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Tollund Man

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Tollund Man
The Tollund Man's preserved head
Bornc. 445–420 BC
Diedc. 405–384 BC (aged ~40)
present-day Tollund, Denmark
Cause of death
Hanging (presumably ritual sacrifice or execution)
Body discovered
May 8, 1950; 76 years ago (1950-05-08)
Silkeborg, Denmark
56°9′52″N 9°23′34″E / 56.16444°N 9.39278°E / 56.16444; 9.39278
Height161 cm (5 ft 3 in)

The Tollund Man (died 405–384 BC) is a naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 5th century BC, during the period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age.[1] He was found in 1950, preserved as a bog body near Silkeborg on the Jutland peninsula in Denmark.[2] The man's physical features were so well preserved that he was mistaken for a recent murder victim.[3] Twelve years before his discovery, another bog body, Elling Woman, was found in the same bog.[4]

The cause of death has been determined to be by hanging. There is insufficient evidence to determine if the reason for the killing was a ritual sacrifice or a punitive execution.[5][6]

Discovery

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On 8 May 1950, Tollund Man was discovered in the peat layer of the Bjældskovdal peat bog, 12 km (7.5 mi) west of Silkeborg, Denmark, by peat cutters Viggo and Emil Hojgaard after Viggo's wife, Grethe Hojgaard, noticed his body in a peat pit.[3][7] His remains were so well preserved that the family believed they had discovered the victim of a recent murder, and the police were called.[3][2]

After determining that the remains were archaeological rather than forensic, the police consulted archaeologist Peter Vilhelm Glob of Aarhus University, who estimated that Tollund Man was approximately 2,000 years old.[3][2] He was enclosed within a block of surrounding peat before being transported by horse cart and railway to the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.[3] There, conservator Knud Thorvildsen, who had previously recovered the Borremose bodies, excavated Tollund Man from the peat for examination.[3]

Tollund Man lay 60 m (200 ft) from firm ground, buried beneath 2.3 m (7 ft 7 in) of peat, with his body arranged in a fetal position.[7]

Clothing and associated items

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He wore a pointed skin cap of sheepskin and wool, fastened beneath his chin by a hide thong, and a smooth hide belt around his waist. A noose made of plaited animal hide was drawn tightly around his neck and trailed down his back. Other than these items, Tollund Man was naked.[2][8]

Condition

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When Tollund Man was discovered on 8 May 1950, his body was so well preserved that the peat cutters believed they had found the victim of a recent murder.[3][2] More than two millennia after his death, his eyes and mouth remained gently closed, while his facial skin, wrinkles, eyelashes and short beard stubble were still intact, giving him a remarkably lifelike appearance. His hair had been cropped so short that it was almost entirely concealed beneath his cap, while approximately 1 mm (0.039 in) of beard growth suggested that he had not shaved on the day of his death.[9][2]

Although the acidic, oxygen-poor environment of the bog had dissolved much of his skeleton, it preserved many of his soft tissues and several internal organs, including his heart, lungs and liver.[8][2]

Scientific study

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Initial examination

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On 31 May 1950, about three weeks after his discovery, Tollund Man was taken to Bispebjerg Hospital in Copenhagen for medical examination by physicians Christian Bastrup and Bjovulf Vimtrup.[10] X-rays showed that his brain remained recognisable although it had shrunk during preservation in the bog, while the vertebrae of his neck showed no fractures.[10][1]

The physicians also examined Tollund Man's internal organs. Although pressure from the surrounding peat had flattened many of the tissues, his heart, lungs, liver and digestive tract remained sufficiently well preserved for examination. Samples of the digestive contents were retained for future study.[10][11]

Tollund Man's preserved height was recorded as 1.61 metres (5 feet 3 inches), although shrinkage in the bog means that he may have been slightly taller in life.[9][2] Both feet and the right thumb were placed in formalin after the examination. Twenty-six years later, in 1976, the Danish police recorded a usable fingerprint from the preserved thumb, making it one of the oldest fingerprints obtained from human remains.[12]

