One of my reading secrets is juvenile nonfiction. It's replete with illuminating explorations. It supplies rich detail
to things I wouldn't normally consider. Reading juvenile nonfiction is like flipping through back issues of
National Geographic: lots of captivating adventure in unexpected places. It allows me to revert to a time when I
was oblivious to peer pressure and when I didn't find the topics obscure, irrelevant or gross, just really cool. I've
enjoyed books on epidemics, witchcraft, earthworms and most recently, bog bodies.
"Bodies from the Bog," is written by James M. Deem in 1998. Deem's other books have titles like "How to Make
a Mummy Talk", "How to Read Your Mother's Mind", "How to Hunt for Buried Treasure", "How to Catch a Flying
Saucer", and "How to Find a Ghost." Super titles for the precocious child. Deem is fastidious. He visited every
museum where bog bodies are exhibited and consulted with people who have built academic careers studying
bog bodies.
I have encountered references to discoveries of the remains of those who died thousands of years ago, but I
never pursued the topic until now. I wouldn't have tolerated a long, scholarly work, although after this thumbnail
sketch, I may seek more. Deem systematically led me through the formation of peat bogs. These are watery
places where Iron Age people believed that they could communicate with the supernatural world. They
deposited weapons, tools and jewellery in the wetlands to please their gods. Sometimes, they placed sacrificed
bodies, the bodies of murderers or murdered bodies in the wetlands. Sphagnum peat forms sphagnan which
blocks the decomposition of a body and tans bodies the way hide is tanned into leather. For a body to be
preserved in a peat bog, a number of conditions must be met. Chances of preserving a body for over 2,000
years are as remote as are the chances of finding it intact today.
Bog bodies have been discovered in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland where peat was cut
manually, then dried and burned as a fuel. Finding bog bodies today is rare because the use of peat fuel has
declined and manually cut peat has been replaced by mechanically cut peat. Now, peat is harvested by
machines that shred bogs and all that they contain.
Grauballe Man was discovered near Grauballe, Denmark in 1952. Radiocarbon dating showed that the body
had been placed in the bog in 55 BC. The teeth revealed that the body belonged to a man who died in his late
thirties. His hands showed little sign of manual labour. He had a fractured skull, a cut throat and a broken leg.
His intestines revealed that his last meal was winter vegetables and fungus-contaminated grain. The fungus
may have acted like a drug causing hallucinations or a coma prior to death. Scientists have concluded that he
was sacrificed. His hands suggest that he was an important member of his society. His last supper may have
been fed to induce drowsiness. Given the season of his sacrifice, he may have been an offering to the goddess
of spring and the blood from his throat may have been used ritually.
In Schleswig, Germany a man's strangled body was found pegged to the ground by eight stakes beside the
body of a blindfolded girl. Near Osterby, Germany, only the head of a man with his hair tied in a style worn by
Swabian tribesmen 2,000 years ago was unearthed. These are gruesome stories, but they are not fabricated
and they offer insight to our past. Remember juvenile nonfiction when it’s time to escape to reality.