possible occupation

An analysis and explanation of the various theories relating to the causes of their death and the reasons for their
death

Integration of various sources to support your thesis in relation to the cause of death

The contributions from various scientific examinations over time to our knowledge and understanding of the bog
bodies and their societies

Resource Information
Bahn, P. G. (2002). Written in Bones : how human Pg. 100:
remains unlock the secrets of the dead. Smithfield,  Tollund man’s body found May 8, 1950 in Bjaeldskov
NSW: Gary Allen. Retrieved 24 February 2020 Valley
 marvellously preserved and carefully excavated by
lifting it together with the surrounding block of peat
 he died from hanging, the braided leather rope still
around his neck
 he wore a pointed leather cap held under his neck by a
thong and around his waist was a leather belt,
otherwise he was naked
 he laid in a foetal crouched position with a peaceful
expression on his face
 around 40-50 years old
 analysis of his stomach contents showed that his last
meal had been a gruel of barley, wheat and flax mixed
with many weeds
Pg. 101:
 C-14 dating of Tollund man placed him in the Iron age
 A sample of Tollund man’s tissue has been dated to
around 220 BC give or take 55 years
Green, M. (2015). Bog bodies uncovered : solving Pg. 20:
Europe's ancient mystery. London, England: Thames  he was placed peacefully in a Danish peat bog
& Hudson. Retrieved 24 February 2020  found in central Jutland
 found on the 11 May, 1950
 he died in the 4th century BC
 he wore a sheepskin hat
 body was found by two farmers who had just completed
spring sowing and were cutting peat for fuel
 in the peat layer they saw a face so fresh they thought it
was a recent murder
 Professor Glob was called to see the find
 Either his killers or perhaps one of his relatives had gone
into the peat cutting and arranged the body with
respect
 Glob and his team placed the body with the surrounding
peat in a crate to be transported to the National
Museum of Denmark at Copenhagen
Pg. 57:
 the side of his torso that lay uppermost in the peat and
his limbs were badly damaged
 because of the preservative chemicals in the bog
internal organs have survived sufficiently
º example is the alimentary canal used to study
the food still present in the stomach and gut of
a bog victim
 For the most part bog people’s last suppers consisted of
varied vegetable matter that was made either into a
kind of gruel or a griddled flatbread
º Intestinal parasites are often present and can be
identified in Lindow Man who suffered from
round worm and whip worm
Pg. 58:
 Tollund Man’s last meal consisted of a mushy porridge
of barley, linseed and herbs, together with sand grains
and bog mosses
º The absence of any fruit remains suggests that
he died in winter
 A wide variety of seeds and cereals contained within
some of these meals suggests that trouble was taken to
collect them, far in excess of what was necessary for
food production – almost like they intended to include
something from every part of the landscape
º The contents of Grauballe Man’s gut revealed
that more than 60 different types of plant had
been used in the preparation of his last meal of
mash and far bigger final meal than Tollund
Man’s
Pg. 66:
 Between 2001 and 2004 new investigations were
undertaken both on Tollund Man and Grauballe Man by
a forensic team lead by Niels Lynnerup of the
Laboratory of Biological Anthropology at the Institute of
Forensic Medicine, University of Copenhagen
 The aim of these studies was the answer the elusive
questions about the manner of their lives and deaths
using the latest techniques developed by forensic
scientists primarily for modern crime scenes
Pg. 67:
 The use of radiocarbon dating was used to determine if
the bodies found were the bodies of recent murder
victims or ancient individuals
º It is one of the first and most essential aims to
establishing the chronology of the death
Pg. 68:
 When Tollund Man was first discovered in 1950 they
used x-ray an autopsy to examine his digestive tract
 His right thumb was also fingerprinted by the police and
was found to have ‘a typical loop pattern, common also
in fingerprints of today’
 In October 2004, Tollund Man was taken to be further
examined on using new forensic analysis
 An endoscope was inserted into the man’s head
permitting the scientists to see his beautifully preserved
brain
 His head and neck were then put through a CT scanner
and the results clearly showing a facture of the hyoid
bone in his neck, a sure sign that Tollund Man had been
throttled (but they already new this because the noose
was still on him)
 In order to determine if he died of strangulation or
hanging an infrared camera was used to examine the
back of the neck wound in precise detail
º Niels Lynnerup found a significant V-shape left
by the rope, indicating that the man had been
strung up, hanged
º For in this method of killing the weight of the
body pulls the noose up into a V at the back of
the head
º This is an important detail for interpretation of
the manner and circumstances of Tolland Man’s
death
º Hanging is a public, collective act, designed to
present a spectacle for the community
Pg. 69:
 The physicality of hanging like crucifixion displays the
body for all to see – very different from a clandestine
