Mrs. von Haraldskær

Mrs. von Haraldskær in the oak coffin

The wife of Haraldskær is an Iron Age bog corpse that was found in 1835 in the Haraldskær bog near the manor Haraldskær belonging to Skibet , about 6 km west of Vejle in Jutland , Denmark . For a long time there was speculation that it was the remains of the legendary Norwegian Queen Gunnhild .

Discovery

Workers discovered Haraldskær's wife on October 20, 1835 while digging a trench. The state of preservation of the dead was extremely good due to the anaerobic conditions at the site. The woman, lying on her back, was fixed in the peat by wooden hooks at her knees and elbows. Thick branches over the chest and abdomen were also attached with hooks. The woman was with her head facing east and looking west. After removing all hooks, the body and some remains of clothing could be recovered. Her skin was perfectly intact. She was bare and only a leather cloak and three pieces of woolen clothing lay on the body. This bog corpse is one of the first to be recovered and examined by scientists. Her remains were exhibited in a showcase in St. Nicholas Church in Vejle until autumn 2012 . Since then it has been in Vejle's Spinderihallerne Cultural History Museum.
Location: 55 ° 42 ′ 9.9 ″  N , 9 ° 26 ′ 22 ″  E Coordinates: 55 ° 42 ′ 9.9 ″  N , 9 ° 26 ′ 22 ″  E

Early speculation about identity

St. Nicholas Church in Vejle

After the discovery of the bog body, first suspicions about its identity revolved around the person of the Norwegian Queen Gunnhild , who was the wife of Erik I Blood Ax in the 10th century . The Jómsvíkinga saga says that the Danish King Harald I Blue Tooth had Gunnhild murdered and sunk in the moor. This interpretation was underpinned by the fact that the woman wore a precious robe and the place where it was found was called Gunnelsmose , i.e. Gunnhilds Moor, in ancient times . However, it is now believed that she died with her daughter on Orkney . The manor Haraldskær is also said to have been founded by Harald Blauzahn, and it is located near the old Danish royal court in Jelling . The belief that the body of Queen Gunnhild had been found was so popular that King Frederick VI of Denmark . himself donated the oak coffin in which Haraldskær's wife rested in St. Nicholas' Church in the center of Vejle. Since March 9, 2013, the bog body can be seen in Vejle's new culture museum.

The young student and later famous archaeologist Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae , a pioneer of archaeological stratigraphy , contradicted the interpretation of the bog body as Queen Gunnhild. In his opinion, it was a find from the pre-Roman Iron Age, which led to a heated controversy. It was not until 1977 that the age was determined using radiocarbon dating ( ¹⁴ C dating), according to which the bog corpse from around 490 BC BC, Worsaae was definitely right.

The great popularity resulting from these speculations and the careful handling since the discovery is due to the fact that the woman is still in a very good state of preservation, in contrast to the Tollund man who was found much later, in 1950 , who was only left with insufficient conservation and improper storage preserved in a few parts like the head. Although Haraldskær's wife is not of royal descent, she was laid out in the transept of St. Nicholas' Church for the time being.

Findings

Haraldskær Manor in 1857

Mrs. von Haraldskær

The woman is initially estimated to be around 50 years old, including her skeleton , intact skin and internal organs. All joints are surrounded by a thin layer of dried skin and give the impression that the woman has only recently passed away. Her leathery skin is very wrinkled, which suggests that the woman may have been quite stout during her lifetime, which is also confirmed by her well-preserved breasts. Due to the action of the tannins from the moor acids , their skin and long hair have the deep brown color typical of moor corpses. Her dentition is complete and her health is generally good. Their skeletal system shows no degenerative changes such as arthritis or signs of hard work, which are otherwise often found in corpses from this period. One knee is deeply punctured by a pointed object.

In 1979, a more intensive forensic examination of the corpse at Aarhus University Hospital followed . At this point the body had noticeably shrunk from further drying out, which caused her skin to wrinkle more strongly. The corpse measured 133 cm, whereas earlier reports stated that when it was found in 1835 it was 150 cm long. The computed tomographic examination of her skull made it possible to narrow down her age to 40 years at the time of her death.

