[tied] Re: Burial customs in the countries around Denmark

--- In cybalist@..., "Alexander Stolbov" <astolbov@...> wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <tgpedersen@...>
> To: <cybalist@...>
> Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 2:56 PM
> Subject: [tied] Re: Burial customs in the countries around Denmark
>
> ...
> > And I don't think that people who are found in the bogs have
> > been "buried" in the ordinary sense of the word. The alternative
> > theory, of course, is that they were criminals, but consider the
> > unpleasant scenario of an invasion, counter-invasion against the
> > Heruli etc. Who ends up in the bog then? Hm!
> ...
>
> [A]
> I can add one more speculation:
>
> I've read that this person had hands (fingers) which witnessed

about his

> high social position. He could be a priest, for example.
>
> The mummification is a way to keep the body maximally integral for

the life

> after death.
> If some Danish bogs are so remarkable, that they keep bodies for

eternity

> without such complex operations as removing brain from the skull

etc. why

> not to use this for burying the most worthy people when they are

ready to

> meet gods? Suffocation seems to be the best way of mortification

for this

> purpose.
> It would be very interesting to check whether minimal additional

embalming

> was used.
>
> The questions:
> Were numerous dead bodies of different animals found in the same

bog?

> Were they preserved as perfect as the Tollund man?
> Were any objects found together with that man?
>
> Alexander

But would people know that bog bodies were preserved then (of course,
there is also the theory that later mythological monsters, "bogeymen"
had to do with finds in the bogs (and the bogs, at the time of the
sacrifice, were lakes, and lakes were holes in the world leading to
the other side (German loch = "hole")))? There was an exhibition of
bog bodies from all over north west Europe (several hundreds have
been registered if not preserved) at Silkeborg Museum some years
back. I saw it. There seemed to have been nothing much found with the
corpses, no furnishings, no animals even. Everything I saw points to
a dirty business, throats slit from ear to ear; although some had had
their eyes carefully closed after death.

Torsten