Grauballe Man

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The face of the Grauballe Man Grauballemanden stor.jpg
The face of the Grauballe Man
On display at Moesgaard Museum Grauballe Man, Moesgaard Museum 2.jpg
On display at Moesgaard Museum

The Grauballe Man is a bog body that was uncovered in 1952 from a peat bog near the village of Grauballe in Jutland, Denmark. The body is that of a man dating from the late 3rd century BC, during the early Germanic Iron Age. Based on the evidence of his wounds, he was most likely killed by having his throat slit. His corpse was then deposited in the bog, where his body was naturally preserved for over two millennia. His was not the only bog body to be found in the peat bogs of Jutland. Together with other notable examples, Tollund Man and the Elling Woman, Grauballe Man represents an established tradition at the time. It is commonly thought that these killings, including that of Grauballe Man, were examples of human sacrifice, possibly an important rite in Iron Age Germanic paganism.

Contents

Grauballe Man has been described as "one of the most spectacular discoveries from Denmark's prehistory" [1] because it is one of the most exceptionally preserved bog bodies in the world. Upon excavation in 1952, it was moved to the Prehistoric Museum in Aarhus, where it underwent research and conservation. In 1955 the body went on display at the Moesgaard Museum near Aarhus, where it can still be seen today. Due to the preservation of the man's feet and hands, his fingerprints were successfully taken. [2]

Evidence

Grauballe Man was initially dated to the late 3rd century BCE by analysing the stratigraphic layer of peat that his body was found in. [3] This date was subsequently confirmed by radiocarbon dating his liver, the results of which were published in 1955, giving a date of 321-261 BCE. [4]

Life

The body of the Grauballe Man upon his discovery. Grauballe Man discovery.jpg
The body of the Grauballe Man upon his discovery.

Information about the Grauballe Man's life has been ascertained from his remains. His hands were smooth and did not show evidence of hard work, indicating that Grauballe Man was not employed in hard labour such as farming. [5] Study of his teeth and jaws indicated that he had suffered from "periods of starvation or a poor state of health during his early childhood." [6] The man's skeleton showed signs of significant calcium deficiency, and his spine also suffered the early stages of spondylosis deformans, a generalized disease of aging that is secondary to the degeneration of intervertebral disks. [7] Due to the shrinkage that the corpse suffered in the bog, the man's actual height is not known. It is known that he had dark hair, although this too was altered in the bog, and now appears in a reddish type of colour.

Death

The corpse was not found with any artifacts or any evidence of clothing, indicating that when he died he was entirely naked, or his clothing had deteriorated, something that had also happened with the Tollund Man. [2] [8] The actual manner of his death was by having his throat cut from ear to ear, severing his trachea and oesophagus. Such a wound could not have been self-inflicted, indicating that this was not suicide. [9] A damaged area to the skull that was initially thought to have been inflicted by a blow to the head, has since been determined by a CT scan to have been fractured by pressure from the bog long after his death. [10] An analysis of the intestines found numerous scleroties of the ergot fungus Claviceps purpurea. [11] He was around 30 years old when he died. [12]

Discovery, preservation and exhibition

The well preserved hand of Grauballe Man Grauballemannen3.jpg
The well preserved hand of Grauballe Man
Facial reconstruction of the Grauballe Man's face Grauballe Man reconstruction.jpg
Facial reconstruction of the Grauballe Man's face

The Grauballe Man's body was first discovered buried in the bog on 26 April 1952 by a team of peat diggers. One of the workers, Tage Busk Sørensen, stuck his spade into something that he knew was not peat; upon revealing more, they discovered the head protruding from the ground, and the local postman, who was passing, alerted the local doctor as well as an amateur archaeologist named Ulrik Balslev. With the body still in the peat, various locals came to visit it the next day, one of whom accidentally stepped on its head. The following morning, Professor Peter Glob from the Prehistory Museum at Aarhus came to visit the body, and arranged for it to be moved to the museum, still encased in a block of surrounding peat. [13]

Glob and his team decided that they should not only research the body but that they should also attempt to preserve it so that it could be exhibited to the public. This concept was new at the time as most of the bog bodies previously discovered had been re-buried, sometimes in consecrated ground, with the Tollund Man which had been discovered two years earlier having only its head preserved. Despite the warnings of some scientists who believed that the corpse should immediately undergo preservation, it was exhibited straight away in order to capitalise on public interest. Indeed, the scientists' fears were proven right, as mould started to appear on certain areas of the body as a result of it having to be kept permanently moist. [14]

