"That's the Moors, you idiot."
"Sorry, the card says, the Moops."
Posted on 07/02/2005 9:30:13 AM PDT by quidnunc
A 2,600-year-old corpse has 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?
Its blade plunging into the earth, the peat-cutting machine crept slowly through the Grosses Uchter Moor (Great Uchte Moor) in the northern German state of Lower Saxony. A worker stacked the sections of turf sliced free by the guillotine-like blade. Suddenly he paused, something having caught his eye. "What's this? An old leather jacket?"
It wasn't. In fact, what the worker had dredged from the moor was a large piece of human skin. It was followed by long bones, a foot, fingernails, an open ribcage and more and more hair, everything colored rust-red by acids in the bog.
The gruesome find was made in Sept. 2000, but it was only last week that the press got wind of it — and hailed it as a sensation. It was, after all, the first time in 20 years that an ancient corpse had been pulled out of the German moors. "We're overjoyed," says Henning Hassmann of the State Office of Historic Preservation in Hanover.
The corpse found in the bogs is that of a teenage girl, between 16 and 19 years old — and with perfect teeth. According to the radiocarbon dating method, the corpse is from 650 B.C., meaning she was likely part of an early Germanic tribe. But that wasn't immediately obvious. Because the well-preserved corpse was nude, the criminal investigation department concluded the girl had been the victim of a sex crime and sent the corpse to the forensic medicine department in Hamburg. But the forensic experts were unable to find any evidence of violence. The file was soon forgotten and began to gather dust. Only when peat-cutters — working at the same location again in January 2005 — happened across more bones embedded in the moor did the officials begin questioning their earlier assessment.
-snip-
Can't post more than the teaser?
"That's the Moors, you idiot."
"Sorry, the card says, the Moops."
Well, she's got her 15 minutes of fame now.
For more info, google "bog people".
Here are some good photos (click on thumbnails to see larger images):
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/bog/violence1.html
Probably because they didn't bother with prisons. Chop up the criminal and chuck their parts in the bog. Simple solution.
Please send me a government grant. I am obviously smarter than any German anthropologist.
APf
A worker stacked the sections of turf sliced free by the guillotine-like blade. Suddenly he paused, something having caught his eye. "What's this? An old leather jacket?"
It wasn't. In fact, what the worker had dredged from the moor was a large piece of human skin. It was followed by long bones, a foot, fingernails, an open ribcage and more and more hair, everything colored rust-red by acids in the bog.
Maybe because they get run over by a peat cutting machine with a guillotine-like blade?
Can we make a joint application (no pun intended) to do a differential study? Might even turn out to be criminals run over by peat cutters.
Sacred three [or occasionally four-fold] death sacrifices.
The victims were partially drowned, then nearly strangled and then finally beheaded.
The four-fold could also include stabbing or burning, depending.
The most famous bog man even had a book written about him;
http://www.parlorcity.net/reviews/drprince.htm
He very likely volunteered to be sacrificed for the good of his people.
More info here;
http://www.mesh5.com/tension/febmarch/bog.htm
Not coincidentally, William Wallace's death was symbolically a holdover of the practice.
Rather than having the desired submission effect that Longshanks intended, it awakened the collective subconscious of the Scots and they got -really- p*ssed.
They saw The Wallace then as their sacrificed "Sacred King" and rebelled.
Ain't archetypal/mythopaeic symbolism cool?....:)
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
| English Site > DER SPIEGEL > 26/2005 |
CORPSES ON THE MOORS A Vampire Graveyard in Northern Europe? By Matthias Schulz A 2,600-year-old corpse has 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?
It wasn't. In fact, what the worker had dredged from the moor was a large piece of human skin. It was followed by long bones, a foot, fingernails, an open ribcage and more and more hair, everything colored rust-red by acids in the bog. The gruesome find was made in Sept. 2000, but it was only last week that the press got wind of it -- and hailed it as a sensation. It was, after all, the first time in 20 years that an ancient corpse had been pulled out of the German moors. "We're overjoyed," says Henning Hassmann of the State Office of Historic Preservation in Hanover. The corpse found in the bogs is that of a teenage girl, between 16 and 19 years old -- and with perfect teeth. According to the radiocarbon dating method, the corpse is from 650 B.C., meaning she was likely part of an early Germanic tribe. But that wasn't immediately obvious. Because the well-preserved corpse was nude, the criminal investigation department concluded the girl had been the victim of a sex crime and sent the corpse to the forensic medicine department in Hamburg. But the forensic experts were unable to find any evidence of violence. The file was soon forgotten and began to gather dust. Only when peat-cutters -- working at the same location again in January 2005 --happened across more bones embedded in the moor did the officials begin questioning their earlier assessment. Sliced up like a salami But the truth isn't quite so poetic. During the harvesting of peat for nurseries, the machine's blades sliced up the ancient Germanic tribeswoman like a salami. "We have 100 parts," Hassmann admits. One scapula and two ribs are missing entirely.
Their initial findings are already perplexing. The girl had ventured deep into the bogs, which surprises the researchers. "The next hard-surface path was two kilometers away," says Metzler. The woman had nimbly hopped from hump to hump -- dry islands that were covered with heather and stunted trees, offering a person walking through the bogs solid ground. The moor covered an area of several square kilometers and -- like many highland moors -- was often covered in fog. And it was dangerous -- anyone unlucky enough to slip into the hollows between the dry humps was a goner. Did the woman commit suicide? Or was she fleeing from something? Perhaps she was just gathering birds' eggs. Metzler introduces another idea: He imagines that the woman may have been some sort of a witch who used herbs to practice her art and had ventured into the bogs to gather bilberries. The blue fruits have an intoxicating effect, and were used as a drug by the early Germanic tribes. But at this point, explanations are premature and nothing more than conjecture. Beaten to death and buried in the moors
These naturally preserved bodies keep revealing new details. The Danish "Tollund Man" was found wearing a leather cap. Others wore fine shoes or luxurious woven coats. Some mummies are tattooed, and some were found with apple seeds in their stomachs and round worms in their intestines. Signs of violence are common among the moor corpses. Many were strangled or beaten to death before falling into their wet graves. Others had puncture wounds in their chests. The famous "Red Franz" was killed by a knife wound to his throat. Part Two: Atrocities on the Moor.
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
[ Home | Politik | Wirtschaft | Panorama | Sport | Kultur | Netzwelt | Wissenschaft | UniSPIEGEL | Reise | Auto ] [ Wetter | Marktplatz | Schlagzeilen | Forum | Leserbriefe | Newsletter | Archiv | Shop ] [ DER SPIEGEL | SPIEGEL TV | SPIEGEL-Jahrbuch | KulturSPIEGEL | SCHULE@SPIEGEL ] [ Impressum | Hilfe | Kontakt | SPIEGEL-Gruppe | SPIEGEL Media | Mediadaten ] |
Didn't they feed their young in those days?
I'm sure it's somehow Bush's fault, or that locust plague of American businessmen.
hey lindsey looks like she is missing something in this pic....where'd they go?
I don't know, but I'm going to keep eating cheeseburgers so mine don't go away.
Bog Mummy Mistaken For Murder Victim (Germany)
The Discovery Channel | 6-27-2005 | Rossella Lorenzi
Posted on 06/28/2005 10:10:18 AM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1432405/posts
Note: this topic is from . Thanks quidnunc.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
