Mysterious bogs give up secrets from past
I’VE always been in love with the bog-lands of Ireland, so much so that the toilet in my Cellar Bar is called the ‘Roundstone Bog’ and why not, although I confess it does take some explaining at times...’Well the thing is...etc’.
The truth about the ‘bogs’ whether ‘raised’ or ‘blanket’, is that they are places of wondrous mystery and magical ecosystems like no other.
Roundstone Bog in Connemara is the last great blanket bog in Europe, lit up from the misty heights of nearby Twelve Bens mountain range like the best quilt you have ever seen: an impossible maze of old turf tracks crisscrossing the bog, a thousand lakes, sundew and birdlife to bring Peter Scott back from the dead.
And it is the latter where the intrigue begins, not least because these amazing places have been 8,000 years in the making and they are full of dead things, often preserved in pristine condition because of the conditions of the bogs themselves: like big sponges – if you wring them out, beware of what you may find.
Bog bodies are human bodies found buried in bogs that have been naturally preserved because of the soil conditions: high acidity, cool temperatures and low oxygen.
The actual level of preservation depends on many factors, but bodies from as far back as 8000 BC and as recent as the Second World War have been found in varying conditions, from mere skeletons to fully fleshed.
With bog bodies it’s the skin and internal organs that survive best, while the bones are generally in worse condition.
This is due to the acid in peat dissolving the calcium phosphate of bone.
These conditions have the opposite effect on the rest of the body, however, since low oxygen and cold temperatures are the opposite of what bacteria needs to begin decomposition.
The one downside is that the skin becomes severely discoloured: as dark as the bog itself.
When the bodies are exposed to any of the usual earthly elements, like oxygen, they rapidly decompose.
For this very reason, many bog bodies have not survived after their discovery.
The vast majority appear to have met their ends in similar fashions, through deliberate injuries, hanging or even decapitation.
This has lead many historians to suggest that they were either sentenced to death for committing some sort of crime or were victims of ritual human sacrifice common in paganism and closely associated with kingship.
A total of 17 bog bodies have been found so far in Ireland: nine men, one child of undetermined gender and seven women.
Many were skeletonised and some deteriorated soon after discovery and no longer exist.
A small number had been buried formally, but most bore all the hallmarks of ritual sacrifice described above. Except for the child, all were estimated to be in their late teens or twenties at the time of their death, which is not all that surprising considering that the life expectancy of ancient people would have been shorter than today.
Some of the bodies were seemingly high ranking members of society and may have been sacrificed because of poor harvests, lost battles and the like.
The ritual killing of human beings whose remains were then deposited in bogs is a practice known not only from Ireland but also from Britain and parts of northern Europe.
Current research suggests that the practice in Ireland was related to kingship and sovereignty rituals.
The inauguration of a king symbolised his marriage to the territorial earth goddess and offerings were made to deities, both male and female to ensure a successful kingship.
In addition to human sacrifice, objects associated with inauguration rites were deposited ritually, including garments and regalia, weapons, feasting equipment, horse harnesses, yokes and parts of wheeled vehicles.
Offerings such as butter, quern stones, plough parts and sickles demonstrate that the fertility of the land was closely linked to concepts of kingship and sovereignty.
The distribution of votive offerings suggests that they were deposited in proximity to tribal boundaries so as to express the king’s sovereignty and define it.
There was a red-headed girl found in a bog in Galway a few years ago and her hair is in amazing condition considering she has been three feet under for several thousand years.
When I was allowed to see the body, the lead archaeologist told me that in some communities they used a kind of resin-based conditioner.
This was also true of Clonycavan Man, found in 2003 in West Meath.