Bog body from Bunsoh

The bog corpse of Bunsoh is an Iron Age bog corpse that was found in 1890 in the moor in the area of ​​the municipality of Bunsoh near Albersdorf in the Schleswig-Holstein district of Dithmarschen . The remains are in the care of the Archaeological State Museum Schloss Gottorf in Schleswig .

Find

The site is in the moor on parcel No. 60 belonging to the then owner Hans Hansen. On May 17, 1890, peat workers came across birch posts stuck vertically in the peat at a depth of about 100 cm . Below they noticed bones and other loose parts of a human corpse, which they carefully uncovered. They later exposed other bones, sharpened stakes, and charred wood. The gendarme stationed in Albersdorf had the body parts brought to the death chamber of the Albersdorf poorhouse. By order of the district office, the district doctor Dr. Cold. in the presence of Mr. Goos, a member of the board of directors of the Dithmarsisches Museum , carried out the official inquest . Since the soft tissues adhering to the bones were already decaying , they were detached from the bones and buried. After the inquest, the finds went to the Dithmarian Museum. Location: 54 ° 9 ′ 10.5 ″  N , 9 ° 20 ′ 27.8 ″  E Coordinates: 54 ° 9 ′ 10.5 ″  N , 9 ° 20 ′ 27.8 ″  E

Findings

According to the finders, the body was lying in a layer of black moor, about 100 cm below the moor surface in a west-east orientation . The head was to the left of the body at shoulder level. The body was enclosed with a construction made of birch stakes. At the foot and head end there were three sharpened birch stakes with a diameter of about 6.5 cm in the ground. There were three stakes parallel to it on the body. There were three or four more birch trunks on the sides of the body. The base was a layer of birch twigs . This construction was 190 to 200 cm long, about 60 cm wide and about 90 cm high. According to the finders, sharpened tree trunks were found nearby while cutting peat.

Anthropological Findings

The body's skeleton was no longer complete. The preserved pelvic and extremity bones adhered even larger amounts of soft tissue, which were identified as muscle mass . However, these soft tissues were detached from the bones and disposed of at the examination because they began to rot. The bones, which had turned black-brown from storage in the acidic moorland, were completely decalcified, easily bendable and badly deformed. The extremities were no longer completely present and were partially detached from the trunk due to the decomposition . Several fingernails and toenails were recovered. The skull was received only incomplete in several fragments and was found next to the shoulder of the body. The most noticeable fragments were the lower jaw , the left upper jawbone with the cheekbone , a hollow molar, and the scale and wart part of the left temporal bone . The skull was shattered at the back of the head by a massive blow. The brain was still recognizable as a misshapen mass. Large tufts of around 10 to 15 cm long hair that had taken on a brownish red color due to the action of the moor acid adhered to the soft parts of the skull fragments .

The overall examination of the body parts present during the official examination showed that the person concerned was a medium-sized adult in the middle years, whose sex could not be determined with certainty.

dress

Hem replica, photo: Heinke Arnold

Except for a knitted, approximately 59 cm long band of brownish wool, which is said to have been in the neck area, no clothing was observed. The method of production and use of this knitted fabric , known in the textile -archeological literature as the neck cord of Bunsoh , was unclear in science for a long time. At first it was interpreted as a choke or toggle band. Johanna Mestorf interpreted it in 1907 as a textile necklace . It was not until 1941 that Irmingard Fuhrmann succeeded in determining the thread path within the knitted fabric and reproducing it. Heinke Arnold and Erika Drews proved that it could be the seam of a linen smock that was left in the acidic moor environment .

Cause of death

The cause of death was most likely the massive blow or blows to the back of the head that shattered the top of the skull, as well as the subsequent decapitation. Whether further acts leading to death were carried out on the person could not be read from the remains.

Dating

The first dating of the Iron Age was based on the circumstances of the finds, such as the moor burial and multiple killing; this was confirmed by the textile-typological classification of the neck cord found at an age of 1400 years. This dating could be confirmed in the 1990s by a ¹⁴ C-AMS investigation carried out on three skin samples and narrowed down to the period between 560 and 620 AD.

interpretation

The assumption that was often expressed in the past that the woolen tape in the neck area of ​​the corpse was used for strangling, gagging or shackling is now safely refuted. Likewise, the apparently nakedness of the corpse can be explained by clothing made of vegetable material that was lost in the acid moor, of which the woolen neckline of the gown was the only one that remained. There is thus no inevitable connection between the apparent nudity and an additional punishment or act of penance carried out on the dead person .

It appears that the bog body of Bunsoh was killed in several ways, by beating the skull and beheading. Other acts may have been carried out on the person with the intention of causing his death. These were either not recognized during the investigation or are no longer detectable due to the inadequate state of preservation. Multiple killings - so-called overkills - are well documented in numerous other bog body finds. According to the current state of research, this practice arises from a superstition to prevent the killed from after-eating or revenge . Putting the severed head down next to the shoulder should possibly prevent the head from growing back. The chamber-like construction made of birch trunks can also be interpreted as a measure to banish the dead in his grave.

It has not yet been possible to determine whether the dead person was an executed criminal , a murder victim or a victim of revenge . However, it seemed to the burials necessary to have to carry out apotropaic measures on the dead .

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. 93–95, 100 (Dutch, original title: Vereeuwigd in het veen . Translated by Henning Stilke).
• Johanna Mestorf : The bog body from Bunsoh in Süderdithmarschen . In: Report of the Schleswig-Holstein Museum of Patriotic Antiquities at the University of Kiel . tape 44 . Lipsius & Tischer, Kiel 1907, p. 15-17 .

Web links

• Volker Arnold: Finds in and under the moor. In: Changing moorland. Museum Albersdorf, accessed on December 7, 2011 (information board on bog finds). 

Individual evidence

1. ^ Katharina von Haugwitz: The bog bodies of Schleswig-Holstein. Documentation and interpretation . University of Hamburg, 1993, p. 20–21 (master's thesis).
2. ↑ Heinke Arnold, Erika Drews: The so-called neck cord from Bunsoh . In: Experimental Archeology in Europe Balance 2007 . No. 5 . Isensee Verlag, Oldenburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-89995-447-0 , p. 135–443 ( PDF, 223 kB [accessed April 2, 2014]).
3. ^ Karl Schlabow : Textile finds from the Iron Age in northern Germany . In: Göttingen writings on prehistory and early history . tape 15 . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1976, ISBN 3-529-01515-6 , pp. 16 .
4. ↑ 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]).
5. ↑ See: Mann von Dätgen , Tollund-Mann , Lindow-Mann
6. ^ Katharina von Haugwitz: The bog bodies of Schleswig-Holstein. Documentation and interpretation . University of Hamburg, 1993, p. 97-100 (master's thesis).