A Face from Prehistoric Denmark

'Bog people' – this is how scholars call those people, whose bodies were found in peat bogs all over Europe – and Denmark too.
 
In 1938 near Silkeborg, Jutland, a woman’s body was found. These woman was called the Elling of (dan. Ellingkvinden – according ti the place where the body was found). The good integrity of the body and the plait allowed to establish her sex, and the latest research in 1970-s allowed even to figure out her age and time of death. Thus, she died about 280 B.C. in the age of about 25. Death seems to be violent since a mark of lather cord was found on the woman’s neck (the cord was found in the same moor). Woman’s clothes remained as well – sheepskin and wicker woolen belt. The Elling Woman is kept in the Museum of Silkeborg as a part of the exposition.

In the same museum there is one more interesting artifact – Tollund Man. This artifact inspired famous Irish poet Seamus Heaney (born 1939) to write his famous poem – The Tollund Man. In 1950 in one of the bogs near Tollund village (ten kilometers from Silkeborg) a man’s body was found. The man died about IV century B.C. the body was preserved so well that Viggo and Emil Hoygord (men who found the body) decided that this man was murdered recently and called the police from Silkeborg. Even later the scholars who studied the body were afraid to make it a part of the exposition – the bristle and wrinkles on man’s face made people think that this man died quite recently.  
 
The Tollund Man was taken to the National Museum of Denmark where the detailed analysis was made. The man was 40 years old, 161 cm tall. The man was wearing a small hat. The rest of his clother seem to have been rotten. Though the death was violent (a loop of leather cord was tied around the man’s neck) and happened about 350 B.C., the scholars were able to study the body perfectly – even the nternals. In the digestive system of Tollund Man about 30 species of cereals were found. This testifies that the man died in winter or late fall.  
 
One more finding was made in 1952 – a body of a 30 years old man which preserved quite well. The man was found in a peat bog in to km from the village of Grauballe, near Silkeborg. The violent death (the man’s throat was cut) took place about 290 B.C. The man’s leg was broken – maybe after his death, under the press of the moor (his face was also squashed under the moor’s press). This Man of Grauballe is kept in the Mosgard museum, town of Aarhus.
 
Those findings are only the most famous of all those that were made in Jutland. History tells us about many other bodies found before but lost irretrievably. Still it is amazing that the ages, that destroy everything which is perishable, sometimes reveal us its great secrets and thus, open before us a great book of history.

 

Marina V. Vorobjova

Pictures:

1. Ellingkvinden. Source: http://www.tollundman.dk
2. Tollund Man. Source: Wikipedia
3. Grauballe Man. Source: http://www.tollundman.dk

 

Literature:

Palle Lauring. Her skete det. Sjæand. 1966.
Grauballe Man. An Iron Age Bog Body Revisited (Pauline Asingh, author and Niels Lynnerup, ed.). - Moesgaard Museum /Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab, 2004. - 351 pp.

 

Useful links:

The Tollund Man - A Face from Prehistory Denmark (in Danish, English)
http://www.tollundman.dk/

Сайт, посвященный теме болотных людей (на англ. языке)
http://www.bogpeople.org/