Corpses on the Moors

July 4, 2005 12:27 AM

"A 2,600-year-old corpsehas been discovered in the moors of northern Germany. It's not the only one. Such finds are frequent, but have posed an increasingly large riddle: Why were so many of the bodies victims of violence and dismemberment?"
posted by brundlefly (30 comments total)

I suddenly feel the need to point out the caption for the second photo:

"The 2,650-year-old corpse was shredded by peat harvesting machinery."

Poetry.
posted by brundlefly at 12:29 AM on July 4, 2005

"Why were so many of the bodies victims of violence and dismemberment?"

Was fighting and war a foreign concept to humans 2600 years ago? I somehow don't think so...
posted by PenDevil at 12:48 AM on July 4, 2005

Yeah - seems like a pretty silly question. Obviously they were in battles. If they died at home they would be in their local cemetery or whatever - out there in the bogs they just dropped with a spear in em.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:52 AM on July 4, 2005

The both of ya's: If you read the article, you'll see that the answer isn't simple at all. The "question" may be an awkward literary device, but the "answer" is pretty damn fascinating...

He was attacked at some point around 200 A.D. -- stabbed twice in the neck below the left ear, then a third time from the front, just missing the throat. The boy appears to have tried to defend himself, because the blade also penetrated his raised upper arm. Then the murderers elaborately tied up the boy with a noose.

Such signs of brutality are typical. Many moor corpses were essentially killed more than once; the experts call it "overkill." The true scope of these atrocities has only recently come to light. A few weeks ago, Canadian forensic doctor Heather Gill-Robinson examined the "Moor Corpse of Daetgen," concluding that the man (between 40 and 60 years old) was beheaded. He was also stabbed in the chest and his penis was cut off.

Researchers believe that there was an irrational reason for this overkill. The "lewd" had violated taboos and the holy moral decency laws. They were considered impure and shameful, tainted by the stench of what was considered evil sexual passion (because it was forbidden). It was believed they would return to the world of the living to exact revenge. "
posted by brundlefly at 1:00 AM on July 4, 2005

Why were so many of the bodies victims of violence and dismemberment?

They were lawyers?

Great articles, brundlefly, and answered a question I hadn't thought to ask: the origin of the "bogeyman".

Here's a site with some "bog people" info and images (There's also bogpeople.org, but it doesn't work for me, and I think I have the latest Flash).
posted by taz at 1:08 AM on July 4, 2005

Why were so many of the bodies victims of violence and dismemberment?

Well, obviously, it's the peat shredding machinery.
posted by mwhybark at 1:13 AM on July 4, 2005

Yeah, they look pretty beat-up.


Here are some slightly more well-preserved specimens.
posted by wakko at 1:43 AM on July 4, 2005

If you're interested I'd highly recommend reading The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death by Timothy Taylor. Takes a good look at our views of reality and death in different ages. Quite gruesome, but pretty cool anyway.
posted by slixtream at 2:14 AM on July 4, 2005

Why were so many of the bodies victims of violence and dismemberment?

That is like asking why so many corpses found in shallow graves or wearing cement shoes were the victims of violence and dismemberment.

The people found in bogs did not die typical deaths. If they didn't fall in and drown (or jump in, if it was suicide), they were murder victims or sacrifices or executed criminals put (quickly hidden, discarded) in a bog rather than buried or burned in the normal way on hallowed ground. People who died normal deaths would not be thrown into a bog and so would not be preserved by the peat.
posted by pracowity at 3:54 AM on July 4, 2005

For some reason, the creepy thing about mummies to me is the hair. You can often still see the hairstyle, and in this case (third photo) you can even see that it was shiny blonde hair with a lot of body, though it could use a good brushing. And you can even see the blonde eyebrows. It kind of feels like the guy could sit up and start talking to you.
posted by leapingsheep at 4:21 AM on July 4, 2005

Red Franz is going to keep me awake tonight, and not in the way I like.
posted by NinjaPirate at 5:10 AM on July 4, 2005

We need to find out what videogames caused these violent deaths!
posted by acetonic at 5:11 AM on July 4, 2005

You need the Seamus Heaney Page where is to be found much of a boggish nature.
posted by TimothyMason at 5:15 AM on July 4, 2005

Fascinating. I would wager that these murders correspond with periods of disease, poor harvests, and drought. In addition to all their superstitions about sin, the villagers probably took out their anger on those they perceived as bringing them bad luck: the convicted (whether rightly so or not), the lame, the undesirable. The birth of a boy with a fused pelvis was probably seen as an extremely bad omen, and they were most likely the first to be blamed when a town fell upon hard times.

I find it somewhat fitting that, in death, these people so condemned have acheived a sort of immortality, whereas their murderers have long since become forgotten dust.
posted by deafmute at 5:45 AM on July 4, 2005

“ I remember the excitement when they found his navel…the only Iron Age belly button ever found,” Olsen recalls. “And it’s an innie!”


You gotta love this guy.
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:08 AM on July 4, 2005

Terrific post.
posted by LarryC at 8:16 AM on July 4, 2005

My armchair-anthropological speculation would be something like a lynching --- you know, the guy from the next tribe over looked at one of the local women funny, or killed somebody's sheep, or something. He's a foreigner, so he's subhuman, and so it's only right to torture and kill him and mutilate the corpse.

Good post, brundlefly!
posted by hattifattener at 8:29 AM on July 4, 2005

Researchers believe that there was an irrational reason for this overkill. The "lewd" had violated taboos and [blah blah blah]...

