Famous Bog People: Tollund Man, Lindow Man

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BOG PEOPLE


Many bog bodies such as Röst Girl no longer exist; she was destroyed during World War II; the photo dates to 1926

Bog people — properly referred to as bog bodies — are a human cadaver that has been naturally mummified in a peat bog.

More than 2,000 bog people have been unearthed in Europe, many of them in Denmark and northern Germany. A few found have been found Ireland and Britain. Most date to after the Iron Age, which started in northern Europe around 2,500 years ago. Many died between 400 B.C. and A.D. 400. The oldest known bog body — Denmark’s Koelbjerg Man — was around a 25 years old when he died around 8000 B.C. He was found in Denmark in the 1940s.

A study published in January 2023 in the journal Antiquity estimates that 2000 figure for the number of bog people is conservative, and the actual number could be much higher. According to National Geographic: The 2023 study was the first large-scale overview of well-dated human remains from these bogs and included analysis of more than 250 sites and 1,000 sets of remains. Burials were practiced as far back as 5200 B.C., but they flourished between 1000 B.C. and A.D. 1500, from the Iron Age through the Roman era to medieval times. [Source: National Geographic, October 20, 2023]

5,200-year-old Vittrup Man

About 5,200 years ago, a bog man known as “Vittrup Man,” the oldest known immigrant in Denmark’s history, ended his life violently in a peat bog in Vittrup in northwest Denmark. In 1915, hiis right anklebone, lower left shinbone, jawbone and fragmented skull were found alongside a wooden club by peat cutters. Researchers estimate that he died after being hit over the head at least eight times with the wooden club sometime between 3100 B.C. and 3300 B.C.. Scientists analyzed Vittrup Man’s remains as part of a study published in Nature about Denmark’s genetic prehistory in which the genomes of 317 ancient skeletons were sequenced. Some of the same researchers decided to conduct an individual study of Vittrup Man after his DNA revealed that he was genetically distinct from the other.r. A study detailing their findings appeared in February 2024 in the journal PLOS One. [Source: Ashley Strickland, CNN, February 16, 2024 ==]

"The fragmented state of the cranium is the result of at least eight blows," the researchers wrote in their study, "which split it into several parts. There are no signs of healing — the traumas were obviously fatal." According to Live Science: The oval-shaped fractures on his skull point to blunt force inflicted with a hard object with a rounded surface, perhaps similar to the maple-wood club found in the peat bog. [Source: Kristina Killgrove, Live Science, February 15, 2024]


death of Vittrup Man

That finding led the researchers to speculate that Vittrup Man "could be a victim of feud or murder," but they noted that previous archaeological findings "make it more probable that he was sacrificed." "The site appears to have been used now and then during the Neolithic for sacrificial activity," Anders Fischer, an archaeologist in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, told Live Science, but "no specific deity is known for that period and region." Rather, it is likely that people were asking an unknown spirit or deity for goodwill through the sacrifice of valuables, such as cattle and humans, Fischer said. [Source: Kristina Killgrove, Live Science, February 15, 2024]

“Wetlands appear to have had a special role in the religious life in northern Europe those days,” Fischer said. “Vittrup Man was killed in an unusually brutal way. Other humans were killed by arrow shots or strangulated with a cord.” “Perhaps we should understand him as a slave who was sacrificed to the gods when he was no longer fit for hard physical labor,” said study coauthor Kristian Kristiansen, professor of archaeology at the University of Gothenburg, in a statement. But it’s also possible that Vittrup Man was in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Based on archaeological evidence alone it is difficult to tell this apart from e.g. someone who was killed in a conflict, or robbed and killed,” said Roy van Beek, associate professor in landscape archaeology at the Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, via email. “That he may have been a ‘slave’ or held in captivity is quite speculative in my opinion, but the authors also show some reservations there.” ==

Tollund Man

Tollund Man is the world's most famous Bog person. Ritually hanged and sacrificed in a fertility rite over 2,400 years ago, he was found in the Bjældskovdal bog in Jutland, Denmark. with a woven leather chord around the neck that extended in a loop behind him.

