The Bog People

On May 8, 1950 two men were cutting peat at Tollund Fen in Denmark when they were horrified to see a human face protruding from the peat. What they had first assumed to be the buried remains of a murder victim turned out to be of quite a difference significance and the local police sent for archaeologist Peter Glob. The body, which became known as the Tollund Man, was lying naked except for a leather cap and belt, with his legs drawn up in the fetal position. His eyes were closed and his lips pursed as though in peaceful prayer or meditation. That tranquillity was shattered when the peat around his neck was removed, and the rope by which he was hanged about 2000 years ago was discovered.
The Tollund man owes his survival to the special properties of the peat bog. In most soils the fleshy parts of the body quickly decay leaving only the bones of the dead individual; but in peaty conditions it sometimes happens that the flesh and skin are preserved while, ironically, the bones of such bodies often become spongy or decay altogether. The Tollund man was not the only ancient body to be recovered from a bog. Hundreds of 'bog people' have been discovered by local peat cutters decades or centuries ago, and the bodies have been lost or reburied. But modern scientific techniques can yield important evidence about the lives and deaths of these people from the past.
Most of the bog people we know about died violent deaths, often from strangulation (hanging or garroting), blows to the head, or stabbing (and sometimes more than one of these). It is possible that they were being punished for a crime, but there is some evidence to suggest that their deaths were ritual sacrifices.