act of thuggery in which the killer creeps up behind a
victim by stealth and garrottes them
 Similar tests were taken on a female bog body from
Haraldskaer
º It revealed that she had not died from being
pinned down in the bog and drowned but she
was previously strangled
º A fine red line around her throat was revealed
by the x-ray analysis
Pg. 86:
 The intricate knots around the neck of Lindow Man and
Tollund Man for instance were carefully constructed to
form running nooses designed to throttle rather than to
rescue so that when pulled on it would tighten
 Borremose Man’s noose had a knot far too complex to
have been hurriedly put together in an urgent rescue
attempt
Pg. 126:
 The use of special knots for the Lindow and Tollund
Man’s death suggests that professional ‘hangmen’ were
employed and a certain formulaic dimension to the
events
Pg. 129:
 The ingestion of mistletoe by Lindow Man leads to
consideration of other poisons that might have
contributed to bog victims’ deaths, or at least their
physicl and psychological state when they were killed
º As we have seen the intestinesof some bog
men, notably those from Grauballe and Tollund,
contained ergot. But scholarly opinion is divided
as to whether or no sufficient ergot was present
in the bodies to by truly toxic
 The Bernese scholiast on Lucan’s Pharsalia speaks of the
association between different ways of killing and the
 different gods to whom victims were offered.
º He is clear that Lucan’s three Gallic gods Esus,
Taranis and Teutates were propriated by human
deaths.
Museum Silkeborg. (N.D). The discovery of Tollund  may 8 he was discovered in a bog approximately 10 km
Man. Retrieved March 1, 2020 from west of silkeborg
http://www.museumsilkeborg.dk/the-discovery-of- º discovered by two brothers and their family
tollund-man who were digging for peat to be used for fuel
º they believed it was the victim of a recent
murder since it appeared so fresh; at around
the same time a school boy from Copenhagen
had gone missing in the centreal part of jutland
and the finders assumed it was his body they
had discovered
º the body had been discovered 2.5 metres into
the peat and there were no signs of recent
digging so the police decided it was more of a
case for the people at Silkeborg Museum
 may 8 he was excavated
Museum Silkeborg. (ND). How did Tollund Man  examination took place at Bispebjerg hospital in
die?. Retrieved March 1, 2020 from Copenhagen, Denmark shortly after he had been
http://www.museumsilkeborg.dk/how-did-tollund- discovered and excavated
man-die  the forensic examiner’s report states among other
things that “the rope, judging by the way it was placed
around the body’s neck, was most likely not used for
strangulation, and because of that it is of less
importance that the cervical vertebras were undamaged
as this doesn’t always happen in hangings”
º x-rays had revealed that Tollund Man’s cervical
vertebras were not broken but despite of that
the forensic examiner was certain that the man
had been hanged; later examinations by other
doctors confirmed this
º this means that Tollund Man had been hanged
in a way which caused suffocation, and not by
the combination of suffocation and breakage of
cervical vertebrae. This combination is seen in
the so-called English form of hanging in which
the condemned drops from a height, whereby
breaking the neck
º the rope was made from tow thin strips of
leather, each one was pierced by slits that were
cut at regular intervals. It is not braided as it
might appear
Museum Silkeborg. (ND). Why did Tollund Man  after he was hanged he was cut down. Somebody
have to die?. Retrieved March 1, 2020 from closed his eyes and mouth and placed him in a sleeping
http://www.museumsilkeborg.dk/why-did-tollund- position in an old bog
man-have-to-die  there are no written materials from the period of time
in which Tollund Man lived but the Roman Empire in
Italy had people who could both read and write during
this time
º one of them was Cornelius Tacitus, who wrote
down narratives told by traders who visited
Northern Europe. The traders told about the
wild tribal peoples living to the North
º Among other things, Tacitus wrote, “traitors
 and renegades hang in those trees, cowards,
gutless and unnatural fornicators are pressed
down under a wicker hurdle into the slimy mud
of a bog”. Another place Tacitus writes that a
Germanic tribe, the Semnones (settled in
Northern Germany) sacrificed people. Both
narratives are in accordance with Tollund Man
as well as many of the other bog bodies,
although Tacitus wrote his narrative app. 400
years after Tollund Man was dead. If any of
Tacitus narratives would fit Tollund Man, it
would have to be the last. One thing is clear –
Tollund Man’s peers could not have been
enemies – despite them hanging him! It is hard
to imagine they would have carried him into the
bog and carefully placed him in the sleeping
position in which he was found if they had
considered him a common criminal. Additionally
several forensic examiners believe it’s highly
likely that they also closed his eyes and mouth.
All this considering, the most probable
explanation is that he was sacrificed to a
god/gods. We don’t know what god he was a
sacrifice to. But the existence of bog bodies in
Denmark and the fact that they appear in areas
where people used to dig for peat in the Iron
