who were the Bog People?

kings

Ireland’s bog bodies — such as Old Croghan Man and Clonycavan Man from around the 3rd century BCE — are often found on boundaries separating tribal lands or below hills where kings were invested. Perhaps these men were kings who were sacrificed to appease the gods after failing their communities.

criminals

Bog bodies who were ‘overkilled’ by multiple assaults, and not cremated in the normal fashion but placed in preserving bogs, could have been criminals whose souls were trapped in their bodies as punishment. Roman historian Tacitus wrote of Germanic tribes taking cowards, poor fighters and evildoers and throwing them into marshes.

Prophets

Iron Age peoples may have seen disabled individuals as having powers of divination and prophecy. Kayhausen Boy from Lower Saxony, Germany, had difficultly walking and his killing by being stabbed in the throat could mean that his prophecies had failed or that the community divined their future prospects from his spilling blood.

outsiders

Recent research indicates that bog bodies were considered unique in their villages, sometimes because they were foreigners or the hostages of raiding parties into other areas. This may have given them a special status that was thought to be more pleasing to the gods to whom they were sacrificed.