Grauballe man

Head view of the Grauballe man in the earlier presentation

General view of the body in the new presentation

The Grauballe Man is a bog body , which in 1952 in Jutland in Nebelgårds Moses northeast km, a kettle bog of 130 m in diameter in Grauballe 8 of Silkeborg in Denmark was found. In the 3rd century BC The man who died in BC lived in the pre-Roman Iron Age and is next to the Tollund man the best-preserved and best-known Danish bog body. The Grauballe man is exhibited in the Moesgård Museum near Aarhus .

Find

The peat cutter, Tage Busk Sørensen, came across the body on April 26, 1952 while working in the bog about one meter below the surface. At first he thought the exposed shoulder was a tree root, but as he continued digging he realized that it was a human corpse. He then contacted the doctor Ulrik Balslev, who in turn informed the Aarhus Historical Museum with PV Glob . Both rushed to the site to examine and dig up the body . It was Glob who gave the bog body the name Grauballe-Mann.
Location: 56 ° 12 '33.7 "  N , 9 ° 37' 49.8"  O coordinates: 56 ° 12 '33.7 "  N , 9 ° 37' 49.8"  O .

Preservation

Due to the natural tanning processes in the moor, the corpse was almost completely preserved . After a brief examination, the Grauballe man was presented to the public in the museum for a week and seen by around 20,000 visitors. Long-Kornbak carried out further examination and preservation of the corpse. Since there was not yet enough experience with the permanent and gentle conservation of bog corpses, the corpse was tanned for 18 months in a bath from Eichenlohe . In order to reduce the shrinkage of the body after drying, the body was then soaked in Turkish red oil. After the conservation work was completed, the bog corpse was finally exhibited in the Moesgård Museum alongside sacrificial finds from a bog near Smederup. For further conservation, the corpse is kept in the exhibition cabinet under a nitrogen atmosphere .

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  Head view of the Grauballe man

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  Upper body of the Grauballe man

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  Man's foot

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  Man's hand

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  The hand in the previous presentation

Findings

The Grauballe man was lying prone on the moor with his right leg and arm drawn up and his head pointing backwards. The pressure of the surrounding bog layers has compressed his body a little, but otherwise it is completely preserved and in very good condition. There were no traces of clothing, jewelry or other personal items. Next to the corpse were only found several three centimeter long birch sticks with incised symbols.

Anatomical Findings

The man, about 34 years old and about 175 cm tall, was killed by a professionally performed throat cut from one ear to the other. In addition, the skull and shinbone area show lesions . Closer examination of the body revealed that the man had not done any heavy physical labor during his lifetime. His well-manicured hands and fingernails suggest that it may have been a member of the local upper class . The corpse was so well preserved that fingernails, hair and stubble survived the storage in the moor undamaged. His well-groomed hair has a red-blonde color due to the action of the moor acids , but the original hair color can no longer be determined precisely; it was probably dark. His fingers could be clearly fingerprinted , just like a living person .

In 2001 further medical examinations followed in the university hospitals of Aarhus and Skejby. Extensive DNA tests and examinations using computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging were carried out on the corpse . With the help of this data, a 3D model of the corpse for a reconstruction of the head and a facial reconstruction could be created. The otherwise healthy young man was diagnosed with the onset of rheumatic osteoarthritis and dental caries . The lesions in the skull area only arose after his death from storage in the bog and can be traced back to the pressure of the surrounding soil. The extensive studies produced a lot of new information, such as the fact that the deceased had his hair cut regularly and that he last shaved about three weeks before his death. His last meal consisted of several different types of grain such as barley , wheat and oats , and the seeds of more than 60 different herbs , weeds and grasses were found. No traces of fresh fruit or herbs were found, so he likely died in the winter time. A time of death in winter can also explain the extremely good state of preservation of the corpse. The natural degradation processes of the corpse were extremely slowed down by storage in ice-cold water .

The evaluation of the distribution of the pollen and plant residues in the vicinity of the Grauballe man's site indicated that he was placed on an older, but freshly cut peat layer, on which new organic material quickly built up. This is an indication that Nebelgårds Mose was already cultivated extensively in historical times, for example to obtain peat as fuel.

