What lies beneath
The Natural History Museum’s ‘The Mysterious Bog People’ opens a haunting window to the past
By Nikki Bazar 04/27/2006
Since 2002, “The Mysterious Bog People” traveling exhibit has been awing audiences around the world. Now housed at Los Angeles’ Natural History Museum until Sept. 10, the exhibit contains more than 400 artifacts and six “bog mummies,” all found beneath peat bogs, which have existed for centuries throughout Europe.
Bogs are created by layers of moss and dead plants which build up in wet environments, forming a spongy peat that eradicates all oxygen. This lack of oxygen, along with a high-acidic chemical makeup which varies from bog to bog, contributes to the unique preservation of items buried below. Wood, hide, textiles, skin and even hair that are usually deteriorated in such old remains are intact, even though the bones have dissolved.
The result is a remarkable collection of artifacts from as far back as the Mesolithic Period nearly 12,000 years ago up to the end of the 16th century.
As early as the Mesolithic Period, many families spent some part of the year living near the edges of bogs, which were often as much as several meters thick. For some reason, and no one is sure why, many of their tools and treasured belongings have been found buried beneath the peat bogs. On display at the exhibit are harpoons and axes from this era made from flint, stone and elk antler. Later pieces from the Bronze Age include a stunning necklace with amber, tin and bronze; gold jewelry dating from around 800 B.C.; and an array of bronze axes, daggers and ornaments, untouched by oxidization.
The collection from the Iron Age boasts a wealth of Roman coins and 24-karat gold coiled necklaces, so well-preserved they could be worn today. Also, there is the astonishing 1904 discovery by a peat digger of the mummified body from around 200 to 400 B.C. of “Red Franz,” a Germanic horseman whose throat was slashed. Though he earned his affectionate nickname because of his red hair and beard, Red Franz probably got his hair color from a chemical process that occurred in the bogs. With such well-preserved hair specimens, however, scientists can usually determine original hair color using a spectrograph.
Another amazing display features the naked bodies of two men, dating from the Iron Age. One had a deep gash in his abdomen. Scientists found porridge in their intestines, but the rest of the story of the fate of these two men lies in the imagination of the viewer. Scientists are typically loath to speculate, and the DNA samples taken from these bodies are not pure enough to analyze.
Regardless, forensic scientists can tell us an astounding amount, considering how far back the items date. From the Hunteberg cloak, from around 350 A.D., they can even tell that the original colors were green and blue.
RECONSTRUCTION: Forensic scientist Richard Neave put a face on the mysterious Yde girl. This is what the 16-year-old would have looked like when alive.
Of the exhibit’s Yde girl, who lived in the 1st century A.D., they can tell us even more, despite the fact that her remains were irreparably damaged by the tools of the peatcutters who discovered her in 1897. A small stab was found at her throat, and the woolen cord with which she was strangled is still present in remnants. In her intestines, scientists found blackberry seeds, concluding that she must have died sometime in autumn. A computerized tomography or CT scan showed evidence of scoliosis, and a swollen right foot suggests a limp. When found, Yde girl had several teeth, most of which were stolen before the museum got to her, but dental evidence still puts her age around 16.
Other details, such as why a young girl would be stabbed, strangled and dumped in a peat bog, are left unknown. Glean what you can from her shriveled, desiccated skin, gaping mouth and empty eyes. A facial reconstruction done by forensic scientist Richard Neave reveals his own interpretation. Neave took a CT scan of the body and fed the data into a computer, using it to create an image of her skull, to which he added muscle structures and a wax head. (Videos of Yde girl’s and Red Franz’s facial reconstruction are on display.) The result is a haunting figure with a high forehead and an anguished stare.
It is this figure who greets you at the opening of the exhibit and on the press materials and posters around town: the technologically humanized face of the “mysterious” bog people, their story told more thoroughly than ever before at the Natural History Museum’s new exhibit.
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