Man of New Verses

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Mann von Neu Versen, exhibited in the Lower Saxony State Museum

The man from New verses , even Red Franz called, is a Iron Age bog body , the 1900 north of New verses at Meppen in Emsland in Bourtanger Moor was found. It is Lower Saxony's most famous bog body and a magnet for visitors in the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover .

Find history

The man from Neu Versen was discovered by Bernard Herbers from Versen on June 8, 1900 , who, together with his ten-year-old sister Anna Helena, prepared the peat cutting for his parents. The site was in Bourtanger Moor , about 20 minutes' walk north of the last houses in Neu Versen. While removing the unusable top layer of bog, he encountered an obstacle with his spade. Assuming it was a root, he pushed the spade several times and then continued digging by hand. When he saw human remains at a depth of about 50 cm, he withdrew in horror. According to an entry in the Wesuw church register , the still relatively well-preserved corpse was recovered, placed in a coffin and buried on unconsecrated ground on June 12 on the forecourt by the northern wall of the cemetery . Conservator Reimers from the Provincial Museum in Hanover learned about this find from the Groß Fullener Forstrat Quaet-Faslem . In a letter dated June 17, he asked the Groß Fullener Moorvogt Barjenbruch to transfer the entire moor body as soon as possible, as it was very important for antiquity research. Since Reimers received no answer from Barjenbuch after a long time and feared the preservation of the bog body, he wrote a letter to the Többen medical council on October 23. The bog body finally arrived at the museum on November 16, 1900, five months after its discovery. In his accompanying letter, Többen reported that there were difficulties in obtaining possession of the bog body and asked for reimbursement of his expenses of 11 marks .
Location: 52 ° 43 ′ 4.2 ″  N , 7 ° 9 ′ 5.1 ″  E Coordinates: 52 ° 43 ′ 4.2 ″  N , 7 ° 9 ′ 5.1 ″  E

About a year after the find, a piece of green cloth was found just four meters away in 1901, which, according to the mayor, was the size of a rolled up horse blanket. But since the piece of cloth had fallen into disrepair and was not considered important, it was immediately thrown away again.

Mix-ups

In 1909, Hans Hahne attempted to reconstruct the history of the bog body for his first publication of the find. Like some subsequent authors, he was mistaken for the history of the bog bodies from Landegge because of unclear information from the governors and medical officers as well as some notes lost in files. This was found on June 6, 1861 by Joh. Gerhard Klene from Meppen and, after an examination of the corpses, was reburied by the Altharen magistrate Münch. Even when asked by the finders, bailiffs and medical officers involved, Hahne was unable to precisely determine the history of the find for the first publication of the bog body. Peter Pieper researched further inconsistencies after he asked Hermann Herbers, the son of the finder of the "Red Franz" Bernhard Herbers. He reported that the then city bailiff Klene (named after the person who found the bog body from Landegge) had the bog body from Neu Versen transferred to the Provincial Museum. However, Sabine Eisenbeiß was able to resolve many of these inconsistencies in 2001 when the files on the bog bodies in the museum were reworked.

Whereabouts

The under inventory no. Mann von Neu Versen, run in 17351, quickly became one of the visitor magnets of the Lower Saxony State Museum due to his popularity and his nickname “Roter Franz” . Since arriving at the Provincial Museum in Hanover at that time, the bog body has been examined again and again using the methods available in each case. This last happened in the years 2000 to 2002 in the run-up to the touring exhibition Der Tempel im Moor , in which numerous finds from northern European moors were shown internationally. For this exhibition, a facial reconstruction of the man was made on the basis of the radiological findings . This was shown together with its remains from 2002 to 2005 in the forum of the Lower Saxony State Museum and later in the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull ( Gatineau , Quebec ), in the Glenbow Museum in Calgary and in the Drents Museum in Assen . Since then, “Rote Franz” has been in the care of the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover.

