Grauballe Man Essay
Grauballe Man
Grauballe Man was recovered in a small peat bog of Nebelgård Mose in the central of Jutland, Denmark on April, 1952, being one of the best preserved bog body. We can see how his importance to the historical understanding of how he once lived and died through the discoveries of the remains left with him at his death.
The body of now named Grauballe Man was discovered in 1952 when peat cutters was digging for fuel in a bog located near the village of Jutland. The body was found after 2 years upon Tollund Man in a neighbouring bog. There were debates on whether Grauballe was a local peat cutter, Red Christian that disappeared in 1887 near the same area. One source states “Red Christian was supposedly fond of alcohol and people assumed he fell into a bog and drowned because two drunken Cheshire men at Lindow moss in 1853 suffered the same fate.” Researchers of Carbon 14 dating realized that Grauballe Man died around 310 BC. The fact that he was found tells us the importance of our historical understanding that he wasn’t found just anywhere, he was discovered in the same area but a different location of the bog, which says he must have been a sacrifice or else why would so many bodies be excavated from a place within another.
Grauballe Man’s body was so well remained, his hair about 5cm long and fingernails were seen while excavating. That is the body was at no harm only of the weight of the peat causing his leg to break while the area of the neck “found of a large wound stretching from ear to ear, the cut lies up high at the throat, edging of smooth several cuts” states a professor of forensic medicine at Aarhus University and also examining his hands “fingerprints perfectly showed no sign of hard manual labour”. These sources were put into autopsy of radioactive-carbon says he must have been in the middle class, from the signs of his hands of no hardship and his wound was so severe that this could not be self-inflicted indicating it as not a
Grauballe Man was recovered in a small peat bog of Nebelgård Mose in the central of Jutland, Denmark on April, 1952, being one of the best preserved bog body. We can see how his importance to the historical understanding of how he once lived and died through the discoveries of the remains left with him at his death.
The body of now named Grauballe Man was discovered in 1952 when peat cutters was digging for fuel in a bog located near the village of Jutland. The body was found after 2 years upon Tollund Man in a neighbouring bog. There were debates on whether Grauballe was a local peat cutter, Red Christian that disappeared in 1887 near the same area. One source states “Red Christian was supposedly fond of alcohol and people assumed he fell into a bog and drowned because two drunken Cheshire men at Lindow moss in 1853 suffered the same fate.” Researchers of Carbon 14 dating realized that Grauballe Man died around 310 BC. The fact that he was found tells us the importance of our historical understanding that he wasn’t found just anywhere, he was discovered in the same area but a different location of the bog, which says he must have been a sacrifice or else why would so many bodies be excavated from a place within another.
Grauballe Man’s body was so well remained, his hair about 5cm long and fingernails were seen while excavating. That is the body was at no harm only of the weight of the peat causing his leg to break while the area of the neck “found of a large wound stretching from ear to ear, the cut lies up high at the throat, edging of smooth several cuts” states a professor of forensic medicine at Aarhus University and also examining his hands “fingerprints perfectly showed no sign of hard manual labour”. These sources were put into autopsy of radioactive-carbon says he must have been in the middle class, from the signs of his hands of no hardship and his wound was so severe that this could not be self-inflicted indicating it as not a
Bibliography: 2. Natalie Jane Prior (1994). Bog Bodies: mummies and curious corpses. New South Wales: Allen & Unwin. p12, 15. 3. Christopher Sloan (2010). Mummies: Dried, Tanned, Sealed, Drained, Frozen, Embalmed, Stuffed, Wrapped, and Smoked...and We 're Dead Serious. Washington DC: National Geographic Children 's Books. p27. 4. Hazel Mary Martell (1995). The Celts (See Through History). Great Britain: Hamlyn Children 's Books. p11, 14, 22, 23, 40, 41, 44. 5. Jen Green (2008). National Geographic Investigates: Ancient Celts: Archaeology Unlocks the Secrets of the Celts ' Past. Washington DC: National Geographic Children 's Books. p15, 19, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27.