Dating

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Radiocarbon dating placed Tollund Man's death between 405 and 380 BCE, during the Pre-Roman Iron Age in Scandinavia.[13][2] His age at death has been estimated at approximately 40 years.[14][2]

Mobility and geographic origin

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Researchers used strontium isotope analysis to investigate Tollund Man's movements during the final year of his life. Samples were taken from his femur, which preserved a longer-term chemical record, and from his short hair, which recorded only the final months before his death. Because his hair had been cut shortly before he died, the analysis covered approximately the last year of his life.[15]

The strontium isotope ratios differed only slightly between the hair and femur samples, indicating that Tollund Man remained within the region of present-day Denmark during his final year. The results also suggested that he travelled at least 32 kilometres (20 miles) during the final six months before his death.[15]

Last meal

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Tollund Man's remains shortly after his discovery in 1950

During the initial post-mortem examination, physicians examined the contents of Tollund Man's stomach and intestines. From the stage of digestion, they concluded that he had eaten approximately 12 to 24 hours before his death.[11][16]

More than 70 years later, in 2021, researchers re-examined the preserved samples using analyses of plant remains, pollen, other microscopic remains, steroid biomarkers and proteins.[16] They concluded that Tollund Man's final meal was a thick porridge made principally from six-rowed barley, pale persicaria seeds and flax, together with smaller quantities of other cultivated and wild plants. Protein analysis also indicated that fish formed part of the meal.[16][11]

The preserved digestive contents contained remains from approximately 40 identifiable plant species. Although barley formed the principal ingredient, researchers also identified small quantities of corn spurrey, false flax, knotgrass and several plants associated with wetland environments.[16]

The meal also contained weed seeds, grains of sand and other threshing waste that would normally have been removed during the final cleaning of harvested barley. Similar material has been identified in the digestive tracts of other bog bodies, but the researchers could not determine whether its presence reflected deliberate ritual practice, ordinary food preparation or accidental contamination.[16]

The 2021 examination also identified eggs associated with whipworm, tapeworm and Ascaris, showing that Tollund Man carried intestinal parasites at the time of his death.[16] Together with the stage of digestion recorded during the initial examination, the findings supported the conclusion that he had eaten his final meal approximately 12 to 24 hours before his death.[11][16]

Cause of death

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Tollund Man died by hanging between 405 and 380 BCE.[17][2] When his body was discovered on 8 May 1950, a plaited hide noose remained tightly fastened around his neck, leaving deep furrows beneath his chin and along the sides of his neck.[3][2] An autopsy conducted later that year concluded that he had been hanged rather than strangled. More than 50 years later, a forensic re-examination, including CT scanning, reached the same conclusion. Although the bones of his neck remained intact, the scans showed that his tongue was distended, a finding consistent with death by hanging.[1][2][15]

Archaeologists continue to debate why Tollund Man was killed.[5][6][15] Some scholars argue that he died as part of a ritual sacrifice, citing the careful arrangement of his body, his closed eyes and mouth, and the contents of his last meal.[5][16][15] Others interpret his death as a judicial execution, noting that the Roman historian Tacitus described Germanic tribes burying traitors beneath piles of sticks.[5][6] No direct archaeological evidence identifies why he was killed, and more than two millennia after his death, the available evidence has not allowed either interpretation to be confirmed conclusively.[5][6][15]

Preservation and display

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The Tollund Man on display at Silkeborg Museum

When the body was first lifted from the peat in 1950, experts quickly realized that saving it would be difficult. Bog water keeps soft tissues stable, but once the body meets open air, the moisture begins to evaporate and the remains can shrink or fall apart.[18][19][20]

