Man from Kreepen

Friedrich Luttmann with his find on a posed photograph

Kreepen's man in a temporary transport box

Drawing reconstruction of the location and restraints by Hans Hahne

The man of Kreepen (also Brammer man or bog body of Brammer ) is a bog body , which in 1903 while cutting peat in a bog of Linteln Geest southwest of Kreepen in Lower Saxony Verden was found. After it was recovered, the find went to the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin , where it was lost after the city was bombed during the Second World War . A tuft of bog corpse hair is exhibited in the Elisabethfehn Moor and Fehn Museum.

Find

The place of discovery ( 52 ° 58 ′ 3.8 ″  N , 9 ° 20 ′ 28.4 ″  E, coordinates: 52 ° 58 ′ 3.8 ″  N , 9 ° 20 ′ 28.4 ″  E ) is in a bog near Brammer , a district of the municipality Kirchlinteln , south of the road Kirchlinteln - Kreepen and opposite the homestead of the finder Friedrich Luttmann from Brammer No. 6. The bog body was found on June 12, 1903 by Friedrich Luttmann, who was digging peat in the bog with his family. First he noticed a chalk-like discoloration in the peat, which he interpreted as the remains of a dead sheep that a neighboring farmer would have buried here. While digging further, Luttmann came across a human foot. He further exposed the body and informed the police. This could not connect the body find with any current missing person report. The find was examined in the presence of a public prosecutor, the police, the director and a senior teacher from the nearest grammar school in the pit that was slowly filling with water. Since the local farmers announced that the peat pits were filling up very quickly, the corpse, which was already partially floating, was hurriedly freed from the peat and recovered after approval by the public prosecutor. More willow branches and hair were collected from the water.

The find was packed in a wooden box and stored in the barn of Luttmanns Hof, where it was viewed by numerous residents. The Verden District Administrator Dr. Seifert sent a report to the Berlin Museum of Ethnology, along with a photograph and a purchase offer. After the positive response from the Museum für Völkerkunde, he arranged for the find to be sent to Berlin without informing the Provincial Museum in Hanover, which was actually responsible for the region , or waiting for an agreement between the two museums. For this, Luttmann packed the corpse in a larger wooden box, embedded it in damp peat and sent it by train to Berlin on June 18, 1903 with the accompanying letter:

“To the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin
I sent you by train today at the instigation of the district office in Verden, a box containing a bog body.
I kindly ask you to please me. Immediately after viewing the corpse to inform me of the price that you can give me for the corpse. Until I have given my consent to this price, I expressly reserve the right of ownership to the corpse and insist that the corpse remains in the same condition in which it is now [...]
Yours faithfully, Friedrich Luttmann "

As a result, there were differences between the Provincial Museum in Hanover, which actually saw itself as the legitimate owner of the find, and the museum in Berlin. After controversial correspondence and the involvement of higher authorities, both houses finally agreed that the fund could remain in Berlin for the sake of further cooperative cooperation. The Provincial Museum justified this with the fact that the find had lost its scientific value due to the unprofessional salvage. When the body arrived in Berlin, it was already more severely damaged, the thighs were broken and one hand was torn off, and there were no additional items or items found. The corpse, which was already infected by mold , was first preserved with formalin and then with a sublimate solution . Luttmann received 50 marks for the corpse and for the reimbursement of his costs for the box and the transport to Berlin of 13.50 marks. The find, listed under inventory number II 885, was then exhibited in the permanent exhibition of the Berlin Ethnographic Museum, which had not yet had a bog body in its inventory. In 1932 the Verdener Heimatbund tried in vain to acquire the find for a local museum. The find was lost during the air raids on Berlin in 1945.

