old Croghan man is one of hundreds of
Iron Age mummies found scattered in the
bogs of northern Europe grauballe man
throat slit from ear to ear eat a girl
strangled and stabbed feuding men
stabbed and disemboweled
by all appearances most met a violent
end
many saw these mummies as criminals
executed for crimes against society but
today archeologists see something far
more complex a harsh world wrought with
uncertainty foreign invasion and
premature death
this is the story of little known
rituals from a pre-christian time
superstitions
and what to us is the most taboo of
Rights human sacrifice the bog bodies
themselves hold the answers
[Music]
the bog bodies are accidental mummies
preserved in layers of peat formed by
the bog
Christian Fisher director of the
Silkeborg Museum in Denmark thinks that
understanding the bog is crucial to
figuring out what happened to the
mummies here we have a really good
example of how the park was built or how
the fog was before most partly it was
kind of eight during this period of peat
cutting here we put on two to four
millimeters every year and they were
following it down you will see this
different kind of layers representing a
wet period one period of our climate and
when you reach the bottom of the park
you are perhaps two or three thousand
years behind now here we have the
spangled moss and while he lives it
gives a little bit of assets which come
down into the bathwater and altogether
makes the bog water acid containing and
in a complicated way it makes the bog
water antiseptic so we can preserve so
this pattern of is really the secret
behind the park parties
six to eight feet down is the Iron Age
lair where most of the bodies are found
[Music]
the bodies became mummies through a
complicated process many of them were
placed in shallow graves cold water
seeped in rapidly and people probably
covered the corpse further with peat
once immersed the body was preserved by
bacteria killing acid courtesy of the
sphagnum Moss in the water
layers of plants sealed the body into an
oxygen free world
the result nature has preserved many of
these bodies better than any Egyptian
mummy
Iron Age mummies found scattered in the
bogs of northern Europe grauballe man
throat slit from ear to ear eat a girl
strangled and stabbed feuding men
stabbed and disemboweled
by all appearances most met a violent
end
many saw these mummies as criminals
executed for crimes against society but
today archeologists see something far
more complex a harsh world wrought with
uncertainty foreign invasion and
premature death
this is the story of little known
rituals from a pre-christian time
superstitions
and what to us is the most taboo of
Rights human sacrifice the bog bodies
themselves hold the answers
[Music]
the bog bodies are accidental mummies
preserved in layers of peat formed by
the bog
Christian Fisher director of the
Silkeborg Museum in Denmark thinks that
understanding the bog is crucial to
figuring out what happened to the
mummies here we have a really good
example of how the park was built or how
the fog was before most partly it was
kind of eight during this period of peat
cutting here we put on two to four
millimeters every year and they were
following it down you will see this
different kind of layers representing a
wet period one period of our climate and
when you reach the bottom of the park
you are perhaps two or three thousand
years behind now here we have the
spangled moss and while he lives it
gives a little bit of assets which come
down into the bathwater and altogether
makes the bog water acid containing and
in a complicated way it makes the bog
water antiseptic so we can preserve so
this pattern of is really the secret
behind the park parties
six to eight feet down is the Iron Age
lair where most of the bodies are found
[Music]
the bodies became mummies through a
complicated process many of them were
placed in shallow graves cold water
seeped in rapidly and people probably
covered the corpse further with peat
once immersed the body was preserved by
bacteria killing acid courtesy of the
sphagnum Moss in the water
layers of plants sealed the body into an
oxygen free world
the result nature has preserved many of
these bodies better than any Egyptian
mummy
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