![Rendswühren Man was found in 1871 near Kiel, Germany, and he lived sometime between 100 B.C. and 100 A.D. He was about 40-50 years old when he died.
As I’ve mentioned before, bog bodies haven’t always met with the best treatment by their handlers. From Discover’s great 1997 article on bog bodies:
Not surprisingly, few people who uncovered these corpses in the past recognized their true significance, and it was only by chance that a museum would learn of a fresh discovery. Tollund Man was preserved because one of the police officers summoned to the scene happened to be a board member of a local museum. But even when a museum did get hold of a body, researchers had no established protocol for preserving prehistoric corpses and often did a poor job. […] In truth, there was little incentive to do better, since researchers lacked the means of getting information out of corpses and were thus more interested in any vessels, jewelry, and other artifacts that might be found alongside them. Many of the early bog bodies were reburied in churchyards or shunted off into storage, where they soon dried out. Not until after World War II did researchers begin to preserve the bodies more carefully. Generally they used beeswax, rubbing the mummies’ leathery skin with the stuff to give them the look of a highly polished shoe.
Of course, Rendswühren Man was no exception. P.V. Glob writes The Bog People (via):
This well preserved human body naturally aroused much interest and before being dispatched to Kiel it was exhibited on a farm cart in a nearby barn. During this period visitors helped themselves lavishly to souvenirs both from the body itself and from the clothing. The dead man became the first bog man to be photographed—being stood up on the tips of his toes for the purpose.
Because no better methods of preservation were known at the time, he was smoked at the local butcher’s. Like a ham.
You’re welcome.
(Image Source: Nova’s Perfect Corpse slideshow. Note this other, less louche view. Did museum visitors complain?)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv82vrXBqY1qifapbo1_500.jpg)
Rendswühren Man was found in 1871 near Kiel, Germany, and he lived sometime between 100 B.C. and 100 A.D. He was about 40-50 years old when he died.
As I’ve mentioned before, bog bodies haven’t always met with the best treatment by their handlers. From Discover’s great 1997 article on bog bodies:
Not surprisingly, few people who uncovered these corpses in the past recognized their true significance, and it was only by chance that a museum would learn of a fresh discovery. Tollund Man was preserved because one of the police officers summoned to the scene happened to be a board member of a local museum. But even when a museum did get hold of a body, researchers had no established protocol for preserving prehistoric corpses and often did a poor job. […] In truth, there was little incentive to do better, since researchers lacked the means of getting information out of corpses and were thus more interested in any vessels, jewelry, and other artifacts that might be found alongside them. Many of the early bog bodies were reburied in churchyards or shunted off into storage, where they soon dried out. Not until after World War II did researchers begin to preserve the bodies more carefully. Generally they used beeswax, rubbing the mummies’ leathery skin with the stuff to give them the look of a highly polished shoe.
Of course, Rendswühren Man was no exception. P.V. Glob writes The Bog People (via):
This well preserved human body naturally aroused much interest and before being dispatched to Kiel it was exhibited on a farm cart in a nearby barn. During this period visitors helped themselves lavishly to souvenirs both from the body itself and from the clothing. The dead man became the first bog man to be photographed—being stood up on the tips of his toes for the purpose.
Because no better methods of preservation were known at the time, he was smoked at the local butcher’s. Like a ham.
You’re welcome.
(Image Source: Nova’s Perfect Corpse slideshow. Note this other, less louche view. Did museum visitors complain?)
- November 25 2011 | 60 Notes - Read More →
