Man from Hogenseth

The man from Hogenseth (also bog corpse from Hogenseth or Hogenseth 1920 ) was a bog corpse that was found in 1920 by workers cutting peat in Vehnemoor near Edewecht in Lower Saxony . After a brief inspection by the police, the body parts were released the next day and buried next to Altenoythe cemetery without further scientific investigation .

Location

Since the 19th century, this area of Vehnemoors to recover was fuel , specifically for roasting of buckwheat abgetorft. In addition to this bog body, other significant archaeological finds were made here, such as a beehive hive from around 500 AD or, only about 1000 meters north, the two bog bodies Men von Husbäke from 1931 and 1936 .
Location: 53 ° 4 '48.2 "  N , 7 ° 57' 34.2"  E Coordinates: 53 ° 4 '48.2 "  N , 7 ° 57' 34.2"  E

Find

Since the find was not scientifically documented, details of the find can only be vaguely reconstructed from the police report , correspondence with the Oldenburg Museum and subsequent interviews with those involved, some of which contained contradicting content. According to this, on April 10, 1920, while cutting peat , workers came across the remains of a human corpse, which they cut up with their spades in search of valuables. In the evening Torfmeister Höving informed the local gendarme of the find, who instructed Höving to ensure that the position of the corpse was not changed. On the morning of April 11th, Gendarmerie Sergeant Schwarting examined the site and found the body completely dismembered and mixed up, only the head and torso were still hanging together. According to the workers, no clothing or other items such as coins were found on the body. Since no one was missing in the area in the past, Schwarting released the body, whereupon it, packed in a tarred box, was buried anonymously next to the Altenyoyer cemetery . In 1922, museum director Martin tried to scientifically process the find and also to have the remains of the body excavated, but the grave site could not be found again.

Findings

According to eyewitnesses, the bog body was 100 to 135 centimeters below the surface. She was lying on her stomach, her feet about eight inches lower than her head, with arms raised to the sides. The hands are said to have clasped a tuft of heather. The body of the corpse was well preserved when it was recovered , and the front in particular was largely still intact. On the back, the skin , connective tissue and bones were largely gone, revealing the trunk, where only the liver was visible as a misshapen mass. Both arms and legs had been separated from the trunk by the workers during the excavation and the entire find was partially destroyed. All bones were decalcified by storage in the acid moor , and were soft and pliable. The facial features were clearly visible on the head and face , although the skin of the face stretched tightly over the skull due to the shrinkage , which opened the lips . The cranial bones and especially the frontal bone had a structure like wet cardboard. The back of the head was open and the brain was a shrunken gray mass. The teeth of the dentition were discolored black-brown and had shrunk a little due to the decalcification, only one incisor from the lower jaw was missing.

The sex was determined exclusively on the basis of the facial hair observed during the recovery . The Schwartings police report reported a clearly recognizable mustache and a few reddish-brown hairs under the chin, such as those worn by contemporary East Frisian boatmen . Presumably it was a broad, not excessively long, trimmed beard, the red color of which was due to its storage in the acidic moorland.

The bog corpse was only insufficiently examined and documented, which is why the information on its age and body size can be regarded as very uncertain. The body length from head to toe is said to have been 220 centimeters, whereas Schwarting, in his police report, estimated a height of 160 centimeters without having measured the severed legs. The age of the man was estimated to be 40 to 60 years based on the facial features, without any explanation being given.

Dating

Since no personal items for typological dating have been found on the corpse, no more parts of it are available for ¹⁴ C dating , and no peat samples were taken at the site for a pollen analysis , subsequent dating of the corpse is no longer possible . Due to the depth at which the man from Hogenseth was embedded in the moor, a temporal connection to the Husbäke moor bodies found nearby, which lay in a similarly deep layer of moor and in the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, was occasionally discussed in the specialist literature . Date of the century, which is to be regarded as a pure model of thought.

interpretation

The improper recovery of the corpse without scientific examination and the lack of the find itself make a reliable interpretation of the find almost impossible. Based on the reports, only the front of the dead appears to have been quickly embedded in the bog. Presumably he was lying with his back in the air for some time, which caused the back of the body to decompose more quickly. Whether the man died violently and was temporarily put down here, or whether he had an accident at this point cannot be clarified due to the sparse information available.

literature

• Frank Both, Mamoun Fansa (Ed.): Fascination Moor Corpses: 220 Years of Moor Archeology . Zabern, Philipp von, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-8053-4360-2 , p. 33-36 .
• Hajo Hayen : The bog bodies in the museum on the dam . In: Publications of the State Museum for Natural History and Prehistory Oldenburg . tape 6 . Isensee, Oldenburg 1987, ISBN 3-920557-73-5 , p. 23-27 .
• Hajo Hayen : The bog body from Hogenseth 1920 . In: Archaeological Communications from Northwest Germany . tape 2 , 1979, ISSN  0170-5776 , pp. 46-48 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Hajo Hayen : The bog body from Hogenseth 1920 . In: Archaeological Communications from Northwest Germany . tape 2 , 1979, ISSN  0170-5776 , pp. 46-48 .
2. ^ Hajo Hayen : The bog bodies in the museum on the dam . In: Publications of the State Museum for Natural History and Prehistory Oldenburg . tape 6 . Isensee, Oldenburg 1987, ISBN 3-920557-73-5 , p. 45 .
3. ^ ^{A b} J. Martin: Contributions to the research on moor corpses . In: Prehistoric Journal . No. 16 , 1924, ISSN  0079-4848 , p. 248 ff .