Bockstensmann

Drawing of the Bockstensmann by the Finnish artist Harry Kivijärvi on a memorial stone in Varberg.

The Bockstenmann (also Bocksten man , Swedish Bocksten men ) is a medieval bog body , the 1936 Swedish bog Bocksten Mosse found was. The peculiarity of this find is the almost completely preserved clothing of the man. The finds are in the care of Halland's Kulturhistoriska Museum von Varberg in Halland , where they are among the most important exhibits in the permanent exhibition.

Location

The moor is near Rolfstorp in the municipality of Varberg . The site is on part of the former Via Regia , which was a main route in the region in the Middle Ages. In the 1880s, a farm was established near the raised bog . In the following years, the moor was prepared for later peat extraction by drainage . As early as 1934 a shoe sole was discovered while mowing the moor meadow, but the curator of the local museum, Albert Sandklef, considered it uninteresting. Location: 57 ° 7 ′ 0 ″  N , 12 ° 34 ′ 29 ″  E Coordinates: 57 ° 7 ′ 0 ″  N , 12 ° 34 ′ 29 ″  E

Find

Bockstenmann's site (marked with a cross)

On June 22, 1936, the day before the Midsummer Festival , 11-year-old Thure G. Johansson worked with a horse and harrow on his parents' moor while his father prepared a barn for storing peat. Between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m., an object resembling sackcloth was hanging in the harrow. When Thure examined the site more closely, he found parts of the skeleton that he initially took to be animal bones. He brought his father over, who recognized the human bones.

The following day, the father informed the local gendarme , who was also the cemetery guard of the community, that the body was to be transferred to the local cemetery for burial. Later, the gendarme and a doctor examined the find and determined that the man found must have been dead a long time ago. The gendarme took home some bones and clothing and the doctor contacted Albert Sandklef, director of the Varberg Museum. He immediately drove to the official's apartment and looked at the bones. Two days later he returned to the site with several scientists. The professionals also included a geology professor who conducted investigations with his students nearby. First, the find was photographed and measured. Then the parts still in the ground were dug up and brought to the Varberg Museum.

After the holidays, Albert Sandklef contacted the State History Museum in Stockholm , which sent a conservator and a textile expert to Varberg to assist with the scientific research. After the find had been preserved, it was exhibited in the Varberg Museum in 1937. The clothing was initially presented hanging, since the end of the 1970s lying down.

Findings

Skull with hair of the goat man

The dead man is a man who was anchored to the bottom of the lake, which was still open at the time , by an oak pole driven into the ground . Above him was a second birch stake . Marks on the victim's clothing and hipbone indicate that his killers tried to punch another stake through the man.

Anthropological Findings

According to recent studies, the man was about 170 to 175 cm tall, slim and had shoulder-length, wavy hair. The upper parts of the body were damaged by the harrow, but the abdomen, with the exception of the right foot, was still completely intact. The skeleton , skin, hair, stomach and brain were very well preserved. The lungs, liver, and some cartilage were also well preserved. The skull itself was decalcified and softened by the moor acids . It was slightly dented on the frontal bone and had massive damage on the right side. Most of the skin on the head, however, was decomposed.

The man's dentition had relatively healthy teeth with no signs of tooth decay or periodontal disease . The lower jaw was somewhat flattened and deformed by the pressure of the peat layers above it. Based on the forensic examination of the teeth by an odontologist , the age of the man was assumed to be around 25 to 35 years. In contrast, the osteologist Nils-Gustaf Gevall estimated that the man was between 35 and 40 years old due to the skeletal features. It is even possible that he was up to 60 years old. Signs of gout disease were diagnosed on the skeleton .

Cause of death

For a long time it was unclear whether the goat man was violently killed. In January 2006, a close examination of a plastic model of the skull led to the result that the man first received a blow to the lower jaw, then a blow to the right ear and finally another blow a little further towards the back of the head, which probably directly resulted in his death led. He probably received the last blows when he was already on the ground. A stake or hammer could be used as a weapon.

dress

A textile-archeological specialty is the almost completely preserved clothing of the man. Here is the best preserved , complete set of everyday clothing of a late medieval man in Europe. The clothing is woven from coarse wool carded yarn . As headgear, the man wore a hood with a 90 cm long and 2 cm wide tail, and two woolen leg warmers on his legs . The man wore a coat as external protection . There was also a cloth bag, foot rags, leather shoes, a belt and a leather case with two knives. The leather case was about 40 mm wide, 62 mm long and made in three layers. On the outermost layer was a mark that was interpreted as a combination of a St. Andrew's cross and a St. George's cross . This follows the same pattern as the British flag . On the inner layer was the symbol of a staff, which was completed by a smaller version of the sign of the outer layer. The metal parts like knives and belt buckles were gone.

