Bog body from Windeby I

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Windeby I

The bog body of Windeby I (also child of Windeby or boy of Windeby ) is the well-preserved bog body of an approximately 15-17 year old boy from the 1st century, which was born in 1952 in the Domsland moor near the village of Windeby near Eckernförde in Schleswig-Holstein was found. Due to inadequate gender determinations and a wrong interpretation of the find ensemble, this corpse was known for many years as the Windeby girl . It is one of the best-known bog bodies in Germany and is exhibited alongside other bog bodies in the permanent exhibition of the Schleswig-Holstein State Museum at Gottorf Castle .

Finding circumstances

The Windeby bog body was found on May 19, 1952 by the peat cutters Pawlik and Franz Seibert in the Domslandmoor. (The Domslandmoor is often incorrectly referred to in publications as the Domlandsmoor .) Both recognized the thighbone as a human remnant and stopped working immediately. They searched the surrounding area for further body parts and informed the museum in Schleswig. It is thanks to the two peat workers and the bog owner Schmidt that the body was then properly recovered and documented by the museum's experts.
Location: 54 ° 27 ′ 5.4 ″  N , 9 ° 49 ′ 32.6 ″  E Coordinates: 54 ° 27 ′ 5.4 ″  N , 9 ° 49 ′ 32.6 ″  E

Findings

The bog body Windeby I with a replacement strip of fabric instead of the so-called "blindfold" found
Some bones of the skeleton on a photograph of the prepared find temporarily in the permanent exhibition in 2007

The Windeby child was lying on the right side, with its head pointing west, in a 1.5 m wide and 1.5 m deep pit in the moor. Above the eyes was a chipped ribbon of wool knotted around the head . Both legs were slightly bent, the left arm was slightly bent and the hand was on the left hip region. The right arm was bent more and the hand was in front of his face. The child was bedded on a layer of heather and covered with cotton grass. The child's upper body was dressed in a fur cloak . The remains of a ceramic vessel and clothing were found next to the body. After the salvage, the find recovered in the block was uncovered in the State Archaeological Museum in Schleswig and examined in detail. The skull was opened and the brain removed for examination and preservation . The bones were removed from the body and preserved separately. For the preparation of the find for the exhibition, the soft tissues and some bones were mounted on a base made of dried peat moss in order to reproduce the find situation. The investigation of further bog bodies found in the Domslandmoor in 1958 showed that peat had been cut here since the Iron Age.

Anthropological Findings

The body was largely, if not completely, preserved when it was excavated . The skin on the chest and stomach was extensively gone and the ribs of the chest were exposed. Internal organs could no longer be identified, nor could they be identified radiologically . The head hair was about 4 cm long on the right side, while it was only about 2 mm short on the left. Current parasitological examinations of the hair showed that it was free of head lice , which was unusual for the time . All the bones of the skeleton were severely decalcified. Radiologically, the bones were difficult to visualize due to the fur cloak being wrapped around the body. The child's head, on the other hand, was exceptionally well preserved from the moor. The brain, which was protected by the skull , was so well preserved that even the smallest twists and turns could be seen. The boy had a height cm of about 165th X-rays of a lower leg bone showed Harris lines , which indicate growth disorders due to seasonal malnutrition . Isotope analyzes during the reprocessing in 2005 showed that the boy ate meat remarkably seldom, at least in the last year of his life , with herbivores making up the majority of his animal food. On the other hand, sea animals such as fish or mussels were demonstrably not involved in his diet.

Sex determination

The original gender determination as female was mainly due to the delicate bone structure of the corpse and a wrong interpretation of the find ensemble. There were already doubts about this gender determination in the 1960s, but this did not prevail in the professional world and above all in the general public. In 2006 the Canadian anthropologist and coroner Heather Gill-Robinson was able to prove almost beyond doubt through DNA tests in the USA and Israel that it was a male corpse, although the problem of old DNA contaminated with recent DNA was not in this case either is negligible.

Cause of death

Interdisciplinary investigations did not reveal any evidence of a violent cause of death. Neither the soft tissues obtained, for example in the neck area, showed any traces of strangulation, nor was there any evidence of premortal violence on the preserved bones. The boy suffered from a severe jaw infection, which can be assumed to be the most likely cause of death.

Dating

The bog body was dated to the Iron Age through a pollen analysis . The period of death could be traced back to 41 BC by examining a bone sample from the thigh using the radiocarbon method . BC and AD 118 can be narrowed down more precisely. Further examined samples from the hair, the fur cloak found on the corpse and pieces of wood yielded much older dates, which, however, can be traced back to the intensive treatment of the finds with preservatives containing mineral oil.

interpretation

The supposed fig hand

There have been many speculations and theories about the circumstances of the death of Windeby's child, which have found their way into respected scientific papers. It was not least these speculations and theories that led to the fact that this bog corpse received worldwide attention and still enjoys great popularity.