Tollund Man's face is amazingly well restored. He still has a good head of hair, most of his fingers and toe nails, and was probably quite a handsome man in his time. Tollund Man was found in 1950 by a Danish a family cutting peat for fuel. They thought they had found a schoolboy from Copenhagen who had gone missing on a school field trip a year earlier. Scientists began analyzing his remarkably well-preserved remains soon after he was found and continue to do so today.

Tollund Man was about 1.6 meters (5 foot 3 inches) tall. The presence of wisdom teeth suggested that he was at least 20 years old but researchers think he was actually between 30 and 40. Radiocarbon dating indicates he died some time between 405 and 380 B.C. An autopsy revealed he had died of hanging, noting his extremely well preserved head and face. [Source: Erin Blakemore, National Geographic, February 6, 2024]


Tollund Man

According to National Geographic: Tollund Man lived during the early part of the Iron Age in the years before Rome conquered the majority of Europe. During the period, Jutland was well populated and home to villages and farms. The era’s farmers grew grain, kept animals, and engaged in religious rituals that involved leaving sacrifices — often food or weapons, but sometimes human bodies — in the local bogs. Modern-day researchers suspect these bogs were seen as supernatural sites with connections to the gods and the afterlife. But since the Jutland dwellers left no writing behind, it’s unclear what actually drove their religious rituals. [Source: Erin Blakemore, National Geographic, February 6, 2024]

Bogs are famous for preserving clothing along with bodies, like the knitted clothing that surrounded a Scottish bog body found in 1951. But Tolland man wore much less apparel: He was buried naked, clad only in a cap and belt. Further investigations have revealed that Tollund Man likely wore shoes for part of the year, but also walked barefoot much of the time. Stubble on his face indicates he must have shaved.

Particularly in Denmark, bog men are quite famous, inspiring everything from poems to music to children’s books. Tollund Man "is not merely a museum piece, but a man,” one archaeologist told The Age in 1956. “We refuse to believe in his death. There is a living man behind the warmth and fine humor of his face.”

Tollund Man’s Body

The brown, bronze-like mummified body of Tollund Man was found laying on his side on a square pile of brown earth and soil, with the chord around his neck. He had been placed in his grave in the fetal position. Cuts found on the soles of his feet may have been an indication that he had been forced to walk on sharp stones the day he died. In some pictures he looks like he is smiling and enjoying a restful sleep. In 1950, soon after he was found, Danish archaeologist P.V. Glob described the face as having “a gentle expression—the eyes lightly closed, the lips softly pursed, as if in silent prayer.”

For a long time scientists had only the head, which is covered by a wool-lined sheepskin cap and contained a day’s worth of stubble which showed he didn't shave on the day he died. Before the body was disposed of scientists determined that his last meal was barley and linseed gruel.

According to National Geographic: After his death, the acidity in the peat bog preserved Tollund Man’s bones and many of his soft tissues, including an intact yet shrunken brain and intestines complete with their contents. Tollund Man’s skin and nails had cured and blackened over thousands of years spent in the oxygen-free environment of the bog. But their full decomposition was blocked by the chemicals that are produced when sphagnum moss, the main moss that comprises peat, degrades. Today, his body is preserved at the Silkeborg Museum, a Danish cultural heritage museum near the place of his discovery. [Source: Erin Blakemore, National Geographic, February 6, 2024]

During scientists’ initial experiments with the bog body, his head was carefully preserved and was put on display in Denmark. But his body dried out and was misplaced — yes, misplaced. For decades no one knew where the bog body’s limbs and organs were. This led to a bizarre treasure hunt in the 1980s, when researchers armed with new technologies realized the potential worth of the rest of the body and asked for the public’s help locating the remainder of the corpse.

It turned out that the severed parts had been housed at a variety of museums and institutions throughout Denmark. The hunt yielded everything except for the internal organs and the bog body’s right big toe, whose location remained a mystery until the children of the former conservator returned it to the museum after their father’s death. “Now nearly all body parts are in the museum’s possession,” the Silkeborg Museum says on its website. “Should anyone, however, come across a mysterious jar containing what might [be] his internal organs, we would be most interested to hear from you.”

Researchers so far have been unsuccessful at obtaining ancient DNA from Tollund Man’s tissues.