The body then underwent research, including a post-mortem, and then preservation, which was organised by conservator C. Lange-Kornbak, who had to decide on the best way to do this, as no entire bog body had ever been preserved before. He examined various methods for doing so, before deciding on a programme of tanning the body to turn it into leather and then stuffing it with oak bark. [15] In 1955, the body went on display at the Moesgaard Museum near Aarhus, only to be removed for a time in 2001-2002 when it underwent more modern scientific study, including radiological study, CT scanning, 3D visualisation, stereolithography and analyses of the gut contents.

Modern culture

The Grauballe Man is the subject of the eponymous poem [16] in Seamus Heaney's 1975 poetry collection North , while the Tollund Man figures in his 1972 volume Wintering Out .

Related Research Articles

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Lindow Man, also known as Lindow II and as Pete Marsh, is the preserved bog body of a man discovered in a peat bog at Lindow Moss near Wilmslow in Cheshire, North West England. The remains were found on 1 August 1984 by commercial peat cutters. Lindow Man is not the only bog body to have been found in the moss; Lindow Woman was discovered the year before, and other body parts have also been recovered. The find was described as "one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 1980s" and caused a media sensation. It helped invigorate study of British bog bodies, which had previously been neglected.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tollund Man</span> Iron Age bog body from Denmark

The Tollund Man is a naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 5th century BC, during the period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was found in 1950, preserved as a bog body, near Silkeborg on the Jutland peninsula in Denmark. The man's physical features were so well preserved that he was mistaken for a recent murder victim. Twelve years before his discovery, another bog body, Elling Woman, was found in the same bog.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bog body</span> Corpse preserved in a bog

A bog body is a human cadaver that has been naturally mummified in a peat bog. Such bodies, sometimes known as bog people, are both geographically and chronologically widespread, having been dated to between 8000 BCE and the Second World War. The unifying factor of the bog bodies is that they have been found in peat and are partially preserved; however, the actual levels of preservation vary widely from perfectly preserved to mere skeletons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bog</span> Type of wetland with peat-rich soil

A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials – often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; alkaline mires are called fens. A baygall is another type of bog found in the forest of the Gulf Coast states in the United States. They are often covered in heath or heather shrubs rooted in the sphagnum moss and peat. The gradual accumulation of decayed plant material in a bog functions as a carbon sink.

Below are notable events in archaeology that occurred in 1952.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Glob</span> Danish archaeologist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clonycavan Man</span> Iron Age Irish bog body

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haraldskær Woman</span> Iron age bog body from Denmark

The Haraldskær Woman is the name given to a bog body of a woman preserved in a bog in Jutland, Denmark, and dating from about 490 BC. Workers found the body in 1835 while excavating peat on the Haraldskær Estate. The anaerobic conditions and acids of the peat bog contributed to the body's excellent preservation. Not only was the intact skeleton found, but so were the skin and internal organs. Scientists settled disputes about the age and identity of this well preserved body in 1977, when radiocarbon dating determined conclusively that the woman's death occurred around the 5th century BC.

<i>Wintering Out</i>

Wintering Out (1972) is a poetry collection by Seamus Heaney, who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

<i>North</i> (poetry collection) 1975 poetry collection by Seamus Heaney

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windeby I</span> Bog body found in Germany

Windeby I is the name given to the bog body found preserved in a peat bog near Windeby, Northern Germany, in 1952. Until recently, the body was also called the Windeby Girl, since an archeologist believed it to be the body of a 14-year-old girl, because of its slight build. Prof. Heather Gill-Robinson, a Canadian anthropologist and pathologist, used DNA testing to show the body was actually that of a sixteen-year-old boy. The body has been radiocarbon-dated to between 41 BC and 118 AD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elling Woman</span> Iron Age bog body found in Denmark

The Elling Woman is a bog body discovered in 1938 west of Silkeborg, Denmark. The Tollund Man was later discovered just c. 60 m (200 ft) away, twelve years after the Elling Woman's discovery. The Elling Woman was mistakenly described as a man in P. V. Glob's book, The Bog People, when it was published in 1965.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osterby Man</span> Bog body