Another forensic examination of the woman was carried out in 2000 by Lone Hvass of the Elsinore Museum , Miranda Aldhouse-Green of Cardiff University and the Forensic Institute of Aarhus University . Accordingly, the woman's stomach consisted of unpeeled millet and blackberries . Imprints of a rope were found on the neck, suggesting that the woman was strangled or hanged. Another examination of the body at Aarhus Hospital began on April 1, 2005.

dress

In addition to the corpse itself, extensive remains of clothing made from raw animal materials have been preserved. A fur cape was made of many fur pieces in a careful furriers work sewn together. There are several surviving comparative finds for this cloak, such as those of the wife from Elling , the boy from Kayhausen , the girl from Dröbnitz or the man from Jürdenerfeld . There were also three pieces of sheep's wool in the grave. These textiles were patterned with interwoven darker threads and decorated with fringes. It is not certain whether the corpse was originally taken into the moor naked, as clothing made of vegetable raw materials such as linen or nettle may have been lost in the acidic environment of the moor. A hairnet in jumping technique , which is now considered to be the head covering of the bog body, cannot be assigned to this find with certainty. It was only mentioned later as part of the Haraldskærfund.

interpretation

Because of the carefully executed body burial in a bog at a time when the cremation custom was widespread in this region, scientists assume that the wife of Haraldskær was sacrificed or ritually killed.

Haraldskær's wife in literature

The Danish author and amateur archaeologist Steen Steensen Blicher visited the site in 1836 as one of the first visitors. The find inspired him to write his novella Grovhøjen , a parody of a false archaeological find. In 1841, however, he reconsidered his opinion on the find of the wife of Haraldskær and published his poem: Dronning Gunhild ( Queen Gunnhild ), a lament for the dead queen in the moor. In 1846 the Danish dramaturge Jens Christian Hostrup , a friend of the archaeologist Worsaae, used the dispute over the identity of the wife of Haraldskær as the material for his comedy in four acts En Spurv i Tranedans (in German about a sparrow in a crane dance ), in which a schemer receives a magical ring from the spirit of Queen Gunnhild, which makes all people blind to his activities. In a satirical way, Hostrup thus indirectly supported the theory that Haraldskær's wife was Queen Gunnhild, and thus aroused great interest in Worsaae's hypothesis.

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. 41, 44, 48, 88, 99, 131, 145 (Dutch, original title: Vereeuwigd in het veen . Translated by Henning Stilke).
• PV Glob : The sleepers in the moor . Winkler, Munich 1966, p. 54–64 (Danish: Mosefolket . Translated by Thyra Dohrenburg).
• Miranda Aldhouse Green: Human Sacrifice - Ritual Murder from the Iron Age to the End of Antiquity . Magnus, Essen 2003, ISBN 3-88400-009-8 .
• Lone Hvass: Dronning Gunhild: et moselig fra jernalderen 1998

Web links

• Haraldskaer Woman. In: Bodies of the Bogs. Archaeological Institute of America, accessed November 30, 2011 . 
• Haraldskær's hairnet at the National Museum of Denmark

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Miranda Aldhouse-Green: Boudica Britannia . rebel, war leader and queen. Pearson Longman, Harlow 2006, ISBN 978-1-4058-1100-2 , pp. 95-96 (English).
2. ↑ Lone Hvass: Dronning Gunhild - et moselig fra jernalderen . Sesam, Copenhagen 1998, ISBN 87-7801-725-4 , pp. 26 (Danish).
3. ↑ Mosen's power . Permanent exhibition at the Spinderihallerne Cultural History Museum, accessed on March 1, 2020 (Danish).
4. ↑ Jørgen Nygaard: Moselig på plads på sin hædersplads . TV Syd on February 8, 2013, accessed July 14, 2016 (Danish).
5. ^ Peter Rowley-Conwy: From Genesis to Prehistory . The Archaeological Three Age System and Its Contested Reception in Denmark, Britain, and Ireland. In: Oxford studies in the history of archeology . tape XVII . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-922774-7 , pp. 70 (English).
6. ^ Klaus Ebbesen: Døden i mosen . Carlsen, Copenhagen 1986, ISBN 978-87-562-3369-9 , pp. 7 (Danish).
7. ↑ Haraldskaer Woman. In: Bodies of the Bogs. Archaeological Institute of America, accessed November 30, 2011 .