Tollund Man’s Clothes and Last Meal

In 1951, scientists determined that Tollund Man ate porridge containing barley, a variety of wild seeds, flax, and fish for his last meal. Researchers reexamined the contents of Tollund Man’s digestive system and published the result in July 21, 2021 in the journal Antiquity. Their analysis also revealed that unlike some other famous bog bodies, Tollund Man wasn’t under the influence of edible hallucinogens or other medicinal plants when he died — signs that typically indicate a human sacrifice. [Source: Erin Blakemore, National Geographic, February 6, 2024]


remains of the Tollund Man shortly after his discovery in 1950

Except for the fish, the following are the foods that Tollund Man ate ranked in terms of quantities consumed: 1) Barley, 2) pale persicaria, 3) flax, 4) black-bindweed, 5) sand, 6) gold-of-pleasure, 7) fat hen, 8) corn spurrey, 9) hemp-nettles and 10) field pansy. "We have been able to reconstruct the last meal of Tollund Man in such great detail that you can actually recreate the meal," study lead researcher Nina Nielsen, an archaeologist and head of research at Museum Silkeborg in Denmark, told Live Science. "That's quite fascinating, because you can get so close to what actually happened 2,400 years ago." [Source: By Laura Geggel, Live Science, July 22, 2021]

Laura Geggel wrote in Live Science: By looking at a previously cut and preserved piece of Tollund Man's large intestine, the team found that the 1951 study was fairly accurate but had missed a few things, including the proportions of the meal's ingredients. The new analysis showed that by weight, the porridge was 85 percent barley (Hordeum vulgare), 9 percent a weed called pale persicaria (Persicaria lapathifolia) and 5 percent flax (Linum usitatissimum). The remaining 1 percent included a variety of seeds, including those from the weed corn spurrey (Spergula arvensis), the mustard family plant gold of pleasure (Camelina sativa) and three wetland plants: marsh willowherb (Epilobium palustre), compact/soft rush (Juncus conglomeratus/effusus) and marsh violet (Viola palustris). In addition, the team found pollen from barley, grasses and open dryland plants.

Barley and flax grow in different seasons, so the seeds of the weed pale persicaria were "presumably harvested along with the barley crop," the researchers wrote in the study. Usually, when farmers clean and sieve grain, the small weed seeds that were collected alongside it, such as those from pale persicaria, fall out, Nielsen said. But it appears that in Tollund Man's case, this waste material — including tiny bits of charcoal, charred food crust (indicating the porridge had been cooked in a clay vessel) and sand grains — was added to the porridge, possibly as a ritual practice, she said.

A chemical and protein analysis revealed that Tollund Man ate a fatty fish along with the porridge about 12 to 24 hours before he died. While Iron Age people in Denmark ate fish, it wasn't a large part of the diet then, the researchers noted. Additional analyses revealed parasite eggs, which Tollund Man likely got by eating raw or undercooked meat and drinking contaminated water, Nielsen said.

The circumstances leading to Tollund Man's death are a mystery, but the meal does offer clues, the researchers said. "Our interpretation of Tollund Man was that he was ritually sacrificed," Nielsen said. "At this time in the Iron Age, it was common to use wetlands for ritual activities." An earlier analysis revealed that though Tollund Man likely died from suffocation, his neck wasn't broken. Perhaps a number of rituals took place before Tollund Man was hanged, including the consumption of his last meal, she said.

Tollund Man also had several parasitic infections from whipworms and mawworms, as well as the first reported case of tapeworm ever found in an ancient body preserved in a bog, said the researchers, who made the finding by studying a piece of Tollund Man's colon.

Tollund Man’s Death

Erin Blakemore wrote in National Geographic: Scientists say Tollund Man could have been the victim of a ritual sacrifice. The wide variety of types of seeds and weeds found in his gut are similar to those discovered in the digestive tracts of other bog bodies thought to have been sacrificed. [Source: Erin Blakemore, National Geographic, February 6, 2024]

“People have suggested that they’re forming a human sacrifice because something’s going wrong in the environment,” archaeologist Henry Chapman said of those victims in a 2021 interview with National Geographic. Those cases have led researchers to believe that the sacrifices involved eating a wide variety of types of food before death, perhaps in response to environmental changes that threatened farming or food sources.