Dating

An early radiocarbon dating ( ¹⁴ C dating) by Nobel Prize laureate Willard Frank Libby showed the Grauballe man's death period from 210 to 410 AD. Another ¹⁴ C dates in 1978 showed a death time in the pre-Roman Iron Age of 52 BC. Chr. ± 55 years. The more recent investigation of a ¹⁴ C sample from muscle tissue using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) revealed a time of death around the years 375-255 BC. After taking the standard deviations into account, the time of death can be around the year 290 BC. Be accepted.

interpretation

As with other violently killed people who were preserved by Moor, science disagrees on whether the Grauballe man was killed as a punishment or became part of a human sacrifice . No reliable indications could be found that clearly substantiate a criminal or victim thesis. The birch sticks found on the corpse could be an indication of a thrown lot , which makes the victim thesis appear more likely.

During the autopsy, evidence of ergot poisoning could be found in the corpse's stomach and intestines . This disease causing convulsions and hallucinations can also be seen as a reason for his subsequent death. The Grauballe man's murderers may have seen him as someone who was possessed and therefore had to be killed. Another interpretation refers to Tacitus Germania chap. 12, according to which homosexuals were passively sunk in the moor.

Miscellaneous

Shortly after the discovery became known, there was a small dispute about the Grauballe man . After a local peasant woman wanted to recognize a man who had disappeared in 1887/1888 in the corpse - it was the red Kristian , an alcoholic from the area who often wandered around the moor drunk - more and more people came who recognized the same Kristian in the corpse wanted to have. This case was picked up and discussed in several newspapers. However, after an initial dating, Professor Glob expressed strong doubts about this theory, which were finally confirmed by later ¹⁴ C-dating.

aftermath

The discovery of the Grauballe man inspired the artist Joseph Beuys to create his socially critical sculpture Grauballemann in 1969 . The Irish writer and Nobel Prize winner for literature Seamus Heaney dedicated a short poem to the Grauballe man, in which he describes the seemingly graceful, calm and peaceful effect that the Grauballe man now so deceptively radiates on his viewer.

literature

• Grauballe Man. An Iron Age Bog Body Revisited . In: Pauline Asingh, Niels Lynnerup (Eds.): Jutland Archaeological Society publications . tape 49 . Jutland Archaeological Society, Moesgaard 2007, ISBN 978-87-88415-29-2 (English).
• Geoffrey Bibby : The man from Grauballe . Forhistorisk Museum, Højbjerg 1974 (Danish: The Grauballe Man . Translated by Meike Poulsen).
• Peter Vilhelm Glob : The sleepers in the moor . Winkler, Munich 1966 (Danish: Mosefolket . Translated by Thyra Dohrenburg).
• Wijnand van der Sanden : Mummies from the moor - The prehistoric and early historical moor corpses from north-western Europe . Drents Museum / Batavian Lion International, Amsterdam 1996, ISBN 90-6707-416-0 (Dutch: Vereeuwigd in het veen .).

Web links

Commons : Grauballemanden  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Grauballemanden - og the magiske mose. Moesgård Museum, accessed December 1, 2011 (Danish). 
• www.grauballemanden.dk another presentation by the Moesgård Museum (Danish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Grauballe , on kulturarv.dk
2. ^ Don Brothwell: The Bog man and the archeology of people . British Museum Publications, London 1987, ISBN 0-7141-1384-0 , pp. 80 (English).
3. ↑ Mark Lewis: Bewitched - Background on the Witch Craze. (No longer available online.) ARTE , October 11, 2010, archived from the original on December 9, 2010 ; Retrieved December 1, 2011 (Great Britain, 2002, 48mn). 
4. ↑ Nathan Beckman: "Ett ställe hos Tacitus (Germ. C. 12)". In Nordisk tidsskrift for filologi . 4. Raekke. Copenhagen 1920. pp. 103-108. Several researchers followed this interpretation, e. B. Erik Noreen: Studier i fornvästnordisk diktning. Uppsalas universitets årsskrift. 1921 issue 4; Folke Ström: Nid, ergi and Old Norse moral attitudes . In: The Dorothea Coke memorial lecture in Northern studies delivered at University College of London 10 May 1973.
5. ^ Rüdiger Sünner: Beuys-Grauballemann. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on July 4, 2009 ; Retrieved December 1, 2011 . 
6. ^ Seamus Heaney : The Grauballe Man. BBC NI Schools , accessed December 1, 2011 . 
7. ^ Sabine Eisenbeiß: From Beowulf to Beuys, Moor and Moor Corpses in Art . In: Stefan Burmeister, Heidrun Derks, Jasper von Richthofen (eds.): Forty-two. Festschrift for Michael's 65th birthday fee . Leidorf, Rahden / Westf 2007, ISBN 978-3-89646-425-5 , p. 113-120 .