At the time, conservation science was still developing new ways to protect waterlogged organic material. Earlier attempts had sometimes done more harm than good. In the nineteenth century, for example, conservators tried preserving bog finds by smoking them like meat. Although this slowed decay, it also caused heavy shrinkage and erased many fine details.[18][19][20]

The Tollund Man offered researchers a rare opportunity. While much of the body had already begun to deteriorate by the time it was found, the head was still in exceptionally good condition. Its features were clear enough to allow a detailed study, and conservators decided to focus their efforts on saving this part of the remains and the rest of the body remain unpreserved.[18][20][19]

They developed a new preservation method step by step. First, the head was placed into a series of carefully prepared liquid baths. These baths gradually replaced the natural water in the tissues with stabilising solutions. Afterward, the head was lowered into warm beeswax. As the wax cooled, it soaked into the cells and strengthened them from within. When the conservators lifted the head from the wax and wiped it clean, the features were still intact. The experiment had worked.[18][20]

Subsequently, the body was desiccated and the tissue disappeared. In 1987, the Silkeborg Museum reconstructed the body using the skeletal remains as a base. As displayed today, the original head is attached to a replica of the body.[8][19]

Exhibition

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Tollund Man is displayed at the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark, where it forms part of the museum's exhibition on bog finds.

Other bodies

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In Denmark, more than 500 bog bodies and skeletal remains dating to the Iron Age have been recovered.[21] Specimens from Jutland include the relatively well-preserved Borremose bodies, Huldremose Woman, and Grauballe Man, on display at Moesgaard Museum near Aarhus, and the similarly-conserved Haraldskær Woman. Approximately 30 of these bog bodies are housed and/or displayed in Danish museums for continued research.[21]

[edit]

Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney wrote a series of poems inspired by P. V. Glob's study of the mummified Iron Age bodies found in Jutland's peat bogs, finding contemporary political relevance in the relics of the ritualistic killings.[22] Heaney's poem "The Tollund Man", published in his Wintering Out collection, compares the ritual sacrifice to those who died in the sectarian violence of "the Troubles".[22] Heaney wrote an excerpt from the poem in the Tollund Man exhibit's guest book in 1973.[23]

British author Margaret Drabble, in her 1989 novel A Natural Curiosity, uses her characters' obsession with the Tollund Man to provide a satirical criticism of Margaret Thatcher's modern England.[24][25]

Tollund Man is featured in several songs: "Tollund Man" (1995) by the American folk band The Mountain Goats and "Curse of the Tollund Man" (2004) by the English rock band The Darkness.

Tollund Man was mentioned in the episode "Mummy in the Maze" of the American television series Bones[26] and was also mentioned in the 2016 film Sacrifice in which a bog body was found in the Shetland Islands.[27]

He is the subject of the novel Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson in which the main characters bond through a shared fascination with the Tollund Man.[28]

