Tollund Man – A Bog Body From The Iron Age

Tollund Man was a bog body that was found on May 8, 1950, eleven miles away from Grauballe, Denmark. He was found in the evening of a spring day in the bog Bjaeldskovdal, 8 or 9 feet below the surface, in the village of Tollund Fen. Tollund Man was found by two men who were cutting blocks of peat to use for fuel. When they found that body they notified the police because they thought that they had found a murder victim. The men thought he was a murder victim because of how fresh he looked. When the police arrived at the site, representatives from a local museum accompanied them. When Tollund Man was found his body looked to be arranged with respect and all signs of violence were erased from him. His eyes were closed and he looked as if he was asleep. Tollund Man was laying on his right side with his head facing to the west, his legs facing east, and his face to the south. He was clean shaved, completely naked except for a smooth hid belt and pointed skin cap that was secured under his chin. Tollund Man’s hair was very short.

The excavation of Tollund Man was led by Peter Nielsen and H. Hansen, who were from the Silkeborg Museum. These men were museum curators, and the people who did the excavation were one of their teams. Before they began the excavation Professor P. V. Glob examined the body. The body of Tollund Man was to go to the National Museum in Copenhagen immediately after he was removed from the bog; this museum was far away. The team doing the excavation got planks form a local saw mill to build a box to transport him to the museum in. The box was built in the bog around Tollund Man and the peat he was surrounded by. When the team got the body and peat into the box it weighed almost a ton. The team of men lifted the box from the bottom of the bog up 10 feet to get the box onto a horse-drawn carriage. The carriage brought Tollund Man to a railroad station located in Engesvang. The transportation to the museum on the railroad to a week. In the process of moving Tollund Man from the bog to the museum one of the men who was helping with the excavation died of a heart attack while moving the box.

The first examination of Tollund Man happened at the National Museum in Copenhagen laboratory. The head of the laboratory who was in charge of the examination was Dr. Knud Thorvildsen. The first thing that was examined was the block of peat that surround Tollund Man. The block of peat revealed that he was from the early Iron Age, which meant he was from over 2000 years ago. The peat underneath Tollund Man contained sphagnum moss, which was formed during the early Iron Age. The bog preserved Tollund Man very well, in fact his head is the best preserved human head in the world. The left part of his skin on his chest was partially decomposed as well as the skin on his left shoulder. Tollund Man’s left hip bone was sticking out of his skin, and his stomach was in folds. His sexual organs were preserved very well. The autopsy that was done revealed that his heart, lungs, and liver were all well preserved. It also revealed that Tollund Man’s brain was still intact, but it had shrunken some. His right thumb was in good enough condition that it was able to be fingerprinted. Tollund Man’s alimentary canal was well preserved, and Dr. Hans Helbaek removed his alimentary canal. An examination of Tollund Man’s teeth was also done, which showed that his wisdom teeth had grown in and that he was in his 20s when he died. The Tollund Man died from being hung by a rope, although the vertebrae in his neck weren’t damaged. It is known that he was hung because of how the rope was positioned around his neck. Archaeologists and scientists think that Tollund Man died because he was sacrificed, because he was cut down after he was hung, someone closed his eyes, and placed him into the bog in a sleeping position. Before Tollund Man died, he was in his 20s. He was a well groomed man and had soft hands. He died in the winter.

The last meal that Tollund Man ate was eaten between 12 and 24 hours before he died, which known because of the state of the contents in his stomach. What he ate for his last meal was found out by Dr. Hans Helback, Dr. Bjovulf Vimtrop, and Dr. Kay Schaurup. For his last meal Tollund Man ate grains, seeds, knotweed (pale persicaria), blue and green bristle-grass, dock, black bindweed, camomile, gold-of-pleasure, bog mosses, and sand grains. There was no meat eaten in his last meal. A lot of the plants that Tollund Man ate were part of a normal diet in the early Iron Age.