Findings

The bog body from Neu Versen was apparently found unclothed in the transition layer from white and black peat at a depth of about 50 cm. She was lying on her back, facing west-east, with her head facing west and face up. During the discovery and recovery process, the body was damaged by a spade in the legs, with the long bones in particular suffering numerous smooth cuts. According to the finders, the skin of the corpse was almost completely intact when it was discovered and was black-brown in color. Now larger parts are missing, especially in the lower body region. The skin obtained has a tough, leather-like structure and is also brown to black in color.

Neither clothing nor equipment was documented on the body. It can no longer be clarified whether the piece of material found in 1901 four meters away from the corpse and immediately disposed of is directly related to the discovery of the man from Neu Versen. However, it cannot be confirmed whether the man reached the moor naked, as any linen fabric clothing that might have been there in the acid moor environment could have passed.

Medical findings

Graphic representation of the man from Neu Versen in the find position. The straight lines mark the injuries caused by the peat spade

According to the latest forensic medical examinations, the corpse is about 25–32 years old and healthy. The sex determination as male could be confirmed beyond doubt by the clear growth of the beard, existing remains of the scrotum flap as well as the pelvic and skull features. The corpse, which was 165 cm long when it was found, has shrunk to 146 cm as a result of the drying process. During his lifetime, the man from Neu Versen was 180 to 185 centimeters tall, which was above average for his time. Except for the damage caused by the rescue, his skeleton shows no osteoarthritis or other changes due to illness or malnutrition. Only one lumbar vertebra (LW 2) has a small osteophyte , which, however, was not pathological and did not cause any impairment during life. Both thigh heads show clear rider facets , which, in connection with the correspondingly well developed muscle attachment marks of the anterior thigh muscles, suggest that the man from Neu Versen rode for a long time of his life . His right collarbone has a healed fracture that is believed to be related to a lesion in his right shoulder joint discovered in 2002 . The man probably suffered these injuries from a spear or arrow hit and a subsequent fall from his horse. However, both injuries had healed relatively well, but possibly resulted in a slightly bent shoulder position. His well-formed dentition is complete, free of caries and periodontal disease and shows no changes as a result of damage or wear. Due to the long storage in the acidic moor environment, the teeth are decalcified, appear significantly smaller and the dentin layers have taken on a brown to black color. Some teeth fell out post mortem and were partially reinserted into the dentition in the wrong place during previous workings. White organ remains were found in the lower upper body, which were identified as the liver due to their shape and location . Both ears were missing when the body was found, which has led to discussions in the past as to whether they were cut off from the man before his death . Most likely, the lack of it is due to animal consumption immediately after death, even before the body was completely enclosed by the moor.

hairstyle

Due to the special preservation conditions for organic material in the peatland , the soft parts and skin of the head and trunk of the peat corpse have been partially preserved, and the chin, lips and whiskers as well as head and pubic hair are still present. His hair was wavy to slightly curly and was discolored to a reddish brown due to the long storage in the bog water, which earned him the nickname "Red Franz" . The original hair color is assumed to be blonde or red due to the dark cords of the hair that are visible under the microscope. The man from Neu Versen wore the approximately 18 to 20 cm long hair on the top of his head combed to a middle part, whereas it was shortened to about 11 cm in the forehead and temple area. He had shaved the hair on the sides and neck evenly to 7.5 mm up to the level of the hair swivel, in what is now known as an undercut hairstyle. On his forehead there is an incipient, slight hairline. His thick beard and cheekbones were shortened to seven to eight millimeters with a sharp blade, and his mustache was trimmed on the sides to a length of 15 mm and significantly shorter in the middle.

Cause of death

An incision on the left side of the neck with a corresponding minor skin injury above the left collarbone indicates that the man was killed by a neck cut which, according to the doctors and coroners, injured larger blood vessels in the neck. This results in two possible scenarios:

