The 4,000-Year-Old Bog Man
Somewhat off topic, but anyway. These are the mummified remains of a man who was uncovered from a peat bog in Ireland in 2011. It now turns out he’d been lying there for 4,000 years. (That’s older than Egypt’s King Tut.)
The body was badly damaged by the milling machine that was plowing up the ground in County Laois, but after two years of study, the new report says that: [readon]
* He was found in a crouched position.
* His arm was broken and his back had been slashed.
* There were also wooden stakes in the ground near him.
* The location is near a known ancient inauguration site.
Eamonn Kelly, keeper of Irish antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland, told the Irish Times that the man probably belonged to an important family:
It seems to be same type of ritual that we’ve observed in later Iron Age finds. What’s surprising here is that it’s so much earlier.”
Because of the lack of calluses on the hands and the well-groomed fingernails observed in other finds, though not this one as the hands were not recoverable, Mr. Kelly suggests the victims were most likely “high-born”.
“We believe that the victims of these ritual killings are kings that have failed in their kingship and have been sacrificed as a consequence.”