Dating

Due to the clothes found, especially with regard to the Gugel, the find was typologically dated to the 14th century . Owe Wennerholm noted that similar headgear had been used earlier and suggested a time of death between 1250 and 1520. In the 1980s, a ¹⁴ C-dated sample was examined. The result gives a 68 percent certainty for the period from 1290 to 1410 and a 95 percent certainty for the period 1290 to 1430. A more precise limitation of the date is currently not possible, as the measurement results are due to the very long storage of clothing in the bog and their subsequent conservation were impaired.

interpretation

Several scientists, including Albert Sandklef, Margareta Nockert and Owe Wennerholm, tried to clarify the Bockstenmann's identity and presented a wide variety of theories.

The classification of the goat man in a social group of the society at that time was mainly based on the clothes he found. In the past, social differences were primarily expressed through clothing and the amount, processing and quality of the fabrics and clothing details used. Cowls were a widespread garment in the Middle Ages, which was also worn by people of the nobility . From this, the Swedish amateur historian Owe Wennerholm concluded that the Bockstenmann could be a tax collector or a recruiter, for example. Since cowls were also worn by clerics, he suggested that the man could have been a member of a religious order . Wennerholm claims to have recognized an object in an excavation photo in the museum's archive, which he interpreted as a small coat of arms with the insignia of the Linköpinger cathedral provost Simon Gudmundi . Gudmundi is said to have stayed in the area to investigate a miracle in Mute that was to be used for the canonization of Catherine of Sweden . Gudmundi is said to have been slain in 1491 at the instigation of the priest Hemming Gadh , who wanted to take the office of provost of the cathedral in Gudmundi's place and thus had a motive for murder. However, there is no reference to the existence of this coat of arms either in the reports on finds or in the museum itself.

Local legend

Shortly after the discovery of the Bockstenmannes reported a farmer from the village of Grimeton from a forecast that he had heard as a child. Two people are said to have described a man to his father who went through the area and recruited soldiers. This man was killed by farmers and buried in a bog. After that the man began haunted the area as a ghost ; to prevent him, stakes were driven through the body, which also led to the end of the haunted. This legend was one of the indications for the above-mentioned interpretation of Wennerholm's Bockstensmann as a recruiter. The old farmer said, however, that it is the place Nackhälle at the Moor Store Mosse , but he could have moved the story because he came from that area. This legend, however, was unknown to the elderly residents of Nackhälle after interviews with Albert Sandklef and Karl Andersson.

See also

• Mrs. of Luttra
• Dannike wife

literature

• Wijnand van der Sanden : Mummies from the moor. The prehistoric and protohistoric bog bodies from northwestern Europe . Batavian Lion International, Amsterdam 1996, ISBN 90-6707-416-0 , pp. 85 (Dutch, original title: Vereeuwigd in het veen . Translated by Henning Stilke).
• Margareta Nockert: Bockstensmannen och hans dräkt (=  Varbergs Museum Årsbok . No. 48 ). Hallands Länsmuseer et al., Varberg 1997, ISBN 91-85720-30-5 (Swedish).
• Albert Sandklef: Bockstensmannen. Finds, preserves, daterings, dräkten, mannen, myten . Fabel, Stockholm 1985, ISBN 91-7842-056-3 (Swedish).
• Pablo Wiking-Faria: Vem var Bockstensmannen? Carse, Fjärås 1989, ISBN 91-971061-7-8 (Swedish).
• Albert Sandklef (Ed.): Bockstensmannen och hans tid (=  Varbergs Museum Årsbok . No. 55 ). Länsmuseet, Varberg 2008, ISBN 978-91-89570-11-5 (Swedish).

Web links

Commons : Bockstensmannen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Hallands Kulturhistoriska Museum. Retrieved July 21, 2015 (Swedish). 
• Swedish bog man murdered - 700 years ago. In: The Local. January 24, 2006, accessed November 30, 2011 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Raae-number Rolfstorp 59: 1st Riksantikvarieämbetet, accessed on November 30, 2011 (Swedish, geographic information system of the Swedish Reichsantiquaramt ). 
2. ↑ Source: RAÄ-nr Rolfstorp 59: 1
3. ↑ ^{a b} Thomas Brock: Moor corpses. Witnesses of past millennia . In: Archeology in Germany, special issue . Theiss, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-8062-2205-0 , pp. 114-121 .
4. ↑ Micke Larsson, Karin Olander: Bockstensmannen blev mördad. (No longer available online.) In: Expressen . January 22, 2006, archived from the original on August 8, 2011 ; Retrieved November 30, 2011 (Swedish). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ Illustration and description of the Gugel on I. Marc Carlson's page Some Clothing of the Middle Ages. Historical Clothing from Archaeological Finds (English)
6. ↑ Illustration and description of the leg warmers on I. Marc Carlson's page Some Clothing of the Middle Ages. Historical Clothing from Archaeological Finds (English)
7. ↑ ^{a b c d} Owe Wennerholm: Vem var Bockstensmannen? Bokförlaget Carse, Fjärås 1998, ISBN 91-971061-7-8 .