Age leads us to speculate that the bodies are
actual sacrifices of thanks to the god made in
return for the peat that was dug from the god’s
bog. Or it could be that he has been sacrificed in
the winter in order to ask the gods for spring to
come, bringing growth and warmth. His last
meal consisted of a porridge or gruel made of
seeds and grains – something that may very
well have been the typical diet during winter
when the meat stock and most of everything
else has run out.
Vandkilde, H. (2004). Tollund Man. Gale in Context:  A series of post-excavation examinations indicate that
World History. Retrieved March 2, 2020 from the Tollund Man was 40-50 years old and in good health
except for the occurrence of whipworms
º He had eaten a purely vegetarian meal 12 to 14
hours before his death.
º The porridge contained barley, wheat and flax
in addition to a large number of wild seeds, and
it was prepared using bog water. Some of the
seeds derive from rather rare plants, perhaps
indicating that the last meal was a ritualized one
 Another strangulated body called Elling Girl was found
in 1938 merely 61 metres from the Tollund Man
º On discovery she was wrapped in a sheepskin
cape with a leather cloak round her legs,
indicating that she too had been cared for. Her
long hair had been gathered on top of her head
and then braided and tied to the nape of the
neck, probably prior to the hanging. She was
about thirty years old and had died at
approximately the same time as the Tollund
 Man
 Grauballe Man was found in Nebel Mose also in the
Silkeborg region in 1952, and had eaten roughly the
same kind of meal as the Tollund Man
 These places were throughout prehistory Europe
believed to be inhabited by the gods, who on special
occasions demanded material gifts and sometimes even
human sacrifice
º The Tollund Man and fellow victims offer
unique possibilities of gaining insight into the
sinister side of the Early Iron Age communities
Brothwell, D. (1986). The bog man and the Pg. 23:
archaeology of people. London, England: British  Collodion was injected into some parts of the body to
Museum. Retrieved March 3, 2020 help retain their shape, and very little shrinkage appears
to have occurred. The same cannot, however, be said of
the Tollund head, which has suffered an estimated 12%
reduction in size
Pg. 31:
 The plaited skin rope around his neck, one expert view
was that this had been used to ‘hang’ rather than to
strangle him
º But although the rope had left impressions in
the sides of the neck and under the chin, the
neck bones were not damaged or displaced.
º The term ‘hanging’, then, does not here imply
the recent British judicial form where the body
was dropped some distance on the end of a
noose, with consequent dislocation of the neck
and rupturing of the spinal cord
Pg: 90:
 Tollund man had 275 cubic centimetres in his stomach
of food
Fischer, C. (2012). Tollund man : gift to the gods. pg. 30
(English language edition). Stroud, England: The  After Tollund man had been sent off by train from
History Press. Retrieved March 3, 2020 Moselund railway station, destined for the national
museum
 Senior curator Therkel Mathiassen, head of the National
Museum’s Prehistoric Department – “most of the body
is so poorly preserved that it will be very difficult to
conserve. The only possibility of which we are aware at
present with respect to conservation of a body such as
this is to place it in water to which has been added a
preservative fluid. But given the present state of the
body, it can only decay further and the water will
become murky and unpleasant. Our conservators are
presently working on the problem and it is possible that
a solution can be found. Otherwise I believe we will
have to suffice with simply retaining the head, which is
exceptionally well preserved with facial expression” pg
31
 So that it could be exhibited at Silkeborg Museum
 A more detailed excavation took place in the courtyard
of the National Museum’s Conservation Department in
My Vestergade pg 34
 The layers under the body appeared untouched.
Directly beneath it there was a thin 2-5 cm thick layer of
 ‘dog flesh’ (reddish layer of fibrous sphagnum peat),
which rested on a dark, markedly sandy layer in which
no plant remains were visible. This sequence suggests
that Tollund Man had been deposited in a peat cutting
which had already stood open for a short time pg 39
 The hair on the corpse’s head, dyed red by the bog
water, was covered by a sewn leather cap.
º Appeared to be sheep skin pg 43
 As the body was being excavated, pollen samples were
taken from the peat deposits around and beneath it.
These samples could potentially provide information on
the landscape and the pollen zone – or climatic period –
to which the body belongs. However, this method is
dependant on the pollen being deposited undisturbed
and at the same time as the object or the body from
which the sample is taken pg 44
 These pollen samples were submitted to
Moselaboratoriet (the bog laboratory) as it was then
known, at the National Museum with the relevant
information. A preliminary analysis of the samples,
carried out by Borge Brorson Christensen, somply
revealed that the body had been placed in the bog at
the some point after the Neolithic period. Two years
later, a minor palaeoecological investigation was carried
out at the site pg 45