Another possibility is that Tollund Man’s death could have been more sinister: Perhaps he was a criminal or died by suicide, or was part of a vengeance killing thought to have been a practice in northern Europe at the time. Other bog bodies found throughout the region show evidence of purposeful killing and even gruesome abuses of the corpses.

But though he was clearly killed on purpose, Tollund Man’s body was also carefully buried, and his mouth and eyes closed. Ultimately, that careful burial, his hanging, and the fact that cremation and grave burials were more common at the time than throwing bodies into bogs is why many researchers do believe his death was part of some kind of sacred sacrifice.

Graubelle Man


Graubelle Man

Graubelle Man is a 2000-year old bog person found in a Danish bog northwest of Copenhagen a few miles away from Tollund Man in 1952. His throat is deeply slit, scientist believe he was probably sacrificed to bring wealth to his village. Graubelle Man was found in a reclining position with a huge slash across his neck. His stomach contained grain contaminated with a toxic fungus that may have caused St. Anthony's fire, a disease that produces hallucinations or convulsions.

The same acids that turned his hair red and blackened his skin to a leathery texture also ate away his bones. As a result he looks like a deflated black corpse with a wig on top of his backwards head. His hands however were so well-preserved that scientists were able to obtain fingerprints from middle finger and thumb.

According to National Geographic: Grauballe Man is one of Europe’s most thoroughly studied bog bodies. To keep the body from decaying, conservators tanned his body for 18 months, which toughened and blackened his skin. Grauballe Man, with days-old stubble on his jaw, was in his mid-30s when he died in the late third century B.C. A large wound stretches from ear to ear across his neck. The blow cut so deep that it nicked a vertebra. A skull fracture and broken leg led his discoverers to theorize he had been tortured before death. In the 1950s x-rays were taken of the body but were very hard to read. Decades later CT scans of Grauballe Man’s remains revealed that these injuries were most likely postmortem, caused by pressure in the bog or damage during excavation. His neck wound does support him being sacrificed, perhaps to a Celtic fertility goddess after a poor harvest. [Source: National Geographic, October 20, 2023]

Lindow Man

The Lindow Man is a 2,200-year-old bog man found in Cheshire near Manchester, England in 1984 by a commercial peat cutter who was preparing to throw a load of peat into a machine and found there was a human foot in it. He reported his discovery to archaeologists, who went to the site where the foot was found and found a torso, head and arm.

The body of Lindow Man was almost perfectly preserved. The skin and skin flesh had been stained deep brown but the facial features, skin texture, physique and stomach contents were surprisingly intact.

Lindow Man was 1.65 meters (5 feet, 5 inche) tall s and weighed 72.5 kilograms (160 pounds). He was between 25 and 30 and in perfect health when he died. He had type O blood and his teeth were in excellent condition but his intestines were filled with eggs from parasitic worms.

Many scholars think that Lindow Man was a member of the upper class based on the fact that he was healthy, had few calluses on his hands (meaning he didn't do manual labor), and his nails were manicured.

Scholars don't think he was a soldier because he had no marks or injuries other than those made at the time of his death. In addition, the muscles on his arms were of roughly equal size, If he had been a soldiers the muscles on his weapon-carrying arm mostly likely would have been more developed.

Lindow Man's Unusual Death


Lindow Man at the British Museum

Lindow Man was ritually sacrificed, which was common among other Iron Age bog men found. But the strange thing about Lindow Man is execution was quite over the top. He was struck twice on the back of the head, fracturing his skull. He was garroted (his windpipe was crushed and neck was broken with a cord of sinew that left marks on his neck). An incision was made in his carotid artery (presumably to drain his blood), and his face had been held under water. In the words of one English scientist: "This certainly seems like a case of overkill. I wonder what this poor chappie did to have been so brutalized?"

Scientists believe that he was sacrificed to appease three Celtic gods. The god Tarainis was traditionally honored by the beheading or bludgeoning of the sacrifice victim. The god Esus was honored with a slit throat while the god Teuttates was appeased by drowning.