The lack of humility among many "researchers" never ceases to amaze me. We have no idea why these people died; it will always be a complete mystery. Sure, it's fun to speculate, and I have no problem with people saying "It could have been that..." as long as they make it clear that they're basically talking out of their ass. But often they stand up there looking confident and babble about taboos and whatever as though they'd been there and seen the whole thing. Idiots.

Oh, and great post!
posted by languagehat at 9:08 AM on July 4, 2005

In the case of Lindow man, the way the man had been killed (knife to the throat, blow to the head, strangled) is so very similar to references in medieval Irish texts to the "three fold death," and the data regarding his last meal, a partially scorched bannock, that I think there's a likely connection to ritual sacrifice. You don't hear about it much, but there were parts of several bodies found in Lindow Moss--one of them a male with a vestigial finger, below his thumb--again, there's a high concentration of bog bodies with physical deformity.

Certainly in both Germanic and Celtic myth there's an interest in an "underworld," a belief in afterlife where bodies are placed in the ground in carefully constructed tombs or barrows, and in the idea that sacrifices of goods interred in water or earth reach the underworld--both groups placed objects of value in bogs and lakes, as sacrifices, for instance. And bogs certainly can appear to be bottomless, like a direct conduit to the underworld.

But yeah, the speculations in the two articles, like much of Anne Ross' The Druid Prince regarding Lindow man, are, well, idiotic. Particularly since there's not a lot of indication that it is speculation, that a lot of the "lore" is post-medieval folklore, that may or may not apply.
posted by medievalist at 9:48 AM on July 4, 2005

I read about one bogman in Britain who suffered a similar fate: stabbed, hanged, decapitated, burned, drowned. The explanation was that there were several gods that all needed to be honoured in a different sacrificial style. Rather than behead one person and hang another, one unlucky chap was selected to suffer through all the various methods.
posted by Monk at 9:54 AM on July 4, 2005

If they didn't fall in and drown (or jump in, if it was suicide), they were murder victims or sacrifices or executed criminals put (quickly hidden, discarded) in a bog rather than buried or burned in the normal way on hallowed ground.

Well it seems like you've got a few possibilities right off the bat, thus the question: "Why were so many of the bodies victims of violence and dismemberment?"
posted by Stauf at 10:12 AM on July 4, 2005

Well it seems like you've got a few possibilities right off the bat

But brundlefly asked why the bodies in the bogs were victims of violence as opposed to being bog people who died of natural causes. Not why bodies were found in bogs at all, but, of the bodies that were found in bogs, "why were so many of the bodies victims of violence and dismemberment?"

And I'm saying that it is no "increasingly large riddle" to me -- if there were bodies dumped in the bog, then of course they were the bodies of people who died unnatural deaths. They were tossed into the bogs like gangsters might toss bodies into a lake.

And there may have been relatively few such deaths -- hundreds of bog people have been found, says one of the links, but if they were killed over thousands of years in various primitive tribes scattered across northern Europe, hundreds is not a large number of executions. Hundreds have been executed since 1976 in the state of Texas alone. That is a lot of grisly executions. Figure out why those people were caged and strapped down and ritualistically poisoned while invited guests looked on. Then you'll probably know why and how many of the bog people were killed.
posted by pracowity at 11:39 AM on July 4, 2005

the human war is never ending
posted by Satapher at 11:40 AM on July 4, 2005

this is fascinating... i was happy to learn that the exhibit is in my town. looking forward to checking it out.
posted by timory at 4:49 PM on July 4, 2005

I second the recommendation of Timothy Taylor's book.
posted by homunculus at 6:03 PM on July 4, 2005

well played, pracowity!
posted by mwhybark at 10:55 PM on July 4, 2005

Monk writes "I read about one bogman in Britain who suffered a similar fate: stabbed, hanged, decapitated, burned, drowned."

'E wouldn't stay dead, I tell you!
posted by orthogonality at 12:50 AM on July 5, 2005

Why does it have to be war or sacrifice? Couldn't the bog just have been a high crime area? How about a serial killer? How about generations of serial killers?

if there were bodies dumped in the bog, then of course they were the bodies of people who died unnatural deaths.

They are beginning to believe that many of the "sacrifice" victims discovered in the cenotes of Yucatan are actually accidents. First of all, why would you taint your own water supply? Sometimes our primitive minds fail to see other possibilities, though I do agree that a person who's been tied up and slashed with a knife is hard to explain as being killed by natural causes.
posted by Pollomacho at 7:59 AM on July 5, 2005

The bogs weren't and aren't part of a water supply.

Plank roads were built across the bogs in Britain and Ireland, long before the Romans arrived, so we know people crossed the bogs--and even know, crossing a bog in fog is a very tricky thing, so certainly, some bog bodies are accident victims.

But in cases were the body is weighted down, and surrounded by pilings and stakes, and is stabbed or strangled or both, it's pretty clear that there was a sacrifice or other deliberate killing.
posted by medievalist at 8:22 AM on July 5, 2005

Der Speigel doesn't have a clue about their own history. First off, Wodan was *not* the "supreme" god of the Germanic tribes. The very idea would have been unthinkable to a Germanic tribesman.

As for suggestions of vampires...wtf? I'd like to see any reputable source for fear of vampires in ancient Germanic cultures.

They also don't seem to realize that Tacitus needs to be read in the context of his political views.

The Carnegie article was just poorly done. But, I am visiting that exhibit in 3 weeks. I'm hoping it is better done than theri publicity.
posted by QIbHom at 1:25 PM on July 5, 2005