Levine, J. (2017). Europe's Famed Bog Bodies Are  Viggo and Emil Hojgaard, along with Viggo’s wife,
Starting to Reveal Their Secrets. Smithsonian Grethe, all from the nearby village of Tollund, struck the
Magazine. Retrieved 4 March 2020, from body of an adult man while they cut peat with their
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- spades on May 6, 1950.
nature/europe-bog-bodies-reveal-secrets-  Ole Nielsen – when he was found in 1950 an x-ray of his
180962770/ body and his head, so you can see the brain is quite
well-preserved. They autopsied him like you would do
an ordinary body, took out his intestines and then put it
back.
 in 2015, he was sent to the Natural History Museum in
Paris to run his feet through a microCT scan normally
used for fossils.
º Specialists in ancient DNA have tapped Tollund
Man’s femur to try to get a sample of the
genetic material. They failed, but they’re not
giving up
º Next time they’ll use the petrous bone at the
base of the skull, which is far denser than the
femur and this a more promising source of DNA
 Tollund Man’s hair, which may end up being the most
garrulous (talked of) part of him
º In 2017 they removed his hat for the first time
to obtain hair samples
º By analysing how minute quantities of
strontium differ along a single stand, a
researcher in Copenhagen hopes to assemble a
road map of all the places Tollund Man
travelled in his lifetime
 They have found butter, wooden vessel -> showing bogs
were sacred
  Tacitus thought highly of the local inhabitants. He
praised their forthrightness, bravery, simplicity,
devotion to the chieftains and restrained sexual habits,
which frowned on debauchery and favoured monogamy
and fidelity.
º To the researchers at the Ahnenerbe, bog
bodies were the remains of degenerates who
had betrayed the ancient code. In a key
passage, Tacitus writes: “the punishment varies
to suit the crime. Traitors and deserters are
hanged on trees; the cowardly, the unwarlike
and those who disgrace their bodies are
drowned in miry swamps under a cover of
wicker”
 Shortly after Tollund man was discovered Peter Vilhelm
Glob was called (he’d recently been appointed
professor of archaeology at the university in Aarhus).
º He restored the bog bodies humanities as he
saw them as people. He laid the scaffolding for
our understanding of Tollund Man and his kin
º In Glob’s view, Tollund Man and most of the
others were sacrificed to Nerthus, the Eartch
Mother, to ensure a good crop. We can see the
goddess paraded around, surrounded by
fabulous animals, on the great silver
Gundestrup cauldron, buried as a sacrifice in a
Danish bog not far from where several Iron Age
bodies were also found
º They were strung up at winter’s end or early
spring. We know Tollund man was hanged from
the mark of the leather high up on his throat “if
he was strangled, it would have been lower
down” Ole Nielsen explains
º We know roughly the time of year when this
occurred form the seasonal contents found in
his stomach and that of other victims: barley,
linseed and knotweed, among others, but no
strawberries, blackberries, apples or hips from
summer and autumn
º Hair sample study by Karin Frei: compared the
strontium in Tollund Man’s short hair with the
strontium in his femur. Small differences in the
strontium isotope’s proportions between the
two samples suggest that while he spent his
final year in Denmark, he might have moved at
least 20miles in his final six months
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYAz9i40pBA  Hair dyed reddish brown
 Body decomposed but head preserved
 Series of x-rays:
º Detailed view of his teeth and skull: about 30
when he died
 Rope neck area:
º Niels shines infrared and ultraviolet light beams
which will show the slightest injuries otherwise
invisible to the naked eye
º The inverted V indicates to was death by
 hanging
 CAT scan
º If the hyoid bone and the adam’s apple cartilage
were damaged means strangulation
º But the cat scan shows that they are intact
therefore he was not strangled but hanged
º It was consistent with hanging
 This was consistent with other bog bodies
 As well as the body, artefacts were also unearthed by
20th century peat cutters
º Bowls containing wheat and barley
º Sacrificial animal deposits
º Strange carvings perhaps of gods long forgotten
º Shows how this was a sacrificial site to the gods
of fertility
 In Denmark bodies were buried near areas central to a
new industry, iron production
º Tools used to extract peat for fuel were also
unearthed and lumps of iron
 Was to give thanks to the gods for this revolutionary ore
and also a plea for the future fertility of the land
 Brought them here in winter
 Peat bogs gave them iron
 On Tollund man’s final day there were no signs of
struggle he accepted his fate and his people laid him
nicely in the bog
FirstscienceTV. (2007, October 19). The Tollund  If he was a criminal why didn’t they just throw him out
Man: Denmark’s remarkable bog mummy [online instead of placing him like this. Therefore he must be a
video]. Retrieved March 10, 2020 from sacrifice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CQE4c8UJkM  They chose bogs as a place for sacrifice because of their
strange qualities of neither being solid or liquid. So they
iron age people thought these bogs held a particular
significance as the entrance to the world of the gods

