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Science
Related: About this forumWho Were the Ancient Bog Mummies? Surprising New Clues
Who Were the Ancient Bog Mummies? Surprising New CluesOngoing research suggests at least two 2,000-year-old corpses had traveled before their deaths.
Tollund Man, who was hanged with a leather cord and cast into a Danish bog, is housed at Denmark's Silkeborg Museum.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT CLARK, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Christine Dell'Amore in Copenhagen
National Geographic
PUBLISHED JULY 18, 2014
...Snip...
Over 500 Iron Age bog bodies and skeletons dating to between 800 B.C. and A.D. 200 have been discovered in Denmark alone, with more unearthed in Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. (Read "Tales From the Bog" in National Geographic.)
Much of the bodies' skin, hair, clothes, and stomach contents have been remarkably well preserved, thanks to the acidic, oxygen-poor conditions of peat bogs, which are made up of accumulated layers of dead moss.
Tollund Man, for example, found in 1950 on Denmark's Jutland Peninsula and perhaps the most famous bog body in the world, still "has this three-day beardyou feel he will open his eyes and talk to you. It's something that not even Tutankhamun could make you feel," said Karin Margarita Frei, a research scientist who studies bog bodies at the National Museum of Denmark.
In Denmark, about 30 of these naturally mummified corpses are housed in museums, where scientists have worked for decades to figure out who these people were and why they died.
Because some bear horrific wounds, such as slashed throats, and were buried instead of cremated like most others in their communities, scientists have suggested the bodies had been sacrificed as criminals, slaves, or simply commoners. The Roman historian Tacitus started this idea in the first century A.D. by suggesting they were deserters and criminals. (SeeNational Geographic's pictures of bog bodies.)
More :
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140718-bog-bodies-denmark-archaeology-science-iron-age/?google_editors_picks=true
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My new fascination. Including this: Threefold death... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threefold_death
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Who Were the Ancient Bog Mummies? Surprising New Clues (Original Post)
littlemissmartypants
Jul 2014
OP
MoonchildCA
(1,301 posts)1. Wow! That's pretty amazing! n/t
frogmarch
(12,145 posts)2. NOVA: "Ghosts of Murdered Kings"
I recently watched the NOVA program and found it intriguing to think that some of the bog mummies may have been failed kings who, true to custom, were murdered.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/ghosts-murdered-kings.html
To watch the program, click the WATCH THE PROGRAM tab at the link.
littlemissmartypants
(22,418 posts)3. Thank you. nt