See also

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Citations

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  1. 1 2 3 Lewis, Susan K. (2006). "Tollund Man". Public Broadcasting System. Archived from the original on 18 November 2020. Retrieved 22 September 2007.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Glob, P. (2004). The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved. New York: New York Review of Books. p. 304. ISBN 978-1-59017-090-8.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Silkeborg Public Library; Silkeborg Museum (2004). "A Body Appears". The Tollund Man – A Face from Prehistoric Denmark. Silkeborg Public Library. Archived from the original on 9 December 2013. Retrieved 22 September 2007.
  4. ↑ "Violence in the Bogs" , Archaeological Institute of America
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Green, Miranda (1998). "Humans as Ritual Victims in the Later Prehistory of Western Europe". Oxford Journal of Archaeology. 17 (2): 162–189. doi:10.1111/1468-0092.00057.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Why did Tollund Man have to die?". Museum Silkeborg.
  7. 1 2 "The discovery of Tollund Man". Museum Silkeborg. Archived from the original on 28 November 2020. Retrieved 16 February 2021.
  8. 1 2 3 Silkeborg Public Library; Silkeborg Museum (2004). "Preservation of the Tollund Man". The Tollund Man – A Face from Prehistoric Denmark. Silkeborg Public Library. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 22 September 2007.
  9. 1 2 Silkeborg Public Library; Silkeborg Museum (2004). "The Tollund Man: Hair and beard". Silkeborg Public Library. Archived from the original on 1 May 2012. Retrieved 10 October 2009.
  10. 1 2 3 "Medical examinations of the body". Museum Silkeborg. Retrieved 3 August 2026.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Silkeborg Museum, The Last Meal Archived 30 April 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Silkeborg Museum and Amtscentret for Undervisning, Silkeborg Public Library, 2004.
  12. ↑ Silkeborg Public Library; Silkeborg Museum (2004). "Finger-Prints". The Tollund Man – A Face from Prehistoric Denmark. Silkeborg Public Library. Archived from the original on 23 September 2007. Retrieved 22 September 2007.
  13. ↑ Van der Plicht, J.; Van der Sanden, W. A. B.; Aerts, A. T.; Streurman, H. J. (1 April 2004). "Dating bog bodies by means of 14C-AMS". Journal of Archaeological Science. 31 (4): 471–491. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2003.09.012. hdl:11370/97437be8-497d-4a7a-8a3b-4763de94f665.
  14. ↑ "The Tollund Man's Appearance". Silkeborg Museum.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Levine, Joshua (May 2017). "Europe's Famed Bog Bodies Are Starting to Reveal Their Secrets". Smithsonian.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Nielsen, Nina H.; Henriksen, Peter Steen; Mortensen, Morten Fischer; Enevold, Renée; Mortensen, Martin N.; Scavenius, Carsten; Enghild, Jan J. (2021). "The last meal of Tollund Man: new analyses of his gut content". Antiquity. 95 (383): 1195–1212. doi:10.15184/aqy.2021.98.
  17. ↑ "Dating bog bodies by means of 14C-AMS". Journal of Archaeological Science. 31 (4): 471–491. 1 April 2004. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2003.09.012. hdl:11370/97437be8-497d-4a7a-8a3b-4763de94f665.
  18. 1 2 3 4 Kelly, D. B. (14 February 2021). "The Crazy History Of Bog Bodies". Grunge. Retrieved 21 February 2026.
  19. 1 2 3 4 Levine, Joshua (May 2017). "Europe's Famed Bog Bodies Are Starting to Reveal Their Secrets". Smithsonian.
  20. 1 2 3 4 Kluger, Jeffrey (31 July 2014). "What the Bog Man Tells Us". Time.
  21. 1 2 Dell'Amore, Christine (18 July 2014). "Who Were the Ancient Bog Mummies? Surprising New Clues". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 18 November 2020. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  22. 1 2 O'Donoghue, Bernard (2009). The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney. Cambridge University Press. pp. 194–196. ISBN 978-0-521-83882-5.
  23. ↑ "The Nobel Prize Winner's Poem about the Tollund Man". The Tollund Man. Silkeborg Public Library. 2004. Archived from the original on 20 February 2016. Retrieved 20 November 2015.
  24. ↑ Boxer, Sarah (2 June 1991). "A New Literary Hero: The Limp, Silent Type". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 5 October 2017. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
  25. ↑ Sanders, Karin (2009). Bodies in the Bog and the Archaeological Imagination. University of Chicago Press. pp. 254–55. ISBN 978-0-226-73404-0.
  26. ↑ Williams, Scott. "Mummy in the Maze". Bones. Dir. Marita Grabiak. Fox. 30 Oct. 2007. Web. 15 Nov. 2016.
  27. ↑ Dillard, Clayton (25 April 2016). "Review: Sacrifice". slantmagazine.com. Slant Magazine.
  28. ↑ McAlpin, Heller (7 August 2018). "Bonding Over Bog Bodies In 'Meet Me At The Museum'". npr.org. National Public Radio.

General sources

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Further reading

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