Was Lindow Man a Druid?

Many scholars also think that Lindow Man was a Druid based on an analysis of his skin and muscles, which indicated he did not struggle when he was killed and seemed to have met his fate willingly. His body and skin were unblemished a requirement of sacrificial victims.

Scientists also found badly scorched cakes in Lindow man's stomach. The cakes were burned bannock, a coarsely-ground barely griddle cake, spiced with burnt hearth and mistletoe pollen, used in Druid rituals.

According to a Druid ritual one section of cake was scorched. It was placed in a bag with non scorched pieces. The bag was passed among a group of Druid priests and the man who drew the scorched piece was sacrificed.

Analysis showed that the cake in Lindow Man's stomach had been cooked not more than eight minutes, the amount of time it takes to scorch a cake. Analysis also showed that he had eaten the cake about 30 minutes before his death, which is consistent with what is known about the Druid sacrifices.

Bog Women

Some bog people were women who had one side of their heads shaved. In mediaeval Europe women accused of infidelity sometimes had their heads shaved in a similar way. One such victim was Windeby Girl, a 13-year-old who was probably strangled with a headband found over her eyes (See Windeby 1 Below)

Huldermose Woman was found in Denmark in 1879. She wore two capes and a checked wool skirt. She had deep wound on her legs and feet. Fracture marks on her arm bones indicated her arms were severed from her body before she died.

Elling Woman was found near Graubelle Man and Tollun Man. She wore a double-layered sheepskin cloak with an inner layer lined with wool and an outer layer that replaced water. Her hair was elaborately braided in three different styles. She was about 30 when she was hanged.

Windeby I and His (Her) Undeserved Shaming


Windeby I

According to National Geographic: In 1952, workers harvesting peat in Windeby, Germany, were startled to find a body. Local archaeologists identified it as a young girl because of its slight stature and delicate features. The head appeared to be shorn and a blindfold covered the eyes. A theory formed that Windeby Girl, as she came to be called, was an adulteress. As punishment, her people shaved her head, blindfolded her, and drowned her. [Source: National Geographic, October 20, 2023]

A male body was later discovered nearby and then interpreted as her illicit lover. This explanation held until the mid-2000s, when Heather Gill-Robinson of North Dakota State University tested the Windeby Girl’s DNA and found that she was, in fact, a he. Analysis of the remains revealed that the boy, now known as Windeby I, had been malnourished and most likely died of natural causes sometime between 41 B.C. and 118 A.D. The body showed no signs of trauma, as might be expected with an execution. The narrative fell apart further when radiocarbon dating by other scientists revealed that the supposed lover lived three centuries before Windeby I.

In the mid-2000s, DNA analysis of the Windeby Ibog body revealed that the deceased was a teenage boy who lived around the first century A.D. His bones bore signs of poor health, either from malnutrition or chronic illness.

Alken Enge — A Warriors' Cemetery in a Bog

According to National Geographic: Archaeologists uncovered the remains of some 80 people at the site of Alken Enge, on the shore of Lake Mossø on Denmark’s Jutland Peninsula, where an estimated 380 bodies may still rest beneath the bog. Most of the preserved remains were young male adults who all died in a single event in the early first century A.D. Unhealed trauma wounds, as well as the presence of weapons, suggest they died in battle. [Source: National Geographic, October 20, 2023]

Prior to this discovery, experts believed Germanic fighting forces in the area were significantly smaller, closer to 80 people rather than the hundreds buried at Alken Enge. The well-preserved bodies also reveal an interesting ritual side. Many of the human remains displayed animal gnaw marks consistent with being left exposed for up to a year before they were submerged.

Other bones were found deliberately arranged in bundles. In one case fragments of hip bones from four different people were threaded on a tree branch. This evidence led researchers to suspect that time passed after the battle, and the dead lay where they fell. Survivors returned to collect the remains and deposit them in the marsh. Noting the ancient ceremonial and ritual importance of bogs and marshes across northern Europe, scholars believe this removal of war dead may likely be the victors’ attempt to memorialize their triumph.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons except Vittrup Man cartoon from in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden

Text Sources: National Geographic, Wikipedia, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated May 2024


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