Child from the Esterweger can

53.034167 7.663333Coordinates: 53 ° 2 ′ 3 ″ N , 7 ° 39 ′ 48 ″ E

The child from the Esterweger box (also bog body from the Sedelsberger box , or boy of Burlage , unofficially Burli is called) the bog body of a boy from the High Middle Ages , in the Torfabbaugebiet the Moor good Sedelsberg , community Saterland in which Esterweger box in the southern East Friesland at the village of Burlage , municipality of Rhauderfehn , west of the Saterland Westermoor was found.

Find

On February 27, 1939, peat worker Heinrich Breer came across the bones of a bog body in the Sedelsberg moorland area.

Investigations

The preserved bones of the child from the Esterweger can are marked in red

According to earlier investigations, the bog body should be the remains of a woman, dated between 1000 and 1200 AD.

At the Institute for Forensic Medicine at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf , the corpse was examined by specialists from various disciplines in 2010 and the very detailed research results were presented in a publication. It was found that the supposed "lady from the Esterweger can" is a young man. The sex was determined as male with reservations on the basis of certain characteristics that were pronounced in the bone structure. The dead died as a youth between the ages of twelve and fourteen.

Findings

The skeleton from Burlage belongs to a boy who suffered no apparent deficiency in life. However, he was physically disabled. He must have limped badly. The cause was an inflammation of the bone marrow in his right shin, and his left femoral head was deformed. The specialists also found that the boy was right-handed.

Dating

In 1956 the find was initially dated to the 11th to 12th centuries by pollen analysis . Using ¹⁴ C-AMS dating of a bone tissue sample in the 1990s, the time of death could be narrowed down between 1050 and 1200 AD. In the course of the investigations in 2010, the period of death between 1046 and 1164 AD could be determined even more precisely by means of new ¹⁴ C dating with current calibration data.

Whereabouts

The boy's remains were kept in the storeroom of the State Museum for Nature and Man in Oldenburg , which at the time was still the State Museum for Natural History and Prehistory, under inventory number 5775. As part of the special exhibition “Esterweger Dose yesterday and today”, the brownish bones were exhibited in an air-conditioned showcase from March 2005 to March 2009 in the Elisabethfehn Moor and Fehn Museum in the Cloppenburg district . From May to August 2011 the Oldenburg Museum for Nature and Humans showed the find in its special exhibition "Oh, it's scary to walk across the moor ...". In the future, the find will be on permanent loan again in its region of origin, in the Elisabethfehn Moor and Fehn Museum.

Another find

Burlage's peat dog was also found near Burlage in 1953 .

literature

Mamoun Fansa , Eilin Jopp, Klaus Püschel (eds.): The child from the Esterweger can: Documentation of an extraordinary skeletal bog body . Isensee, Oldenburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89995-702-0 (most recent and most comprehensive work).
Frank Both, Mamoun Fansa (Ed.): Fascination Moor Corpses: 220 Years of Moor Archeology . Philipp von Zabern, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-8053-4360-2 , p. 97-106 (excerpts from work from 2010).
Hajo Hayen : A bog body from the Esterweger can (1939) . In: Archaeological Communications from Northwest Germany . tape 3 , 1980, ISSN 0170-5776 , pp. 11-20 .
Hajo Hayen : Finds from the Vehne Moor - the area of the Esterweger Dose and the Schwaneburg Moor . In: Archaeological Communications from Northwest Germany . tape 3 , 1980, ISSN 0170-5776 , pp. 9-29 .

Web links

Elisabethfehn Moor and Fen Museum. Retrieved December 1, 2011 .
Matthias Heinzel: Children's body from the moor reveals secrets. In: Göttinger Tageblatt . April 6, 2010, accessed on December 1, 2011 (Brief overview of test results).
Burli is back in Elisabethfehn (NWZ April 2nd, 2012)

Individual evidence

↑ Mamoun Fansa , Eilin Jopp, Klaus Püschel (eds.): The child from the Esterweger can: Documentation of an extraordinary skeletal bog body . Isensee, Oldenburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89995-702-0 .
↑ Johannes van der Plicht, Wijnand van der Sanden , AT Aerts, HJ Streurman: Dating bog bodies by means of ¹⁴ C-AMS . In: Journal of Archaeological Science . tape 31 , no. 4 , 2004, ISSN 0305-4403 , p. 471–491 , doi : 10.1016 / j.jas.2003.09.012 (English, ub.rug.nl [PDF; 388 kB ; accessed on June 2, 2010]).
↑ Mamoun Fansa , Eilin Jopp, Klaus Püschel (eds.): The child from the Esterweger can: Documentation of an extraordinary skeletal bog body . Isensee, Oldenburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89995-702-0 , p. 19-21 .
↑ Astrid Ready: Homecoming is the museum's attraction . In: General Anzeiger for Ostfriesland, Emsland and Oldenburgerland . April 14, 2012 ( ga-online.de [accessed September 20, 2012]).

personal data
SURNAME	Child from the Esterweger can
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Child from the Sedelsberger tin; Young von Burlage; Burli
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Bog corpse
DATE OF BIRTH	11th century or 12th century
DATE OF DEATH	between 1046 and 1164
Place of death	near Burlage (Rhauderfehn)

[Fansa-1] Mamoun Fansa , Eilin Jopp, Klaus Püschel (eds.): The child from the Esterweger can: Documentation of an extraordinary skeletal bog body . Isensee, Oldenburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89995-702-0 .

[2] Johannes van der Plicht, Wijnand van der Sanden , AT Aerts, HJ Streurman: Dating bog bodies by means of ¹⁴ C-AMS . In: Journal of Archaeological Science . tape 31 , no. 4 , 2004, ISSN 0305-4403 , p. 471–491 , doi : 10.1016 / j.jas.2003.09.012 (English, ub.rug.nl [PDF; 388 kB ; accessed on June 2, 2010]).

[3] Mamoun Fansa , Eilin Jopp, Klaus Püschel (eds.): The child from the Esterweger can: Documentation of an extraordinary skeletal bog body . Isensee, Oldenburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89995-702-0 , p. 19-21 .

[4] Astrid Ready: Homecoming is the museum's attraction . In: General Anzeiger for Ostfriesland, Emsland and Oldenburgerland . April 14, 2012 ( ga-online.de [accessed September 20, 2012]).