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Human sacrifices

At an appointed time all tribes meet ….. in a forest consecrated by their ancestors, surrounded by fear, sacred from the dawn of time. There, on behalf of those assembled, they celebrate the commencement of their barbaric cult with a human sacrifice.”

This is how the Roman historian Tacitus described the situation among the Semnones, a Germanic tribe, in the 1st century AD. 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. The cause of death has only been established in a small number of cases, where people have been strangled, hung or had their throats cut. Like the woman from Huldremose, the bodies were carefully placed in a bog afterwards, which points toward a sacrifice or another ritual act rather than an attack.

Human sacrifices
Several bog bodies were found in Borremose in Himmerland, including this woman who ended up in the bog in the Pre-Roman Iron Age.

Human sacrifices
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.