Windeby 1/Windeby Girl

The discovery and initial excavation

An overview of what we know (hypothesis and supporting evidence)

Where did they come from?

What was their social status or possible occupation

An analysis and explanation of the various theories relating to the causes of their death and the reasons for their
death

Integration of various sources to support your thesis in relation to the cause of death

The contributions from various scientific examinations over time to our knowledge and understanding of the bog
bodies and their societies
Resource Information
Bahn, P. G. (2002). Written in Bones Pg. 98:
: how human remains unlock the  Windeby I’s body was found in May 1952 when peat cutters working at
secrets of the dead. Smithfield, a small bog near Windeby in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein
NSW: Gary Allen. Retrieved 24 noticed parts of human limbs on their conveyor belt
February 2020  investigation where the peat had been cut revealed that these had been
shaved off a preserved body buried in the bog.
 Police were called and replaced by archaeologists when it became
apparent that it was not the body of a recent murder but an ancient
corpse
 the research led to the archaeologists finding two bodies 5 metres apart
from one another
º one an elderly man – only his skin remained and his body has
been pressed flat
º one a well-preserved body of a young girl – she laid on her back
with one m stretched out
 the girl was naked except for a leather collar and a strip
of cloth over her eyes
Pg. 102:
 sacrificed in a bog about 2000 years ago
 blonde hair shaved on the left side of her head, the teenager was led to
the bog blindfolded and drowned, probably in very shallow water
 a large stone and some branches were placed on her to hold her down
Green, M. (2015). Bog bodies Pg. 24
uncovered : solving Europe's  about 12 or 13 years old
ancient mystery. London, England:  placed in a bog at Windeby in Schleswig-Holstein in the 1st century AD
Thames & Hudson. Retrieved 24  the peat cutter spotted what he thought was a stag bone but it was one
February 2020 of the child’s legs
 it was carefully arranged in an ancient peat cutting with the marsh,
naked but with a cowhide cloak. There was a woven woollen band
originally worn around the head but mistakenly thought to have been a
blindfold
Pg. 25:
 initially thought to be a girl with new forensic analysis has cast doubt
upon the body’s gender
 there are no signs of injury on the body but tell-tale so-called Harris
Lines on the leg bones indicate periods of arrested development
through malnutrition
 this person might have died naturally or may have been drowned
 in the same year a middle-aged man was found a few metres away
º he’d also been placed naked but unlike the child he was
garrotted with a twisted hazel withy found in situ around his
neck
Pg. 64:
 the brain of Windeby I was preserved – the right hemisphere was
damaged but the convolutions of the left side are clearly visible
Pg. 88:
 Tacitus: Germanic punitive practices to connect bog deaths with their
shameful behaviour in life.
º Writing in his poem punishment about the adolescent interred
in a peat bog in Schleswig-Holstein, Seamus Heaney picks up on
the theme of punishment for a sexual crime as the reason for
Windeby I’s execution
º Tacitus refers to the Latin phrase corpore infamis meaning ‘the
unnaturally vicious’ it has also been translated as ‘notorious
evil-doers’ or ‘the disreputable of body’
