National Museum of Ireland, Dublin
There are perks to being an archaeology student. One of them being cheap trips to museums. The National Museum of Ireland in Dublin is filled with artifacts dating as far back as the Mesolithic Era (circa 8,000 to 4,000 BC), but it’s most famous attraction is probably the bog bodies. This is a disclaimer that this post contains some images at the bottom of human remains.
Bog bodies are some of the most well preserved specimens of human remains archaeologists have. Statistically speaking, most bodies are not found in bogs, even in Ireland, where the amount of peatland is over 16% of the entire island landscape. Even more interesting, is the fact that only one of Ireland’s hundreds of bog bodies was found by an actual archaeologist, and it wasn’t so much a body as a pair of legs. The museum only had on display four of the oldest and most impressive finds, dating back to the Iron Age.
Now, I didn’t spend the last two and a half years in college to not explain why bogs are so impressive archaeologically. I think I drove every scholarship reader insane when I raved about the excellent preservation found in Irish peat bogs, as I searched for funding for this experience. Who knows if they actually cared, but (and I may be biased in saying this) they should. The most important thing about bogs is they’re wet, and the heavy, wet soil creates an anaerobic environment that seals in the artifact and allows it to preserve in much better condition than if it were exposed to the changing elements. With bog bodies, the wet, acidic peatland alters the chemistry of the body; therefore, affecting the decay process. Wetlands contain a lot of organic material that would otherwise decay. I included some pictures of other archaeological finds in Ireland’s peat bogs.
Carved Wooden Terminal (Post-Medieval) (left) and Decorated Leather Shoe (Early Medieval) (right)
The bog bodies are deformed, mostly by the weight of the wet earth above them. Muscles can disappear and organ shrinkage often occurs. Nevertheless, there’s a lot that can be learned about the bodies with what is left over.
The Clonycavan Man was discovered in County Meath, Ireland. He was the most well preserved body in the exhibit with even his hair still intact, yet the bottom half of his body was missing. He met a violent death about 2,200 years ago by a series of blows to his chest and head from a heavy weapon. On top of that, the man had a long cut to his abdomen, suggesting disembowelment. The Oldcroghan Man died around the same time and ended up being deposited in a bog in County Offally. Only his arms and torso remained. He suffered a stab wound to the chest and was decapitated, but a wound to his arm suggested he at least tried to fend off the attacker. Oldcroghan man also had holes in his arms where he was literally tied down into the bog. Why? No idea.
When archaeologists aren’t sure about something, they tend to box it under the categories of ceremony and ritual. The bog bodies were displayed under the title “Kingship and Sacrifice.” Both Clonycavan Man and Oldcroghan Man had their nipples cut off, which can loosely be connected to a king’s loss of status, and Oldcroghan Man had well-manicured hands, but then again, he was trapped in an environment where the change in chemicals produced a much different looking human than the one who first fell into the bog. Can you tell I’m skeptical? But, maybe it is sacrificial. Some bog bodies had multiple wounds that could have been kill wounds. This is what we so intellectually refer to as “overkill.” What’s the point in slashing a throat and stabbing the chest? What’s the point in tying Oldcroghan Man down in the bog?
Clonycavan Man (left) and the hand of Oldcroghan Man (right)
These are questions that archaeologists may never have the answer to, and this is what brings me to my larger issue with museums. We go to museums for a story. We want to know how the Vikings lived and what tombs the ancient Irishmen buried their elite in. If we don’t know the story, it’s just a lump of cloth and a pile of rocks. Museums rarely give alternative theories (especially if they’re not PG) or holes in their stories. Truth is (and don’t tell anyone you heard this from me), we still don’t know a lot. When it comes to the pre-written record, it’s mostly filling in the blank, and to anyone who’s done Mad Libs, you know how quickly that can go wrong.
Please do go to museums though. Even though I was largely unimpressed with the setup of the Dublin museum, all those artifacts have a purpose and all those bodies have a story. The archaeological community still doesn’t know why those bodies ended up in bogs or even if they all ended up there for the same reason, but they do know that those are real people, who made real things, and lived real lives. We all have something to learn from them, even if we’re not sure what exactly that is.