Findings

According to the police protocol, the body was lying 75–80 cm below the surface of the moor with the face down in a bent forward position. Next to her were three stones, each weighing between 12 and 14 kg, two oak sticks and the remains of several twisted willow branches . The body was flattened during the recovery, but well preserved . However, it quickly dried out after being removed from the bog. The skin had a leathery consistency and was dark brown in color. The eyes, nose, mouth and ears were clearly visible from the head. The long, blond hair had come off the head and was stuck to the layers of peat. The feet were completely preserved, whereas arms and hands could only be saved in pieces. Remnants of clothing were not observed and could not be detected even after a detailed examination. According to contradicting statements, an iron ring is said to have been observed during the rescue work , which was immediately thrown away or disintegrated and the fragments of which could not be found.

Dating

According to the previously prevailing scientific doctrine, the man from Kreepen was dated to prehistoric times, as it was assumed that bog corpses were a phenomenon of the first centuries before and after the turn of the ages. A ¹⁴ C-dating of two samples from the strand of hair kept in the moor and fen museum Elisabethfehn , however, revealed a time of death in the periods between 1440 and 1520, as well as 1585 and 1625 AD. However, it is not certain whether the strand of hair was actually from the moor corpse from Kreepen comes because it was only handed over to the museum by Alfred Dieck in 1988 and the exact path of the strand of hair is not completely documented.

interpretation

The twisted oak and willow or birch twigs wound around the neck, wrists and ankles of the corpse have been interpreted by various authors in the specialist literature as shackles or gags. Remains of a gag are said to have been found on the feet. These circumstances could indicate the man was forcibly killed. The inexperienced recovery and the inexactly observed context of the finds make it difficult to make statements about the man's laying down in the moor. In addition, the loss of the find prevents more modern scientific research on anthropology and the circumstances of death. The dating of the corpse is fraught with further uncertainties, since the affiliation of the tuft of hair from the holdings of the Elisabethfehn Moor and Fehn Museum to the moor corpse of Kreepen is only based on a statement by Alfred Dieck and can no longer be confirmed with certainty.

literature

• Jutta Precht: The bog body from Kreepen . In: Home calendar for the district of Verden . 2006, ISSN  0948-9584 , p. 36-40 .
• Wijnand van der Sanden : De man van Kreepen: verslag van een zoektocht . In: Willy H. Metz, Ben L. van Beek, Hannie Steegstra (eds.): Patina: essays presented to Jay Jordan Butler on the occasion of his 80th birthday . Groningen / Amsterdam 2001, ISBN 90-90-14729-2 , pp. 481–492 (Dutch, with German and English abstracts).
• 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]).
• Robert Kienzle: bog body discovery in Kreepen-Brammer . In: Verden home calendar . 1961, p. 37-39 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Lintelner Geest nature and culture trail. (PDF, 1 MB) Kirchlinteln municipality, accessed on December 4, 2012 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Wijnand van der Sanden : De man van Kreepen: verslag van een zoektocht . In: Willy H. Metz, Ben L. van Beek, Hannie Steegstra (eds.): Patina: essays presented to Jay Jordan Butler on the occasion of his 80th birthday . Groningen / Amsterdam 2001, ISBN 90-90-14729-2 , pp. 481–492 (Dutch, with German and English abstracts).
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Robert Kienzle: Moor corpse find in Kreepen-Brammer . In: Verden home calendar . 1961, p. 37-39 .
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Udo Friday: Find bog bodies in Brammer . In: Udo Freitag (Ed.): Chronicle of the villages of Kreepen and Brammer . 1998, p. 62-65 .
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Jutta Precht: The bog body of Kreepen . In: Home calendar for the district of Verden . 2006, ISSN  0948-9584 , p. 36-40 .
6. ↑ 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]).
7. ^ Wijnand van der Sanden : De man van Kreepen: verslag van een zoektocht . In: Willy H. Metz, Ben L. van Beek, Hannie Steegstra (eds.): Patina: essays presented to Jay Jordan Butler on the occasion of his 80th birthday . Groningen / Amsterdam 2001, ISBN 90-90-14729-2 , pp. 481-492 .