Bog Mummies are made by nature when the bog is just right with cold, deep, stagnant water and tannic acid. Some of these accidental mummies simply fell in while others got there as a result of a sacrifice, a murder, or suicide. Some met a violent end by being beheaded, garroted, bludgeoned or hung.

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The Yde girl was found in a bog and has been reconstructed. In order to reconstruct any mummy their skull had to be well preserved to give artists an idea of what they looked like. Archaeologists reconstructed her face by using artificial eyes, skin, and adding more hair to what was already there. They finished her off by executing her face with plaster, clay, and wax. If you would like to visit her, you can check out Drents Museum, Assen, in the Netherlands.

Talk about being tanned, these mummies look like leather. Of the more than 1500 bog mummies found, they tell many stories. Of the hundreds found men, the oldest bog mummy was discovered in Denmark in 1835. She was preserved only because she had been mistaken for Queen Gunhild. It turned out she lived 1500 years before the queen.

Most bog mummies come from northern Europe but Florida produces bog brains. Only the brains survived in skeletons found in a Florida pond but they date back 7000-8000 years ago.

Bogs are rather deceiving. They look like a carpet of sponge covered with plants and grasses. The spongy top layer of a peat bog tends to seal off oxygen from the layers below. In reality, they are a pit that will swallow you whole.

In the past, the bog was thought to be a direct link to the gods and goddesses. Thus all kinds of things were tossed in to gain their favor - jewelry, pots, wagons, animals, and even people. According to James M. Deem, sometimes when a person died they were put in a bog by the towns people so their ghost would not haunt the city or town. Nice people, huh!

A mummy in your bed...

Flower bed that is.
Ever spread peat moss in your garden?
It comes from bogs!

 

 

Do you know who is a resident of the oldest building in the town of Hovedgarden?

Built in 1767, the Silkeborg Museum's most popular exhibition is Tollund Man. Perhaps the best preserved body from prehistoric times, Tollund Man was named for the bog he was discovered in.

According to the Silkeborg Museum, on May 6th 1950, two brothers, Emil and Viggo Hojgaard, were cutting peat. As they were digging they came across a body lying in the peat. They thought they had discovered a murder victim. Authorities soon realized what the body was.

Found completely naked except for a sheep hide cap, a simple leather belt, and a leather rope around his neck, he was remarkably well preserved.

Sadly, the head was preserved immediately after the original examination but the body was left untreated and became dehydrated. However, in 1987 the Silkeborg Museum reconstructed the body and added it to the head in order to give a true replica of the Iron Age Tollund Man as he was originally found.

We would like to thank the kind people of the Silkeborg Museum for the picture of Tollund Man and the link. Check out their site and read more about other residents living there.

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