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Damendorf Man is a German bog body discovered in 1900 in the See Moor at the village Damendorf in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

<i>The Bog People</i> Scientific publication about bog body finds

The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved is an archaeological study of the bog bodies of Northern Europe written by the Danish archaeologist P.V. Glob. First published in 1965 by Gyldendal under the Danish title of Mosefolket: Jernalderens Mennesker bevaret i 2000 År, it was translated into English by the English archaeologist Rupert Bruce-Mitford and published by Faber and Faber in 1969. In 1966 it was translated into German by Thyra Dohrenburg and published by Winkler Verlag Munich under the title Die Schläfer im Moor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Punishment (poem)</span> Poem

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References

  1. ↑ Foreword to Asingh., Pauline; Lynnerup, Niels (2007). Grauballe man: An Iron Age bog body revisited. Aarhus: Aarhus University press. ISBN   978-87-88415-29-2.
  2. 1 2 Lauber, Patricia G. (1985). Tales Mummies Tell. HarperCollins. p. 128. ISBN   0690043899.
  3. ↑ Asingh., Pauline; Lynnerup, Niels (2007). Grauballe man: An Iron Age bog body revisited. Aarhus: Aarhus University press. p. 17. ISBN   978-87-88415-29-2.
  4. ↑ Asingh., Pauline; Lynnerup, Niels (2007). Grauballe man: An Iron Age bog body revisited. Aarhus: Aarhus University press. p. 31. ISBN   978-87-88415-29-2.
  5. ↑ Asingh., Pauline; Lynnerup, Niels (2007). Grauballe man: An Iron Age bog body revisited. Aarhus: Aarhus University press. p. 21. ISBN   978-87-88415-29-2.
  6. ↑ Ahrenholt-Bindslev, Josephen; Ahrenholt-Bindslev, Jurik (2007). "Grauballe Man's teeth and jaws". In Asingh, Pauline; Lynnerup, Niels (eds.). Grauballe man: An Iron Age bog body revisited. Aarhus: Aarhus University press. p. 140. ISBN   978-87-88415-29-2.
  7. ↑ Gregersen, Markil; Jurik, Anne Grethe; Lynnerup, Niels (2007). "Forensic evidence, injuries and cause of death". In Asingh, Pauline; Lynnerup, Niels (eds.). Grauballe man: An Iron Age bog body revisited. Aarhus: Aarhus University press. p. 240. ISBN   978-87-88415-29-2.
  8. ↑ Asingh., Pauline; Lynnerup, Niels (2007). Grauballe man: An Iron Age bog body revisited. Aarhus: Aarhus University press. p. 19. ISBN   978-87-88415-29-2.
  9. ↑ Asingh., Pauline; Lynnerup, Niels (2007). Grauballe man: An Iron Age bog body revisited. Aarhus: Aarhus University press. p. 25. ISBN   978-87-88415-29-2.
  10. ↑ Karen E. Lange, "Tales from the Bog", National Geographic, September 2007, retrieved 23-04-2009
  11. ↑ Stødkilde-Jørgensen, Hans; Otto Jacobsen, Niels; Warncke, Esbern; Heinemeier, Jan (March 2008). "The intestines of a more than 2000 years old peat-bog man: microscopy, magnetic resonance imaging and 14C-dating". Journal of Archaeological Science. 35 (3): 530–534. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2007.05.010.
  12. ↑ Baylie Corner; Megan Dicks; Jennifer Head; Joelle Ingram (2011). "Grauballe Man". Deviants and the Bog: the Bog Bodies of Northern Europe. Retrieved 27 April 2013.
  13. ↑ Asingh., Pauline; Lynnerup, Niels (2007). Grauballe man: An Iron Age bog body revisited. Aarhus: Aarhus University press. pp. 16–19. ISBN   978-87-88415-29-2.
  14. ↑ Asingh., Pauline; Lynnerup, Niels (2007). Grauballe man: An Iron Age bog body revisited. Aarhus: Aarhus University press. pp. 21–22. ISBN   978-87-88415-29-2.
  15. ↑ Strehle, Helle (2007). Grauballe Man: An Iron Age Bog Body Rediscovered. Jutland Archaeological Society. Page 36-43.
  16. ↑ "BBC NI - Schools - Poetry - Study Ireland - War - Page 2". BBC. 20 February 2015. Retrieved 18 August 2023.

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