The chemistry of the bog bodies Over a hundred bog bodies are preserved up until today because of the particularly good conditions of preservation in the peat bogs. The mummified bog bodies make up around a quarter of these. In such cases soft parts of the body - like skin, hair and stomach contents - are preserved. The remaining bog bodies consist of skeletons. The most well-preserved bodies - such as the woman from Huldremose, Grauballe Man and Tollund Man - have been found in raised bogs. Here the specific acidic and oxygen-poor conditions are present, which allow for the mummification of the body’s soft
This could provide the explanation of what happened to the woman from Huldremose, Tollund Man and Grauballe Man. More than a hundred bog bodies have been found in Denmark, which date from the period 800 BC to 200 AD. [...] bog afterwards, which points toward a sacrifice or another ritual act rather than an attack. Several bog bodies were found in Borremose in Himmerland, including this woman who ended up in the bog in the Pre-Roman Iron Age. The body of a man was found in Borremose in Himmerland in 1946. He was laid bare in the bog. The rope around his neck testify that he was hanged. The found is dated Pre-Roman Iron Age.
The last meal of the woman from Huldremose Information about what happened to the people that became bog bodies can be produced by applying various scientific analyses. A bog body’s stomach contents can, if the conditions of preservation allow it, reveal what the person ate before his or her death. Thus we know from the Huldremose woman’s stomach contents that her last meal consisted of coarsely ground rye with a large number of seeds from the weed spurrey. Animal hair and remains of animal tissue were also found in her stomach, indicating that meat was also part of the meal. Spurry grows
Podcasts Grundtanker "Denmark was a 'hotspot' in Bronze Age Europe" (in Danish) 24 Questions for the Professor " On mummies and bog bodies " (in Danish) Videnskab.dk "Meet the woman behind Skrydstrup Woman" (in Danish)
The Wagons from Dejbjerg From this period come the Wagons from Dejbjerg, which were sacrificed in a west Jutland bog just before the Birth of Christ. They were dismantled and laid in a peat bog, fenced in with branches and wattles. The Wagons from Dejbjerg were probably the ceremonial carriages of a magnate. The iron in the carriage bodies was forged from continental mountain ore, and the carriages were probably made in central Europe by Celtic artisans. However, the wheels were repaired in Denmark; one of the rim hoops was forged from Danish bog iron ore. You can see the Dejbjerg Wagon
The woman from Huldremose In the 2nd century BC the body of a woman was laid in an old peat-digging hole in Huldremosen, at Ramten in Djursland. A violent cut with a sharp tool had almost severed her right upper arm before she died. The oxygen-poor conditions in the bog meant that the woman was preserved as a bog body with skin, hair, clothes and stomach contents. She was found and dug up in 1879, when a worker was digging peat turfs at Huldremose. Like most of the bog bodies found in Denmark the woman from Huldremose was fully clothed. She wore a skirt of wool, a scarf and two skin capes. The woman
funeral, as opposed to the simple disposal of a body after a crime. Perhaps she died during a ritual before being laid in a holy bog? Or else she broke the laws of the time and had to pay for it with her life? Under all circumstances she did not receive a normal burial in the form of a funeral pyre or interment like other Iron Age people. The bog Huldremose is located near Ramten on Djursland/Jutland.
from other Danish bog finds. This applies to, amongst others, the bodies from Elling and Borremose, and the famous Tollund Man. Thus there are strong indications that the woman from Huldremose did not die of natural causes. The woman from Huldremose. The woman from Huldremose's right arm has been chopped in two. This either happened in the prehistoric period or during the excavation of the body. [...] during peat-digging in the bog. While the woman was alive she broke her right leg, but this break healed again before she died. Her hair was tied up with a long woollen cord, which was also wrapped around her neck
Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle & Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (Theiss), Darmstadt: 164-167. Nielsen, B. H., Christensen, T. and Frei, K.M. (2020), New insights from forgotten bog bodies: The potential of bog skeletons for investigating the phenomenon of deposition of human remains in bogs during prehistory. Journal of Archaeological Science 120:105166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2020.105166 [...] Sjögren, K-G., Ahlström, T., Blank, M., Price, T.D., Frei, K. M. , and Hollund, H.I. (2017) Early Neolithic Human Bog Finds from Falbygden, Western Sweden: New Isotopic, Osteological and Histological
vessels placed in peat bogs, which indicates that shoes also served as offerings to the gods. It is uncertain whether all Iron Age individuals wore shoes, but men, women and children all wore the same type of shoes. The shoes were found in a peat bog at Rønbjerg in East Jutland in 1921, together with a male bog body. They are dated to the centuries before the birth of Christ, between 355-47 BC. A pair of shoes found in a peat bog at Rønbjerg in East Jutland. C. 355-47 BC