Amcott's Moor Woman

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Amcotts Moor Woman ( German  woman from the Amcotts Moor ) was probably female bog body from the late Roman empire , which in 1747 in a bog near the village Amcotts in the English county of Lincolnshire was discovered. Only the left waistband shoe has survived from the find .

Find

The site is in a moor near the village of Amcotts in the now drained wetland Isle of Axholme in North Lincolnshire , west of the River Trent . In the summer of 1747, while digging peat at a depth of about 6  feet (1.8 m) , a peat cutter with his spade struck a shoe with the remains of a foot in it. Frightened by this, the man fled from the site. In October, the local historian George Stovin from Hurst learned of the find and traveled with some employees to recover the find. Stovin hid the find and described his observations in a letter to his son. According to his observations, the body of the corpse was so bent that the head and feet almost touched. He described the corpse's skin as tough and firm. The foot bones were found loose in the boots, while the bones of the arms and thighs were found in the skin covering the body. The hands and fingernails were still in good condition when they were found , almost like a living person. A pair of high-waisted shoes was found on the body, one of which had been damaged by the finder breaking a spade. When it was found, the leather of the shoes is said to have been supple and yellow-brown in color.

Findings

The dating of the bog body to the late Roman Empire, around 200–400 AD, was typologically based on the cut of the waistband shoes that was characteristic of this period . The sex determination of the corpse as female took place in 1747 by Dr. Stovin. As a cause of death Stovin suspected due to the Fund position the body is said to have put upright in peat, accidental death by drowning in the then swampy bog. This theory is also supported by subsequent scientists. As with many other bog finds before the 19th century, the remains of the corpse were lost, partly due to a lack of conservation options or for other reasons. The hand and the right shoe that Stovin had sent to the Royal Society in London shortly after the recovery were lost. Now only the left Bundschuh of the find is preserved in the Museum of London .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bog Bodies of the Iron Age. No. 5 Amcotts Moor Woman. In: The Perfect Corpse homepage. NOVA PBS, accessed on April 6, 2012 (English, brief description with photo).
  2. ^ A b Michael Rhodes, Richard C. Turner: A bog body and its shoes from Amcotts, Lincolnshire . In: Society of Antiquaries (Ed.): The antiquaries journal . No. 72 , 1992, ISSN  0003-5815 , pp. 76-90 (English).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Amcott's Moor Woman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mrs. von Amcotts
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bog corpse
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd century or 4th century
DATE OF DEATH 3rd century or 4th century
Place of death at Amcotts, North Lincolnshire , England