Adulteress thesis

Researchers initially assumed that the bog corpse, initially regarded as female, would be executed . As clues they listed the unusual hairstyle, the supposed blindfold and the hand position in the so-called fig shape. This assumption was based on statements by the Roman writer Tacitus in Chapter 19 of his work Germania , according to which Germanic adulterers sometimes shaved their heads and drove them naked through the village with blows of their rods. Tacitus does not explicitly mention the punishment of adulteresses by immersion in swamps, this was derived from Chapter 12 on the sacrifice of male criminals, war-shy and deserters . The right hand of the corpse is said to have been stretched up when it was found and the thumb was stretched between the index and middle fingers. This symbolizes the fig hand , a gesture that has sexual expressiveness in the present. This gesture and the blindfold led to the assumption that the person, who was still considered a young woman at the time, was a wife who had been unfaithful to her husband and had been driven into the moor as a punishment. This theory was confirmed only a few days later by the discovery of a second, male bog corpse, the man from Windeby ( Windeby II ), as this was found only a few meters away. The spatial and assumed temporal proximity of both finds nourished the romantic theory of the executed adulteress and her lover for many decades . This popular theory persisted so persistently that many concerns raised early on received little attention. In 1979 the archaeologist Michael Fee edited all the documents relating to the find again and refuted the myth of the immoral "wrongdoer". Above all, it invalidated the evidence for the alleged moral misconduct of the moor girl . He proved that the fig hand in question of the alleged girl was deformed during storage after the excavation in 1952. The first photographs taken during the discovery show the hand in a relaxed position, with the thumb over the index finger. There are no references to the fig hand as an obscene gesture in the Iron Age, it only got an obscene meaning in the Middle Ages . The Sprangband, initially interpreted as a blindfold, is most likely just a slipped hairband, of which there are several archaeological comparative finds from the Iron Age.

The additional and final refutation of this theory of adulterous women was achieved with the genetic confirmation of the male sex of the alleged girl's corpse in 2005 as well as the latest 14 C dating, according to which the boy’s remains are about 300 years younger than those of the man.

Another clear indication against the popular execution thesis is the loving design of the grave with the bedding of the corpse on a layer of heather, the addition of a blanket of grass and the addition of clay dishes and clothing.

Varia

In 1983 Richard Helmer made a plastic facial reconstruction of the boy for the museum.

reception

The thesis of the executed adulteress with her lover was eagerly received, developed and disseminated not only by the daily press , but also by novelists and popular science authors. All previously suspected connections seemed so coherent and appropriate on the one hand and so exciting and fascinating on the other that doubts hardly seemed appropriate. But this theory has also been adopted in all scientific publications and is rarely questioned.

Scientific and popular science literature

The background of a punished or sacrificed wrongdoer meant that the find received worldwide attention. The interpretation was taken up and expanded by various authors. Menon suspected that the "girl" was strangled with his hair band, which was then tied over her eyes. However, there were no strangulation marks in the neck area. Miranda Aldhouse-Green suspected a belt in the cracked headband and in the Windeby girl a seer or prophet , whose eyes were closed with the supposed belt to banish her strength. As a belt, however, the band would have been far too short. She also suspected a drowning , but without giving any evidence. Since the lungs were not preserved, this theory cannot be confirmed either. Michael Parker Pearson suspected that the child had a socially high personality, but this contradicts the child's eleven periods of hunger and poor nutrition. The prophetic thesis spread by Aldhouse-Green and M. Williams cannot be archaeologically understood. The find was also the subject of numerous German and English-language popular science TV documentaries.

Popular culture

But the Windeby find also found its way into popular culture such as music. The Dutch jazz musician Chris Hinze wrote the soundtrack Virgin Sacrifice in 1972 , the record cover of which is adorned with a photo of the bog body find and on the back, in a few words, explained the background of the find and asked questions about it. In 1976 the Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney published his poem Punishment, about a drowned girl who was shorn and blindfolded for adultery and drowned with a noose around her neck. But Tony Dillon-Davis also addresses the Windeby child in his poem Windeby Girl . In 2003, the Australian children's author Pamela Rushby, inspired by the Girl from Windeby , published her novel Circles of Stone about the discovery of a girl named Ana in a Scottish moor. In her story, she used numerous aspects of the Windeby find, including a replica of the head of the bog body for the cover picture.

literature

  • Michael Fee : Moor corpses in Schleswig-Holstein . Ed .: Association for the Promotion of the Archaeological State Museum e. V., Gottorf Castle. Wachholtz, Neumünster 2002, ISBN 3-529-01870-8 .
  • Peter Vilhelm Glob : The sleepers in the moor . Winkler, Munich 1966 (Danish, original title: Mosefolket . Translated by Thyra Dohrenburg).
  • PB Diezel, Walter Hage, Herbert Jankuhn , E. Klenk, Ulrich Schaefer, Karl Schlabow , Rudolf Schütrumpf , Hugo Spatz : Two bog body finds from the Domlandsmoor . In: Praehistorische Zeitschrift . No. 36 . de Gruyter, 1958, ISSN  0079-4848 , p. 118-219 .

