Tollund Man in National Geographic

The September issue of National Geographic has a story on Iron Age bog bodies. The story highlights the use of new tools such as CT scans, radiocarbon dating, and 3D imaging, and is accompanied by an artistic photo spread. The additional scientific information is shining a new light on the fanciful theories of the past, as well as the damage the bodies have sustained at the hands of peat diggers and overeager curators.

DNA analysis has shown that the Windeby “girl” was probably a boy, while radiocarbon dating reveals that a supposed lover buried nearby lived three centuries earlier. A Danish team using CT scans to reexamine Danish bog bodies has concluded that many of the injuries previously attributed to ritual violence may have been inflicted during excavation (often done accidentally by a backhoe) or by the pressure of the bog itself. However, even after discounting specific injuries, the larger riddle of ritual sacrifice remains.

NOVA’s program website The Perfect Corpse features extensive information and teaching materials, including Seamus Heaney’s poem The Tollund Man — you can read the text and hear audio of Heaney reading the poem. Both sites also have excellent photos, including pictures of the Swabian knot, a hairstyle described by Tacitus.

This is an area where Celtic and Germanic cultures sometimes seem to be considered together as though they were a single monolithic culture making sacrifices to a generic fertility deity, so it was nice to see the National Geographic author take care to draw a distinction at one point: “… even if Kelly is right about the royal status of Irish bog bodies, people on the Continent had a different culture—Germanic rather than Celtic—chiefs instead of kings, and, almost certainly, other rites of sacrifice.“