 º Tacitus germania 19 “adultery…punishment…left to the
husband. He shaves off his wife’s hair”
Pg. 89:
 The left side of Windeby I’s head had apparently been shaved sortly
before death, although the German archaeologist Michael Gebuhr has
queried whether this was deliberate or whether the hair was removed
by accident by a spade (the shorn side was uppermost in the bog
therefore the most vulnerable to damage during discovery.
Pg. 90
º but the same treatment is recorded on another German victim,
also an adolescent and definitely female called Yde Girl in the
Netherlands. One side of her head was shorn, the cut hair left
by her side
Pg. 127:
 Tacitus Germania 38: “after that, the car, the cloth and, believe it if you
will, the goddess herself are washed clean in a secluded lake. This
service is performed by slaves who are immediately afterwards
drowned in the lake”
º associated with an annual Germanic festival in honour of the
earth-goddess Nerthus
 9th century commentary on Lucan, Pharsalia: “Mercurius Teutates is
appeased in this manner among the Gauls: a man is lowered head first
into a full tub so that he drowns there
 drowning is a fitting death for bog people; several ancient bog victims
show no specific evidence for the manner of their dispatch: no injuries,
wounds or nooses. In these instances, it is fair to assume that some at
least were drowned
º of two bodies from Windeby in North Germany, one – a man of
mature years had been strangled, his corpse weighted down
with stones and branches.
º The second, much younger victim was similarly pegged down in
the swamp and way have well been drowned – part of the
bodies hair was also shaved off
Pg. 160:
 People of low rank were also singled out for special death rituals. Julius
Caesar speaks of the particular value of criminals, remarking that they
had more currency as dedications to the gods than the innocent
º The malnourishment shown by Windeby I’s body suggest that
he/she was not of sufficiently high rank to be properly fed,
whether because of famine or slavery
Lobell, J., & Patel, S. (2010). Bog  Windeby I body showed no signs of trauma and evidence from the
Bodies skeleton suggests she may have died from repeated bouts of illness or
Rediscovered. Archaeology, 63(3) malnutrition
, 22-29. Retrieved March 1, 2020,  The wooden band probably slid down over her eyes as a results of the
from
body’s shrinkage and had likely be used to hold her hair back or to cover
www.jstor.org/stable/41658776
her eye after death. And her “half-shaved” hair was probably the results
of a natural process of decay from greater exposure to oxygen on one
side of her head than the other or of trowel damage caused during
excavation
 Windeby girl wasn’t a girl at all. Several years ago, Heather Gill-
Robinson, a biological anthropologist examined the skeleton she said
“my examination of the skull and the pelvis suggests that this person
was a young male/ although I’m not really sure that I was the first
person to test the idea, I’m certainly the first to have explored it in the
21st century, using modern technology and perspectives”
 The man that was found near Windeby 1 lived 300 years earlier.
 Windeby 1 died in the first century AD; as a result of radiocarbon dating
For decades after their discovery, similar confusion surrounded the Weerdinge Couple, two
bog bodies found in 1904 in the Netherlands. The pelvis of one was preserved, making it easy
to identify him as a man, while the other was identified as a woman because of its slightly
smaller stature.

