Photographs from P. V. Glob's "The Bog People"

The "Bog People" of Glob's book are examples of victims/participants of prehistoric and historical events, variously thought by archaeologists to be sacrificial rituals, murders or executions. Their bodies, sometimes bound in rope or blindfolded and even with the rope that strangled them still around their neck, were left in the marshy peat bogs of Denmark and were thereby preserved over a period of hundreds to thousands of years, until discovered by modern peat cutters. The "Bog People", possibly the ancestors of many people living today, provide us valuable insights into the culture and religion of that time and place (Northern Europe from pre-Christian times to the Medieval period). The way of life (and death) of these people is made all the more intelligible to the modern observer by the fortuitous preservation of their bodies as they were the day they died, with soft tissue and even their clothing surviving intact.

(Click on image for larger view.)

Close-up of Tollund Man's head.

Side views of Tollund Man as he was found.

A man with his hair done in a "pigtail."

Osterby Man, with his hair tied in a "Swabian knot."

Articles of women's clothing recovered from Huldre Fen.

Bocksten Man's clothing (on the right he is pictured with his cloak removed.)