Europe’s Famed Bog Bodies

[de officiis]

Europe’s Famed Bog Bodies Are Starting to Reveal Their Secrets

The dead man wore a belt and an odd cap made of skin, but nothing else. Oh yes, there was also a plaited leather thong wrapped tightly around his neck. This is the thing that killed him. His skin was tanned a deep chestnut, and his body appeared rubbery and deflated. Otherwise, Tollund Man, as he would be called, looked pretty much like you and me, which is astonishing considering he lived some 2,300 years ago.

Simultaneously creepy and fascinating.

[heydaralon]

I remember hearing about those years ago. Supposedly some of them might have been sacrifices or something. Very cool!

[Okeefenokee]

Seems there is an arbitrary line when it comes to grave robbing.

[heydaralon]

Did you see the rope around his neck? This could be evidence of the first "hate crime." He was probably some transgendered celt so his boorish neighbors threw him into a bog. I'm getting mad just thinking about it.

[Okeefenokee]

Something tells me that isn't the original rope.

[Montegriffo]

Did you see the rope around his neck? This could be evidence of the first "hate crime." He was probably some transgendered celt so his boorish neighbors threw him into a bog. I'm getting mad just thinking about it.

If you read the article what you are saying is pretty much what Hitler's propaganda dept were trying to imply in their attempt to support their homophobic Aryan supremacy narrative.

In the absence of hard evidence, the temptation to weave bog bodies into a national narrative proved hard to resist. The most notorious effort to lay claim to the bog bodies came in the mid-1930s, when the Nazis repurposed them to buttress their own Aryan my­thology. By this time, two views prevailed. It was largely accepted that the majority of bog bodies dated to the Bronze and Iron Ages, but their murder was ascribed either to ritual sacrifice or criminal punishment. This latter interpretation rested heavily on the writings of the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus, whose Germania, written in A.D. 98, portrays social customs in the northern parts of the empire.

On the whole, Tacitus thought highly of the local inhabitants. He praised their forthrightness, bravery, simplicity, devotion to their chieftains and restrained sexual habits, which frowned on debauchery and favored monogamy and fidelity. These were the noble savages the Nazis wanted to appropriate as direct forebears, and Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo and the SS, established an archaeological institute, the Ahnenerbe, to justify that claim “scientifically.”

To the researchers at the Ahnenerbe, bog bodies were the remains of degenerates who had betrayed the ancient code. In a key passage, Tacitus writes: “The punishment varies to suit the crime. Traitors and deserters are hanged on trees; the cowardly, the unwarlike and those who disgrace their bodies are drowned in miry swamps under a cover of wicker.” Professor and SS-Untersturmfuhrer Karl August Eckhardt interpreted this last phrase to mean homosexuals. It was just a hop from here to the Nazis’ ferocious persecution of gay people.

Congratulations, you think like a Nazi.....

[Montegriffo]

Something tells me that isn't the original rope.

Well science tells us it is...........

[heydaralon]

Did you see the rope around his neck? This could be evidence of the first "hate crime." He was probably some transgendered celt so his boorish neighbors threw him into a bog. I'm getting mad just thinking about it.

If you read the article what you are saying is pretty much what Hitler's propaganda dept were trying to imply in their attempt to support their homophobic Aryan supremacy narrative.

In the absence of hard evidence, the temptation to weave bog bodies into a national narrative proved hard to resist. The most notorious effort to lay claim to the bog bodies came in the mid-1930s, when the Nazis repurposed them to buttress their own Aryan my­thology. By this time, two views prevailed. It was largely accepted that the majority of bog bodies dated to the Bronze and Iron Ages, but their murder was ascribed either to ritual sacrifice or criminal punishment. This latter interpretation rested heavily on the writings of the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus, whose Germania, written in A.D. 98, portrays social customs in the northern parts of the empire.

On the whole, Tacitus thought highly of the local inhabitants. He praised their forthrightness, bravery, simplicity, devotion to their chieftains and restrained sexual habits, which frowned on debauchery and favored monogamy and fidelity. These were the noble savages the Nazis wanted to appropriate as direct forebears, and Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo and the SS, established an archaeological institute, the Ahnenerbe, to justify that claim “scientifically.”

To the researchers at the Ahnenerbe, bog bodies were the remains of degenerates who had betrayed the ancient code. In a key passage, Tacitus writes: “The punishment varies to suit the crime. Traitors and deserters are hanged on trees; the cowardly, the unwarlike and those who disgrace their bodies are drowned in miry swamps under a cover of wicker.” Professor and SS-Untersturmfuhrer Karl August Eckhardt interpreted this last phrase to mean homosexuals. It was just a hop from here to the Nazis’ ferocious persecution of gay people.

Congratulations, you think like a Nazi.....

Nice. I'm glad you managed to mine some outrage out of a joke comment that I put zero thought into.

[BjornP]

Something tells me that isn't the original rope.

The one in the picture may not be, but the original rope - made of leather strips - was of course preserved in the bog just as the rest of the body was. Wether it survived post-excavation, though.... no mention of that. Most articles and sites focus only on the body and its story.

[Montegriffo]

Did you see the rope around his neck? This could be evidence of the first "hate crime." He was probably some transgendered celt so his boorish neighbors threw him into a bog. I'm getting mad just thinking about it.

If you read the article what you are saying is pretty much what Hitler's propaganda dept were trying to imply in their attempt to support their homophobic Aryan supremacy narrative.

In the absence of hard evidence, the temptation to weave bog bodies into a national narrative proved hard to resist. The most notorious effort to lay claim to the bog bodies came in the mid-1930s, when the Nazis repurposed them to buttress their own Aryan my­thology. By this time, two views prevailed. It was largely accepted that the majority of bog bodies dated to the Bronze and Iron Ages, but their murder was ascribed either to ritual sacrifice or criminal punishment. This latter interpretation rested heavily on the writings of the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus, whose Germania, written in A.D. 98, portrays social customs in the northern parts of the empire.

On the whole, Tacitus thought highly of the local inhabitants. He praised their forthrightness, bravery, simplicity, devotion to their chieftains and restrained sexual habits, which frowned on debauchery and favored monogamy and fidelity. These were the noble savages the Nazis wanted to appropriate as direct forebears, and Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo and the SS, established an archaeological institute, the Ahnenerbe, to justify that claim “scientifically.”

To the researchers at the Ahnenerbe, bog bodies were the remains of degenerates who had betrayed the ancient code. In a key passage, Tacitus writes: “The punishment varies to suit the crime. Traitors and deserters are hanged on trees; the cowardly, the unwarlike and those who disgrace their bodies are drowned in miry swamps under a cover of wicker.” Professor and SS-Untersturmfuhrer Karl August Eckhardt interpreted this last phrase to mean homosexuals. It was just a hop from here to the Nazis’ ferocious persecution of gay people.

Congratulations, you think like a Nazi.....

Nice. I'm glad you managed to mine some outrage out of a joke comment that I put zero thought into.

Ditto......