Their intimate pose—one body seems to be gently holding the other—touched people, and
they were soon nicknamed Mr. and Mrs. Veenstra ("veen" is Dutch for bog), or Joan and
Darby.

But the Weerdinge Couple is actually two men. Some wondered if this could be proof for the
Roman historian Tacitus's claim that Germanic tribes punished homosexuals by executing
them and throwing them into bogs. But his supposed knowledge of this practice is at least 150
years removed from the time of the Weerdinge men's death.

Perhaps the men were sacrificed together (one man's stomach was sliced open at the time of
his death), were comrades who had fallen in battle, or were family members buried at the
same time; for now, their relationship remains uncertain.


Prior, N. J. (1994). Bog bodies: Pg. 13:
mummies and curious corpses.  It had been a bad winter, and people in the village of Windeby, in Iron
Sydney, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Age Denmark, had gone hungry. For months Ertha, the goddess of
Retrieved March 2, 2020 fertility who sent the crops, had ignored their sacrifices and prayers.
 Now spring was late coming. Everyone knew the goddess was angry,
and that only one thing could please her. Ertha was thirsty for the blood
of a human sacrifice.
 The victim was a girl of about 13, the daughter of an important villager.
º She had fair hair which she wore tied back in a red and yellow
headband, a delicate face, and small hands and feet. The girl
was frightened when they told her what was going to happen,
but she knew there was no other choice. If she refused to be
the sacrifice, her family and friends would die in the hard times
of come
 The girl ate the ritual meal the priests prepared for her and stood
patiently while they shaved her hair. Late at night she was led out to the
sacrificial bog. Fires were lit to warm the cold spring night. The last
thing the girl saw as the priests bound her eyes was the torchlight
flickering on the water of the shallow bog.
 A moment later they pushed her into the cold water and held her under
with tree branches until she drowned
 In 1952 the girl who died on that long-ago night was dug up by peat-
cutters in southern Denmark. Her eyes were still bound with her read
and yellow headband, and a big stone had been dropped on top of her
body to make it sink
Pg. 14:
Archaeologists believe the Windeby Girl, like most other bog people
was sacrificed to the goddess in winter or early spring to make sure
crops in the coming year would be fruitful. Because bogs were sacred to
the goddess, all sorts of offerings were thrown into them: money and
jewellery as well as people
Brothwell, D. (1986). The bog man Pg: 30:
and the archaeology of people.  Peat diggers damaged the body; removal of a foot and a hand
London, England: British Museum.
News Staff. 2007, September 4). º In the Iron Age, from approximately 500BC to 500AD, people
‘Windeby Girl’ Mummy’s Secret – were often cremated, leading experts to believe that mummies
She Was A Boy. Scientific preserved by the bogs were usually those who met their demise
Blogging: Science 2.0. Retrieved through particularly violent means or were used as sacrifices.
10 March, 2020 from º A violent demise was thought to be the case for a mummy
known as Windeby Girl, studied by Dr. Heather Gill-Robinson,
assistant professor of anthropology at North Dakota State
University, Fargo. Discovered in northern Germany in 1952,
experts thought she may have been an adulteress whose head
was shaved, after which she was blindfolded and drowned in
the bog.
History Extra. (2015). The º His bones showed that he had suffered from
gruesome remains of prehistoric
murder victims uncovered in
malnutrition and stunted growth;
º Similar in age to Yde girl
Europe’s bogs. Retrieved 10
º
March, 2020 from
Deem. M. J. (1998). Bodies from
the Bog. Boston, United States of
America: Houghton Mifflin. The body's eyes were blindfolded with a strip
Retrieved 10 March, 2020
of cloth woven from brown, yellow, and red