Web links

Commons : Moorleiche by Windeby I  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Heather Catherine Gill-Robinson: The iron age bog bodies of the Archaeologisches Landesmuseum, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig, Germany . Dissertation. University of Manitoba, Manitoba, Canada 2006, ISBN 978-0-494-12259-4 .
  2. ↑ PB Diezel et al. a .: Two bog body finds from the Domlandsmoor.
  3. ↑ PB Diezel et al. a .: Two bog body finds from the Domlandsmoor . S. 186, fig. 1 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Heather Gill-Robinson: Hidden in Plain Sight: The Story of the Windeby Child . In: Stefan Burmeister, Heidrun Derks, Jasper von Richthofen (eds.): Forty-two. Festschrift for Michael's 65th birthday fee . Leidorf, Rahden 2007, ISBN 978-3-89646-425-5 , p. 107-112 .
  5. ↑ Peter Caselitz: Aspects of nutrition in the Roman Empire, presented at the Windeby I . In: Institute for Pre- and Protohistory of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (Ed.): Offa. Reports and Communications on prehistory, early history, etc. Medieval archeology . tape 36 . Wachholtz, 1979, ISSN  0078-3714 , p. 108-115 .
  6. ↑ "The girl from Windeby" ... is a boy. In: Panorama. n-tv , May 18, 2006, accessed December 7, 2011 .
  7. ^ Heather Catherine Gill-Robinson: The iron age bog bodies of the Archaeologisches Landesmuseum, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig, Germany . Dissertation. University of Manitoba, Manitoba, Canada 2006, ISBN 978-0-494-12259-4 .
  8. ^ Michael Fee : Moor corpses in Schleswig-Holstein . S. 47 .
  9. ↑ 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]).
  10. ^ Herbert Jankuhn : Two bog body finds from the Domlandsmoor: 3. The two bog bodies from the Domlandsmoor . In: Praehistorische Zeitschrift . No. 36 . de Gruyter, 1958, ISSN  0079-4848 , p. 115-219 .
  11. ^ A b c d Michael Fee : The Windeby Children's Grave - An attempt at rehabilitation . In: Institute for Pre- and Protohistory of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (Ed.): Offa. Reports and Communications on prehistory, early history, etc. Medieval archeology . tape 36 . Wachholtz, 1979, ISSN  0078-3714 , p. 75-107 .
  12. ↑ PB Diezel et al. a .: Two bog body finds from the Domlandsmoor . S. 118-219 .
  13. ↑ Richard Helmer: The bog body from Windeby. Attempt of a plastic reconstruction of the soft tissues of the face on the skull . In: Institute for Pre- and Protohistory of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (Ed.): Offa. Reports and Communications on prehistory, early history, etc. Medieval archeology . tape 40 . Wachholtz, 1983, ISSN  0078-3714 , p. 345-352 .
  14. ^ S. Menon: The people of the bog . In: Discover . No. 18/8 , 1997, pp. 60-67 .
  15. ↑ Miranda Aldhouse Green: Dying for the Gods. Human Sacrifice in Iron Age and Roman Empire . Stroud, Tempus 2001, ISBN 0-7524-1940-4 , pp. 117, 120, 194 .
  16. ↑ Michael Parker Pearson : The Archeology of Death and Burial . Stroud, Sutton 2003, pp. 71 .
  17. ^ M. Williams: Tales from the dead: Remembering the bog bodies in the Iron Age of North-Western Europe . In: Howard Williams (Ed.): Archaeologies of Remembrance: Death and Memory in Past Societies . Kluwer Academic, New York 2003, ISBN 0-306-47451-4 , pp. 80-112 .
  18. ^ Seamus Heaney : North . Faber and Faber, London 1976, ISBN 0-571-10564-5 .
  19. ↑ Pamela Rushby: Circles of Stone . Angus & Robertson, Sydney 2003, ISBN 0-207-19908-6 .
personal data
SURNAME Bog body from Windeby I
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Child of Windeby; Boy from Windeby; Girl from Windeby (formerly)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bog corpse
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century
DATE OF DEATH between 41 and 118
Place of death at Windeby