Here are six of the creepiest bog bodies found in Europe
ANCIENT corpses can tell us a lot about how our ancestors lived, and none more so than these unsettling “bog people”.
Their remains have been perfectly preserved in the suffocating muck of bogs across Europe, with some still sporting fingernails and hair after thousands of years.
Bogs contain little to no oxygen, so the bacteria that normally cause our bodies to decay can’t survive there for long.
This means anyone buried in one remains frozen in time almost indefinitely.
Experts believe some of the corpses were people sacrificed during the Iron Age before they were dumped into the marshy land. Here are six of the most gruesome.
1) Throat slit ‘from ear to ear’
The Grauballe man was pulled from a peat bog in 1952 near the village of Grauballe in Jutland, Denmark.
Experts believe his throat was slit from ear to ear around 2,300 years ago.
He could have been sacrificed as part of a brutal ritual – or the victim of a savage murder.
Early examinations revealed the poor chap was naked when he died, and his face was contorted into a terrible grimace.
He was about 30 years old and stood 5 feet 7 inches tall. Analyses of his stomach reveal his last meal was porridge.
The Grauballe man is on permanent display at Denmark’s Moesgard Museum of Prehistory.
2) Head caved in
This man’s head is so well-preserved that his barnet remains tied in a trendy knot.
He sports a Suebian knot, a hairstyle prevalent among ancient Germanic tribes.
Known as the Osterby man, or Osterby head, the remains date to around 70 AD.
They were unearthed in a peat bog near the town of Osterby, Germany, in 1948.
It appears the man suffered a violent death – his left temple was shattered, leaving skull fragments embedded in his brain.
Experts aren’t sure whether the man, believed to be around 60 years old when he died, was executed or sacrificed.
His age and hairstyle suggest a noble death, meaning he more likely was killed as part of a ritual.
Bogs were sacred places for Iron Age folk, acting as gateways to the supernatural world, where gifts could be presented to the gods.
The head sits in the Archäologisches Landesmuseum in Germany.
3) Impaled on spikes
Around 700 years ago, this man was struck three times on the back of the head before his body was impaled on three wooden spikes in a bog in Sweden.
Experts think his killers used the spikes to stop the corpse from rising to the surface.
Analyses reveal he died around the 13th Century, and was wearing fancy leather shoes and a tunic when he died – suggesting he was of high social standing.
Known as the Bocksten man, the body was unearthed in 1936 and is now on display in the Halland Museum of Cultural History.
4) Drowned for adultery
A bog body found in Germany may have been adulterous young girl who was killed for her crimes.
Discovered in 1952, her corpse was found near the town of Windeby when peat cutting machinery chopped off one of her legs and hands.
Experts thought she may have been an adulteress whose head was shaved, after which she was blindfolded and drowned in the bog.
It’s believed the girl was 14 when she died and was discovered with a woollen band covering her eyes, which scientists think was draped over her after death.
But recent research suggests the “Windeby Girl” was actually more likely to have been a young man.
An analysis of the mummy’s bones indicated a sick young man who may have died from natural causes.
He may have lost his hair while archaeologists dug up the body.
5) Sacrificed at 25
This woman’s body is so well preserved that her leather belt and braids of her hair remain in tact.
Examination of the body reveals she was only 25 years when she met a gruesome death.
She was hanged around 2,000 years ago, with the leather noose leaving a V-shaped furrow that is clearly visible in her neck.
Experts believe she was sacrificed to the gods during a period of great hardship for her tribe.
The “Elling Woman” was found in Bjældskovdal bog, near Silkeborg in Denmark in 1938, and is on display at the Silkeborg Museum.
6) Hanged naked
In 1950, experts found a bog body with a “face so fresh they could only suppose they had stumbled on a recent murder.”
Known as the Tollund man, the corpse is probably the most well-preserved body from pre-historic times in the world.
A plaited leather noose wrapped тιԍнтly around his neck was found with the body, and was what ultimately killed him some 2,300 years ago.
The Tollund man’s organs have been taken out and tested, and he was found with a leather cap still strapped to his head.
He was found in the same Danish bog as the Ellin Woman, and it’s believed he was also sacrificed as an offering to the gods.
The man now sits in a glᴀss case at the Silkeborg Museum.
In other archaeology news, the first beer ever brewed in the UK was unearthed in January.
Future archaeologists will likely dig up our leftover chicken bones to date modern life in Britain, according to one expert.
A mystery 9-foot black sarcophagus was opened in Egypt last year – with stomach-churning results.
Which bog body do you think is the most gruesome? Let us know in the comments!