threads. The person had drowned in the first

century A.D., and the death was not an

accident--the body was anchored by a large

stone and branches from a birch tree. Glob

imagined the person being "led naked out on

to the bog with bandaged eyes ... and

drowned in the little peat pit, which must

have held twenty inches of water or more."

In 1970, when the body was reexamined, so

little of it remained that scientists could not

say with certainty that the body was female.

Windeby Girl could actually be Windeby Boy.

Over thirty years later, another look at

Windeby I (National Geographic, September

2007) revealed more definitive information. A

professor from North Dakota State University

tested a DNA sample from the body and

concluded that it was indeed male. What's

more, the hair had not been shaved from half

of the head. Rather, the professor believes

that it became dislodged during the careless

excavation.

Originally, scientists concluded that Windeby

I had died an unnatural death during the First

Century A.D. The body seemed to have been

prepared for death in a number of unusual

ways. First, like some other bog bodies that

have been found, half of the head had been

shaved of hair. Second, a woolen headband

had been used to blindfold the eyes. Finally, a

collar had been placed around the neck. As a

result of these special preparations, most

researchers agreed initially that Windeby I

was not sacrificed to the gods.

Although they could not find any wounds on

the body, scientists suspected that the

person was drowned in the bog, held down in

perhaps twenty inches of water by some

branches and a large stone. But they had no

idea why Windeby I was killed. Could the

person have been a criminal who was being

 executed in a gruesome way? Could the

person have been afflicted with some type of

disease that may have marked her for an

early death? No one will ever really know,

though many theories have been proposed.

More recent research on the body's bones

indicates that the young person had been

quite sick during his life time and "may have

simply died of natural causes." One German

scholar suggested that Windeby I may have

been blindfolded at burial "to protect the

living from the gaze of the dead."

º

Bibliography

Books

Journal articles
Vandkilde, H. (2004). Tollund Man. In P. Bogucki & P. J. Crabtree (Eds.), Ancient Europe, 8000 B.C. to A.D.
1000: Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World (Vol. 1, pp. 26-28). New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Retrieved March 2, 2020 from https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3400400017/WHIC?
u=61merid&sid=WHIC&xid=920487d0

A.L.Jarrett and S.P.Samir. (2010). Windeby Girl and Weerdinge Couple. Archaeological Institute of America,
63(3). Retrieved March 8, 2020 from https://archive.archaeology.org/1005/bogbodies/windeby_weerdinge.html

News articles

News Staff. 2007, September 4). ‘Windeby Girl’ Mummy’s Secret – She Was A Boy. Scientific Blogging: Science
2.0. Retrieved 10 March, 2020 from
https://www.science20.com/news_articles/windeby_girl_mummys_secret_she_was_boy-3431

Websites
History Extra. (2015). The gruesome remains of prehistoric murder victims uncovered in Europe’s bogs.
Retrieved 10 March, 2020 from https://www.historyextra.com/period/prehistoric/the-gruesome-remains-of-
prehistoric-murder-victims-uncovered-in-europes-bogs/

Documentaries
YouTube videos

Images

Museum Silkeborg. (ND). The excavation of Tollund Man. Retrieved March 1, 2020 from
http://www.museumsilkeborg.dk/excavation-investigation-and-conservation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_body 1.1

author details, date opcit.