  1. The man from Neu Versen was killed as a Germanic human sacrifice with a cut through the throat and then sunk in the moor . The location of the corpse would be unusual, at least for a human sacrifice. Human sacrifices were mostly, such as B. the Tollund man , carefully laid down on the moor as if they were sleeping. However, the man from Neu Versen was lying face up, neck bent back and legs drawn up and turned to the right.
  2. This bog body could be the victim of a robbery . The deformation of the thigh bones suggests many years of activity as a rider , while the healed injuries indicate acts of war. Thus the "Red Franz" could also have been a Germanic cavalryman who was in the service of a Roman auxilia . Such a man would have possessed valuable weapons and probably elaborate clothing in addition to a horse and could therefore have been a worthwhile target for an attack. This theory is supported by the distribution of the individual types of pollen on the corpse, analyzed by Hayen in 1957, which indicates that the man was not sunk or buried in a damp bog, but was hastily deposited in a ditch in the bog, in which he still has some Time was open before he was finally enclosed by the moor. This may also be a cause of the poor condition of the lower half of the body and the lack of both ears. The stool-like posture of the dead man suggests a possible shackling with ropes made of plant material that have passed in the bog.

Dating

According to archaeobotanists , the situation in the transition from black to white peat observed by the finders at the beginning of the 20th century indicates a date in the first centuries after Christ. The pollen analysis of peat samples from the corpse and the site of the discovery carried out in the 1930s revealed a time of death between 1 and 200 AD. A 14 C dating from 1995 of some scalp hair from the estate of Alfred Dieck , a possibly uncertain source, was able to narrow down the time of death to the 2nd half of the 3rd century . However, this dating could be confirmed by a more recent 14 C-AMS analysis in the period between 135 and 385 AD.

See also

literature

  • Provinciaal Museum van Drenthe / Lower Saxony State Museum (Hrsg.): The temple in the moor . Catalog for the international traveling exhibition Der Tempel im Moor . Waanders, Zwolle 2002, ISBN 90-400-9665-1 .
  • 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. 81, 97, 128, 141 (Dutch, original title: Vereeuwigd in het veen . Translated by Henning Stilke).
  • Peter Pieper: The bog body from Neu Versen, called "Roter Franz", in the State Museum in Hanover. Anthropological-medical findings . In: Lower Saxony State Association for Prehistory (Ed.): The customer NF No. 52 , 2001, ISSN  0342-0736 , p. 99-110 .
  • Franz-Josef Böckermann: The "Red Franz" from Neuversen - a bog body awakens to new life . In: Emsland History / Study Society for Emsland Regional History . tape 10 . Studienges. for Emsland regional history, 2003, ISSN  0947-8582 , p. 10-31 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franz-Josef Böckermann: The "Red Franz" from Neuversen - a bog body awakens to new life . In: Emsland history . tape 10 , 2003, ISSN  0947-8582 , p. 30 .
  2. ↑ Sabine Eisenbeiß: The bog body from New Verses . In: Lower Saxony State Association for Prehistory (Ed.): The customer NF No. 52 , 2001, ISSN  0342-0736 , p. 89-98 .
  3. ↑ Franz-Josef Böckermann: The "Red Franz" from Neuversen - a bog body awakens to new life . In: Emsland history . tape 10 , 2003, ISSN  0947-8582 , p. 10-31 .
  4. ↑ Falk Georges Bechara: Histological, electron microscopic, immunohistological and IR spectroscopic investigations on the skin of 2000 year old bog corpses . Dissertation. Ruhr University, Bochum 2001 ( ruhr-uni-bochum.de [PDF; accessed on October 20, 2009]).
  5. ↑ Peter Pieper: The bog body from Neu Versen, called "Roter Franz", in the Hanover State Museum . In: Lower Saxony State Association for Prehistory (Ed.): The customer NF No. 52 , 2001, ISSN  0342-0736 , p. 99-109 .
  6. ^ Henning Haßmann, Hans Dieter Tröger: New forensic investigation of the "Red Franz" . In: Lower Saxony State Association for Prehistory (Ed.): The customer NF No. 52 , 2001, ISSN  0342-0736 , p. 111 .
  7. ^ Wijnand van der Sanden : C14 dating of bog bodies from Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein . In: Lower Saxony State Association for Prehistory (Ed.): The customer NF No. 46 , 1995, ISSN  0342-0736 , pp. 137-155 .
  8. ↑ 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]).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Man of New Verses
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Red Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bog corpse
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd century
DATE OF DEATH 3rd century
Place of death at verses (Meppen)